Oberlin History Timeline

1800-1839  1840-1859  1860-1879  1880-1899  1900-1919  1920-1939  1940-1959  1960-1979  1980-Now

Early Settlement

• Approximately 12,000 BC: Hunters and gatherers begin living in the area at the end of the last ice age.
• Approximately 1000 BC: Settlements throughout Ohio start to become more permanent with established fishing and hunting camps, agriculture, and ceremonial mound building.
• 1640s-1701 AD: Many indigenous communities are pressured to leave the southern Great Lakes region by The Beaver Wars.  
• 1662 AD: Charles the Second of England grants a strip of land running all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Colony of Connecticut. Other colonies and states also claim ownership. Indigenous occupation, control, or ownership of the land are not addressed.
• 1700s: Northern Ohio is briefly home to groups such as the Wyandot, Ojibwe, Odawa, Shawnee, Delaware, Munsee, and Potawatomi, whose movements are impacted by many social, political, and economic factors, including structures of discrimination.
• 1786: Connecticut gives up claims to lands in the "Western Reserve of Connecticut" and sells them to the Connecticut Land Company, while governing jurisdiction transfers to the United States.

1800-1839

• 1803: Ohio attains statehood.
• 1805: The land west of the Cuyahoga is ceded by Native peoples to the government, opening that land for white settlement, although indigenous peoples continue to live in the area to the present day.
• 1824: Lorain County is incorporated.
• 1833: Oberlin is founded by settlers led by Revs. John Jay Shipherd and Philo Penfield Stewart. The first structure in town is the Peter Pindar Pease cabin, built near the Historic Elm. Oberlin College, then known as Oberlin Collegiate Institute, is founded at the same time. In a move unusual for the time, it commits itself to co-education from its very beginning. Also unusual is the Oberlin Covenant, which all settlers are required to sign before being granted residence in the new town.
• 1830s-1841: The Graham diet, named for its developer Sylvester Graham, becomes spectacularly popular--at least among the more "puritanical" segments of society. The "diet" proscribed to its practitioners a strict regimen of what to eat, when, where, and how, in order to purify the mind and body, or, some would argue, to "mortify the flesh." The Graham diet was widely followed in Oberlin, and for a while dictated what food might be served in the College dining halls. The "Graham-only" policy of Oberlin College was rescinded in 1841 because of mass student outcry (and after a professor was dismissed for daring to bring his own pepper shaker to the dining hall--spices of any kind being in violation of Graham's principles.)
• 1834: The first Oberlin Inn--in the form of a public house operated by Brewster Pelton--is constructed.
• First Church is founded in Oberlin. (Congregational and later United Church of Christ)
• 1834: The Oberlin School District is organized for public education.
• 1834-35: The Lane Rebels come to Oberlin from the Lane Seminary in Cincinnati. These Rebels push the College to adopt a policy of non-discrimination based on race, which it does in 1835, making Oberlin the first institution of higher learning in the nation to practice "color-blind" admissions.
• 1835: The term of Oberlin College's first president, Asa Mahan from Lane Seminary, begins. Rev. Charles Finney also arrives in Oberlin, where he directs Oberlin's First Church and serves as president of the Oberlin College's School of Theology and, later, as College President.
• 1836: The first public school in Oberlin is opened. This building, the Little Red Schoolhouse, still stands and is part of the Oberlin Heritage Center's tour.
• 1837: Oberlin establishes two volunteer fire companies.
• 1839: The Amistad incident takes place: A group of newly-arrived slaves in Cuba revolt and attempt to sail back to Africa but are tricked into sailing north, where they eventually are taken ashore in Connecticut.
• 1839: The last signer of the Oberlin Covenant commits himself to Oberlin's founding ideals. The town continues to grow, but interest in the Covenant is on the wane.

