Ashville

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How Ashville began

Ashville grew up in Harrison Township on land Richard Staige Sr. settled about 1808; after his sons built distilleries there, Mahlon Ashbrook bought the operation around 1837 and built it into a distillery, gristmill and store that gave the place its name. The business collapsed in the 1850s and the settlement languished until the Scioto Valley Railroad reached it in 1874, after which Ashville incorporated in 1882 and grew into a shipping point for livestock, grain and, after 1899, canned goods. The village is now known for an unlikely piece of technology: a hand-built 1932 traffic signal that ran continuously for fifty years and is recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest functional traffic light, on display today at Ohio's Small Town Museum. A cluster of Hopewell-era burial mounds, the Snake Den Mounds, stands a few miles away on a hilltop near the village.

Settled 1808 (Richard Staige Sr., from Virginia), incorporated spring of 1882, by Mahlon Ashbrook, who bought Richard Staige Jr.'s distillery about 1837 and built up the settlement's trade.

Where the name comes from

Ashville's name comes from Mahlon Ashbrook, who purchased Richard Staige Jr.'s small distillery about 1837, enlarged it, and added a gristmill on Walnut Creek and a large store, becoming the settlement's principal businessman. Wikipedia's article states the settlement was first known as 'Ashbrook' before the name shortened to Ashville, though neither of the two county histories consulted (1880 and 1906) uses the name Ashbrook for the place itself; both refer to it as Ashville throughout, so the intermediate name could not be independently confirmed.

Before the town

The best-documented Native American site near Ashville is the Snake Den Mounds, a cluster of earthworks on a hilltop a few miles from the village (administratively in neighboring Walnut Township). Rows of pits dug across the hilltop date to about 900 BCE by radiocarbon analysis of pit charcoal; roughly 1,000 years later, about 2,000 years ago, people built burial and cremation mounds there together with a ditch-and-embankment enclosure, work attributed on the basis of recovered artifacts to the Hopewell or a related Adena-Hopewell culture. The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society excavated the site in 1897, recovering eight human skeletons, cremated remains in a stone urn, and grave goods including paint grinders, hammerstones, pestles and a stone container holding five silver nuggets; a magnetometer survey begun in 2007 has since mapped the site without further disturbing the remaining burials. Ashville's own Wikipedia article also states that Hopewell people inhabited the area 'long before' European settlement and that the Pekowi band of the Shawnee -- the band for which Pickaway County is named -- lived in the vicinity through much of the 18th century, but the sources cited for that claim are a general county government web page and a general encyclopedia article on the Shawnee nation as a whole, not documentation specific to the Ashville site, so it is reported here with that caveat rather than as an established site-specific fact. No source found records a named village, trail, or treaty boundary within the village's own limits.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee (Pekowi band), Hopewell culture, Adena culture.

• Snake Den Mounds (mound) — hilltop near Ashville, in neighboring Walnut Township, Pickaway County, pit features c. 900 BCE; burial/cremation mounds and enclosure roughly 2,000 years old, attributed to Hopewell/Adena-related culture (farmanddairy.com)

Timeline

1. 1808 — Richard Staige Sr., from Virginia by way of Edinburgh, Scotland, settles the land that becomes Ashville.
2. 1811 — Richard Staige Sr. dies; his sons Richard Jr. and William each build distilleries on the family land.
3. 1816 — On July 6, Richard Staige Jr. purchases 77.57 acres from the Chillicothe Land Office.
4. 1837 — Richard Staige Jr. sells his distillery to Mahlon Ashbrook, who expands the business.
5. 1845 — Mahlon Ashbrook builds a gristmill on Walnut Creek and operates a large store, making him one of the settlement's wealthiest men before he later fails in business.
6. 1855 — Ashbrook's store closes and he leaves for northern Ohio and then Missouri; the distillery runs under other operators for a few more years before it too closes, and little business is done in Ashville for the next two decades.
7. 1874 — Construction of the Scioto Valley Railroad through Harrison Township, under engineer Isham Randolph, revives the settlement's economy.
8. 1875 — A post office is reestablished at Ashville and the railroad locates its depot there.
9. 1882 — Ashville incorporates as a village in the spring, nearly seventy years after Richard Staige's first settlement.
10. 1897 — The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society excavates the Snake Den Mounds near Ashville, recovering eight skeletons, cremated remains, and grave goods including five silver nuggets in a stone container.
11. 1899 — The Scioto Valley Canning Factory is built, employing up to 540 workers and producing more than 200,000 cans a day at its peak.
12. 1904 — The Scioto Valley Traction Company opens an electric interurban railway connecting Columbus and Chillicothe through Ashville; it runs until September 1930.
13. 1932 — Resident Teddy (T. A.) Boor builds a distinctive silver, egg-shaped traffic signal for Ashville's main intersection.
14. 1978 — Ohio's Small Town Museum opens in a former silent-film theater in Ashville.
15. 1982 — Boor's traffic signal is retired after fifty years of continuous service, replaced because color-blind drivers had trouble reading it; Guinness World Records later recognizes it as the world's oldest functional traffic light.

Stories

The World's Oldest Traffic Light

In 1932, Ashville resident Teddy Boor built a traffic signal unlike any other: a silver, egg-shaped device with four faces, each lit in turn by a single rotating red-and-green lamp inside. Installed at Ashville's main intersection, it directed cross-town traffic continuously for the next fifty years. It was finally retired in 1982, not because it broke down but because color-blind drivers had trouble telling its lamp colors apart, a problem newer signals had already solved. Guinness World Records has since recognized it as the world's oldest functional traffic light. It did not go to a scrapyard; it went a few blocks to Ohio's Small Town Museum, opened in 1978 in a former silent-film theater, where it still lights up red and green for visitors today.

Boom, Bust, and the Railroad

Ashville's first business was liquor. Richard Staige's sons built distilleries on the family land soon after his death in 1811, and when Mahlon Ashbrook bought one out about 1837, he built it into a genuine local economy, adding a Walnut Creek gristmill and a large general store. For a time he was reputed a wealthy man. Then he failed. His store closed about 1855, he left the state for Missouri by way of northern Ohio, and though other men kept the distillery running a few more years, business in Ashville nearly disappeared for the next two decades. What revived it was not a new industry but a new railroad: when the Scioto Valley line was built through Harrison Township in 1874, a depot and reestablished post office followed within a year, and the trade that had died with Ashbrook's failure came back to stay.

Burial Mounds on the Hilltop

A few miles from Ashville, a low hilltop holds a much older story than the village's own. About 900 BCE, people dug rows of pits across the hilltop for reasons no longer known. Roughly a thousand years later, about two thousand years ago, a different group of people -- probably connected to the Hopewell tradition of the Scioto valley -- carried soil and stone up the slope to raise burial and cremation mounds there, and dug a ditch-and-embankment enclosure around them. When the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society excavated the site in 1897, they found eight human skeletons, cremated remains sealed in a stone urn, and grave goods that included paint grinders, hammerstones, pestles, and, in one stone container, five silver nuggets. The site, now called the Snake Den Mounds for the snakes once said to hibernate there, is today held by a preservation society that uses non-invasive magnetometer surveys, begun in 2007, to keep learning about it without disturbing what remains.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · guinnessworldrecords.com · farmanddairy.com · snake-den-mounds.org · pickawaylib.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

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