Bowling Green

Frederick N. Honneffer

• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780738532073
• eBook ISBN: 9781439614761
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

The Great Black Swamp may have slowed the settlement of northwest Ohio, but it couldn't stop a little town south of Toledo called Bowling Green. It blossomed into an agricultural gold mine with natural gas and oil booms that prospered the modest Wood County seat late in the Nineteenth Century. Now as the home of internationally known Bowling Green State University, the National Championship Tractor Pulling Competition, and the Black Swamp Arts Festival, this formerly uninhabitable swamp continues to attract its fair share of attention. In this pictorial history you will learn how Bowling Green beat the odds to become the city everybody wants to revisit.

Three

CRYSTAL CITY

1885 TO 1909

CANASTOTA GLASS FACTORY. Bowling Green’s economic prospects crystalized around 1887 when a glass factory arrived to take advantage of the local gas boom and an accompanying promise of property. About 1885 a board of improvement was charged with developing industry in the town. Between 1887 and 1892 approximately half a dozen glass plants sprang up producing mostly window glass, jars, bottles, and some novelty and decorative glassware. Canastota blew window glass in northeast Bowling Green by the railroad tracks until 1889. (Courtesy CAC-BGSU.)

OHIO CUT GLASS COMPANY. Bowling Green was designated the “Crystal City” for the number of glass plants operating here during the gas boom. Once the boom subsided by the 1890s, a second glass industry developed specializing in cutting and decorating glass manufactured elsewhere. One such decorating plant was the Ohio Cut Glass Company, established in 1901 on North Enterprise Street near the Canastota site. It specialized in “expensive cutware” and was operating until about 1907. Its employees appear here in June 1902. (Courtesy CAC-BGSU, J. Terry.)

BUCKEYE NOVELTY GLASS COMPANY, JUNE 1888 SANBORN MAP. In August 1888 this glass plant opened west of the New York Central Railroad and south of Lehman Avenue. Edwin Reed and Captain Joseph Newton were involved in its operation. The company produced such items as flasks and lamps until the early 1890s. (Courtesy CAC-BGSU.)

CRYSTAL CITY GLASS COMPANY, MAY 1893 SANBORN MAP. This factory operated east of the tracks across from the Buckeye Novelty Glass Company. It opened mid year in 1888 specializing in Mason jars, flasks, bottles, and “druggist’s sundries.” By the early 1890s most of the Crystal City’s gas boom had ended. This Lehman Avenue site, however, remained a prosperous, vital industrial property for many years to come. (Courtesy CAC-BGSU.)

PITKIN AND BROOKS, INC. Chicago based ceramic and glassware distributor Pitkin and Brooks opened a glass cutting shop and china decorating studio in the former Ohio Cut Glass Company factory in 1908 on Enterprise Street. The company was destroyed by fire in 1912. This was the second major glass decorating company to come to Bowling Green during the city’s second glass industry that developed on the heels of the gas boom. (Courtesy CAC-BGSU.)

EARL W. NEWTON. Earl’s father, Civil War veteran, Captain Joseph B. Newton was affiliated with the Buckeye Novelty Glass, Ohio Cut Glass, and Ohio Flint Glass companies. Earl had worked at Ohio Flint. He started his own glass cutting business at 250 North Main Street in February 1918 and specialized in cutting blanks purchased from Libbey Glass. (Courtesy CAC-BGSU, J. Terry.)

ADVERTISEMENT FOR EARL W. NEWTON GLASS COMPANY. The company occupied a former broom factory on Conneaut Avenue in 1925. The Newton Glass Company added a line of mirrors and silver coated glassware. The business closed in 1955. (Courtesy 1947 BG City Directory.)

WOOD COUNTY OIL BOOM IN CYGNET. Not far behind the gas boom came the discovery of oil in Wood County late in 1886. Sucker Rod Field between Bowling Green and Haskins was notable for oil drilling. Land south of Haskins through Findlay to Lima was purported to contain one of the largest oil fields ever. Wood County was king in oil production in Ohio. Cygnet, a key oil town in southern Wood County, was dotted with derricks as seen here. (Courtesy WCHS.)

LIFE IN THE OIL FIELDS. Makeshift residences were often part of the oil worker’s life. These men lived where they worked, attending to equipment round the clock. This photo was probably taken in...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• One - BLACK SWAMP SETTLEMENT
• Two - PROSPEROUS WOOD COUNTY SEAT
• Three - CRYSTAL CITY
• Four - INDOMITABLE ENTERPRISE—UNIVERSITY TOWN
• Five - MENTOR OF CITIZENS
• Six - BLACK SWAMP FUN SPOT
• BIBLIOGRAPHY