1840-1859

• 1841: The first three women in the nation to earn their B.A.s do so from Oberlin College.
• 1844: The construction of the First Church of Oberlin is completed. It includes what is, at the time, the largest auditorium west of the Alleghenies.
• 1846: Former Amistad captive Margru (also known as Sarah Kinson) returns to the United States from Africa in order to be educated. She first attends classes at the "Little Red Schoolhouse" in Oberlin, and then, in 1848, in the Ladies' Course of Oberlin College.
• 1846: According to legend, by this time, Tappan Square, then the center of campus, has been so heavily deforested that there are only two trees standing.
• 1847: Lucy Stone graduates from Oberlin. She is best known for her work in women’s rights and abolition, as well as for being one of the first women to keep her own last name after her marriage.
• 1847: Antoinette Brown Blackwell (sister-in-law to Lucy Stone, who did not take the last name "Blackwell") graduates from Oberlin College. She later becomes the first female ordained minister of a recognized denomination in the United States.
• 1848: Spencer and Rice's System of Business and Ladies' Penmanship is published. This book teaches the method of Spencerian handwriting which was widely taught in Oberlin. Platt R. Spencer, who developed this system of handwriting, was an Ohio native.
• 1852: The railroad comes through Oberlin, connecting it with Toledo and Grafton.
• 1852: The first fire engines for the city are purchased. They are housed in the basement of First Church.
• 1852: Christ Episcopal Church is founded in Oberlin.
• 1855: John Mercer Langston, Oberlin College alumnus, is elected clerk of Brownhelm Township (OH), making him one of the first African-Americans in the nation elected to public office.
• 1856: Oberlin is voted "dry."
• 1858: The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue: Oberlin and Wellington residents rescue a fugitive slave, John Price, who has been recaptured by federal marshals enforcing the Fugitive Slave laws. After the "Rescue," Price escapes to Canada, but many of the "Rescuers" are jailed, spending up to ten months in prison.
• 1858: Samuel Plum's gas factory opens, powering gas lights for the streets of Oberlin.
• 1859: John Brown, accompanied by a group of men including John Copeland and Lewis Leary from Oberlin, attacks the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. Leary is killed in action and Copeland is executed afterward, as is John Brown himself.

1860-1879

• 1860: First Church of Oberlin has the largest congregation in the nation. The local membership is so large that Second Congregational Church forms.
• 1860: Oberlin’s "hook and ladder company" wins a firefighters' competition in Sandusky, Ohio.  Little good it does them:  Oberlin’s downtown will suffer serious damage from four major fires before 1900. 
• 1861: When the Civil War begins, many Oberlin College students join together to form a company called the "Monroe’s Rifles," named after Oberlin professor and state legislator James Monroe.  This company comes to be known as Company C of the 7th Ohio Volunteer infantry, and is led by Oberlin College theology student Giles Shurtleff.
• c. 1861: The first bank in Oberlin is opened.
• 1861-1865: During the Civil War, nearly 1000 Oberlin men volunteer to serve. (Soldiers Database page)
• 1862: Mary Jane Patterson earns her B.A. from Oberlin College.  She is the first African-American woman to earn a Bachelor's Degree.
• 1863: John Mercer Langston organizes the first African American infantry from the state of Ohio, the 127th Ohio Volunteer infantry.  At this time, African-Americans were not allowed to be officers; this troop was commanded by Giles Shurtleff, who had just returned from a Confederate prison via an exchange of prisoners.
• 1863: Oberlin's cemetery is moved from the corner of Morgan and Professor streets to Westwood Cemetery, a 47-acre plot further from the town center.
• 1865: The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, an offshoot of the College’s religious music program, is founded.
• 1865: The Oberlin fire department resigns because of inadequate equipment.
• 1865: Munson's saloon is finally forced to quit selling liquor, nine years after Oberlin officially becomes "dry."
• 1866: A steam fire engine is purchased for the community.
• 1866: First Baptist Church forms (later Peace Community Church).
• 1869: Worshippers who had been gathering since the 1830s propose to build what became First Methodist Episcopal Church.  
• 1870: The fire engines are moved to the basement of City Hall from the basement of First Church.
• 1872: Finney retires from his position of pastor at First Church.
• 1872: Rust United Methodist Church is founded. This split of Oberlin Methodist congregations along racial lines is both criticized and supported at the time. Rust, along with Mount Zion Baptist Church, will provide key leadership among Oberlin's African-American community members.
• 1874: The Union High School, later Westervelt High and now the New Union Center for the Arts, is built.
• 1875: Charles Finney, long a central figure in Oberlin’s religious life, dies.
• 1876: Former Oberlin College student Elisha Gray applies for a patent for his invention of the telephone. His patent request is received just two hours after that of Alexander Graham Bell. Incidentally, the apparatus in Bell's application would not have worked; that in Gray's would have. But Bell was later legally named the inventor of the telephone.

