North Ridgeville – Town of Ridges, Then and Now

Courtesy North Ridgeville Historical Society, northridgevillehistoricalsociety.com

Lear Nagle

As towns grow and change the street names are sometimes switched to reflect these changes. Few streets in North Ridgeville have seen the changes that Lear Nagle has. To make some sense of these changes let’s start at the very beginning of our town.

When our first settlers arrived here the majority of what would become North Ridgeville was heavily wooded, as was most of Ohio. Pioneers found a swath of land near the site of present day Lear Nagel that was clear and had grown grasses with the benefit of sunlight. An early Indian story relates there was a tornado just before our settlers arrived here that cleared a large path through town. This became good hunting ground for the Indians, as there was abundant wildlife feeding on the wild berries and grasses that grew there. Lear Nagle, as we know it was quite different in the 1800s. For one thing, it only ran from Center Ridge to Lorain Rd. and it was called Stetson Rd, for Randall Stetson- an early settler. Stetson came here in 1833 from Massachusetts and purchased 193 acres of land in three different parcels. He was a farmer and had a cranberry bog among other crops. In the late 1800s maps show his land divided between his sons, Herbert and John. One of the Stetson ancestors became a renowned professor at Oberlin College and his research on the study of the brain has been credited in many modern day discoveries. SO, why do we think the street name was changed to Lear Nagle? It’s a long and confusing story, but here goes…

At one time Avon and Avon Lake comprised Avon Township. Around 1915 these two areas split apart. In the northern end a landowner named S. Lear had a road named for him. In the southern end (in Avon), there was the Nagle family, who also had a road named for them. In the late 1920s North Ridgeville laid out our Lear Nagle North, which met up with the Avon road named Nagle Road. I’m not sure anyone knows exactly how or why this came about, but here in town this street became known as Lear Nagle- combining the two names. This street came south to Center Ridge but didn’t meet up with Stetson Road. The Stetson family had moved from town by now and sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s Stetson Road was renamed South Lear Nagle. A Chronicle Telegram letter to the editor from 1960 bemoans the fact that residents of Stetson Road did not welcome this change. The letter writer claims that the name was to honor Randall Stetson, who “travelled here in a covered wagon” and his house and the house of his son were both still standing. The writer felt this change was unjust and needed to be rectified. He didn’t want to be associated with the former Krebs Road. (Yet another version of Lear Nagle!)

So- here we are at the end of our Lear Nagle lesson. Today one might traverse the miles to the lake on Lear Nagle and notice the street signs designating this ONE road as Lear Nagle, Nagle, Nagel, Naigle, or Lear.

History can be so funny!

Jaycox Road

Jaycox Road was originally named Snow Road probably for Edwin Snow, an Avon resident who owned 409 acres on both sides of the road just north of the Ridgeville/Avon line. At the far northern end of this road, on Lake Erie, lived Samuel Jaycox (also spelled Jacox) who was an early settler in the area and he and his son George named their street Jaycox Road. As was stated in some of our previous posts, it became confusing to have multiple names on one street, so at some point, it was decided our Snow Road was an extension of the Avon Jaycox Road, and it all became known as Jaycox.

In the early 1870s there were only five houses on our Jaycox and they were mostly on the northern end. It was here Ridgeville Township built the District #9 School, which is now a history museum. It was built as a shared district – meaning children from both Avon and Ridgeville would receive lessons there. It had been built on the east side of the road and was moved at least once in its 165 years. Abandoned in 1923 when the district schools were consolidated into the big Ridgeville High School, this building became a farm storage building for the Sullivan family, who fortunately preserved its historical features and in later years donated it and its lot to the North Ridgeville Historical Society.

You are all invited to visit the Schoolhouse this summer on the last Sunday of each month from 2-5. Open from May to October, Sunday, May 26th will be the first open house of the season. Built in 1859, one can sit at a desk, listen to the Schoolmaster, and imagine what education would have been like for the Snow and the Jaycox children.

To be continued in next month’s North Ridgeville Review.