North Ridgeville Review The Community That Cares
Courtesy North Ridgeville Historical Society, northridgevillehistoricalsociety.com
Race Road West to City Limits
Today we are exploring the west end of Center Ridge to complete our discovery of the history of this road.
It seems as a city expands it grows from the center out, but this didn’t happen in North Ridgeville. The western end of town was pretty rural for a long time and then came Ridgeview Shopping Center! Built across from Case Road where the current Riddell Factory is located was once a large shopping plaza that had everything you could want- groceries, clothing stores, dime stores, a restaurant or two, a cinema, bank and more! We could do a whole post on just the stores that were here over the years! There are so many points of interest at the western end, so we will feature just a few of the interesting and historical places at this end of town.
Just west of Race Road, on the south side is a small family restaurant that started as Kim’s and is now Picketts Place. Many of us have enjoyed eating here over the years! The Berg family home comes next. They have had a storage business for over 50 years and have stored lots of unusual things – campers, cars, trucks, but also the band’s dunking booth and a political float featuring an elephant! Mr. Berg enjoys riding in the parades with his historic fire engine and Mrs. Berg served our town on City Council for many years before her death. The Ridge Motel has been a fixture in town for a long time – hosting weary travelers and short term visitors. Nearby is one of the original one room schoolhouses, which is now a private residence. Built in 1868 it was known as “The West End” school, or District #3.
Beckett was founded in 1937 in Elyria but soon moved to North Ridgeville where they became a worldwide leader in HVAC products.
Also on the south side is the beautiful brick Cahoon house. Built in the 1850’s, this house has been a home, business, antique shop and is now owned by the Beckett Corp. It was also home to the North Ridgeville Historical Society from 1977 to 1986. (It’s also rumored to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad) On the other side of the current trucking firm is a long time family business- J. P. Diederich. The Diederich family has been beautifying our homes and gardens with flowers and plants for many years! In the past they had many greenhouses, and the fields in front were once planted with flowers- most notably sunflowers! Ridgeview Shopping Center came next along the way and then McDonalds, the Bowling Alley, Spanky’s nightclub and a few other small businesses. Just the other side of the turnpike bridge was Prout Chevrolet.
On the north side of the street, starting near Race Road we find a Christmas tree farm, where in my childhood one could choose the perfect tree. Next is one of our early cheese factories – the Willow Cheese Factory is shown on the early maps. Our town was a big producer of cheese, due to the many dairy farms in the area. Sadly, this business has faded away with the farms. The area across from the Cahoon house has a varied history. Mr. Cahoon had a steam operated saw mill, a brick furnace and his factory for building farm implements was here as well. From 1915 to 1935 there was a place here called the Timothy Breeding Station. This station was part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Ohio Agriculture experiment station in Wooster. Agronomist, Morgan Evans, led a team of men who planted 96 plots of land to study ways to improve and develop different strains of Timothy for livestock feed. Their experiments, along with other stations across the country, resulted in strains of Timothy that were planted worldwide to improve the quality of hay for feed.
Moses Eldred was the original owner of the former Colonial House Hotel that’s near the corner of Case Rd. He was the first post master here in town and this house served as the post office for a few years. The original Eldred house was a log cabin that served as his home, stagecoach stop, tavern and post office, but in 1820 this grand Federal style house was built. It was built nearer to Center Ridge, but was later moved away from the road to its present spot a bit further north. This house has seen many changes both to itself and the addition of motel rooms, a tanning salon and spa rooms. Most recently it was owned and operated by the Byers family, before it’s sale earlier this year.
Continuing west were a couple of restaurants, assorted businesses, Ray Faro Pontiac and the Porterhouse restaurant.
Whew! SO much history!
Mills Road
In the 1800s Mills Road was a shorter road than it is today and it only extended from Center Ridge near the Westlake (Dover Twp.) line west to Jaycox Road. We believe the Mills family were the namesakes of this road because the family were long time residents with many acres in the northeastern part of town. A little further west, at the northern edge of Avon Belden in town, another short road is shown on the 1874 map. These two sections were not connected and had various names in the early years. In about 1900 Ridgeville extended the Avon Belden section west to end at Stoney Ridge and called it the Townline Road. In the 1920s the western end was made to connect with the eastern end – as it is today, and the entire road eventually became known as Mills Road. It currently is the dividing line between the cities of North Ridgeville and Avon- with north side residents living in Avon and south side residents living in Ridgeville.
To be continued in next month’s North Ridgeville Review.