1880-1899

• 1880: Sacred Heart Catholic Church, which had been forming since the 1860s, holds its first official mass.
• 1881: Moses Fleetwood Walker, then an Oberlin College student, plays for OC's baseball team. In 1884, he became the first African-American major league baseball player.
• 1881-1882: The Oberlin Temperance War pits some residents and community leaders against local pharmacists.
• 1882: A major fire sweeps through Oberlin's downtown district.
• 1882: The first boulder is moved by students into Tappan Square.
• 1886: Mount Zion Baptist Church forms.
• 1886: Oberlin resident and alumnus Charles Martin Hall discovers a cheap process for extracting aluminum. His process cuts the cost of aluminum production by 90%. He founds what becomes the Aluminum Company of America, or ALCOA.
• 1886: The "Gibson Hose Company" wins a national hose team competition for firefighters.
• 1887: A second major fire destroys much of Oberlin's downtown district.
• 1887: Miles Watson moves to Oberlin and by 1908 owns Watson Hardware on South Main Street.
• 1887-1888: Construction of the Oberlin Water Works
• 1893: The Anti-Saloon League is founded in Oberlin.
• 1893: The Oberlin Gas and Electric Company begins operating, providing gas and electrical power to the residents of Oberlin.
• 1893: Oberlin contracts to put in sanitary and storm sewers.
• 1894: Yet another major fire destroys part of downtown Oberlin.
• 1894: All major roads in Oberlin are resurfaced in brick, replacing mud, wood, and sandstone.
• 1895: Alice Swing is elected the first woman on the Oberlin School Board. She is one of the first women in the nation to be elected to a seat on a local school board.
• 1895: The Oberlin Telephone Company is incorporated.
• 1897: The traction railway (street line or inter-urban) between Oberlin and Elyria is opened. A round-trip ticket set you back 25 cents.
• 1897: The Tank Home for Missionary Children is built to house the children of missionaries while their parents are in the field.
• 1897: A second boulder appears in Tappan Square. This one was moved by the class of 1898.
• 1898: The Spanish-American War.
• 1898: A fourth major fire burns through part of Oberlin.
• 1898: A bond issue is approved by local voters for a Lorain County Children's Home.
• 1899: Automobiles are sighted for the first time in Oberlin, two Wintons going east to west along College Street.

1900-1919

• 1902: A second traction line, leading to Norwalk, is opened in Oberlin.
• 1903: Oberlin builds a water-softening plant, the first of its kind in the United States.
• 1903: The Oberlin Council sets the speed limit for Oberlin at 8 miles per hour.
• 1903: The Memorial Arch is erected in Tappan Square to commemorate the American missionaries who died in the Boxer Uprising in China. Of the eighteen Americans killed in this event, nine of them were alumni of Oberlin College or Oberlin Seminary.
• 1903: The Oberlin College Chapel burns down.
• 1905: Oberlin Christian Missionary Alliance Church forms.
• 1905: Gibson's Bakery moves into the building that it still occupies today.
• 1906: H.H. Kung, a native of China who later becomes Premier of the Republic of China (1938-1939), graduates from Oberlin.
• 1907: The Oberlin Hospital Association is incorporated and leases the house at 21 South Cedar Street to serve as the town's first hospital.
• 1907: A movie theatre, showing silent films, is opened on the second floor of the Gibson block building.
• 1913: Christ Temple Apostolic Church forms.
• 1913: East Oberlin Community Church forms.
• 1913: The Oberlin Flood of March 1913 is followed by the Blizzard of November 1913.
• 1914: The Apollo Theatre, a local movie theatre still operating today, opens.
• 1914-1918: World War I. Oberlin and the United States are officially engaged 1917-1918. Lists of Oberlin participants in World War I.
• 1917: Oberlin gets its first motorized fire engine.
• 1917: Construction on the Allen Memorial Art Museum is completed.

1920-1939

• 1924: The Oberlin Flood of 1924
• 1925: Allen Memorial Hospital opens.
• 1926: The Oberlin High School Boys Basketball team wins a state championship.
• 1927: The last buildings in Tappan Square are removed, making it a "proper" town green as stipulated in inventor Charles Martin Hall's will.
• 1929: Influenza epidemic sweeps through Oberlin.
• 1929: Oberlin’s Apollo Theatre plans an "all-talking week"--showing all "talkies."
• 1930: Janby Gas and Oil, now Midas Muffler, is built. At the time, it is the only canopied gas station between Pittsburgh and Detroit.
• 1934: Oberlin's Federal Post Office is built. Before this, the location of the post office changed with the whims and preferences of each post master.
• 1935: Daniel Chapin Kinsey, winner of the gold medal in hurdles in the 1924 Paris Olympics, completes his master’s training in physical education at Oberlin.
• 1935-1936: Grace Lutheran Church forms.
• 1938: Park Street Seventh Day Adventist Church forms.

1940-1959

• 1939-1945: World War II. Oberlin and the United States are officially engaged 1941-1945. Nine Oberlin men serve as Tuskegee Airmen.
• 1944: Oberlin was in the throes of the so-called "barbershop controversy," regarding the integration of barber shops. The issue was resolved when a group of College students and staff purchased and began operating an integrated barber shop.
• 1944: Glorious Faith Tabernacle was founded near this time.
• 1944: The Almighty Church was founded near this time.
• 1945: Stanley Cohen, later 1986 Nobel laureate in medicine and physiology, graduates from Oberlin College.
• 1946: A Quaker or Religious Society of Friends group is first documented in town, but was likely meeting by the 1930s.
• 1947: The Oberlin Public Library forms by a contract between the city of Oberlin and Oberlin College.
• 1948: Dr. Wade Ellis becomes the first African-American faculty member at Oberlin College. [For more on race relations in Oberlin in the 1940s, see this article by former OC Archivist William Bigglestone.]
• 1949: The last passenger train through Oberlin, nicknamed the Plug, makes its final run.
• 1950: Oberlin's Weltzheimer-Johnson House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is completed.
• 1950-1953: The United States engages in the Korean War / Police Action. William R. Gaeuman and Willard B. Holmes of Oberlin are killed in action.
• 1952: William Goldman graduates from Oberlin College. He is best known as the author (and screenwriter) of The Princess Bride, which he published under the pseudonym Simon Morgenstern, the original screenplay Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the adaptation for the screen of All the President’s Men.
• 1955: The "new" Oberlin Inn is constructed in the International architectural style.
• 1955: Adlai Stevenson gives the Oberlin College Commencement Address and receives an honorary degree.
• 1956: Oberlin is officially chartered as a city after attaining a population of 5000 in the 1950 census.
• 1957: The Assembly of God / Crossroads Church forms near this time.
• 1958: Part of College Street was turned into a pedestrian-only mall. (This venture was unsuccessful, and the road was later reinstated.)
• 1959: The Oberlin College Museum “fades away” with the destruction of its home, the former Second Church.  Today, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, constructed 1961-1964, stands on that site.

1960-1979

• 1960-1965: The "new" Oberlin High School is constructed.
• 1960: Seven children die in a house fire, prompting review of code, enforcement, and fair housing policies.
• 1960: The Crossroads Christian Center / Assembly of God church formed by this year.
• 1960: The Oberlin Unitarian Universalist Fellowship is recognized nationally, although they had been meeting by the 1950s.
• 1961: The Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center opens in Oberlin.
• 1965: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visits Oberlin and gives the College commencement address. He also receives an honorary degree from Oberlin College.
• 1965: Oberlin Calvary Baptist Church forms.
• 1965: The Historic Elm is removed after being stricken with Dutch Elm Disease.
• 1965 & 1966: Oberlin High School football coach Darell Goddard leads the team to two 9-0 seasons and conference championships.
• 1966: Oberlin's graduate-level theological school closes.
• 1966: Tappan Square is named a National Historic Landmark.
• 1967: Marine Corps. Cpl. Warren T. Scott and Marine Corps. Lance Cpl. Gene A. White of Oberlin are killed in the Vietnam War / Conflict.
• 1967: Oberlin students opposed to the Vietnam War surround the car of a Navy recruiter. They refuse to disperse until forced to do so by the use of tear gas. Eventually thirty-six of the participants are fined, though none are jailed.
• 1970: Robert Thomas becomes the first African-American president of Oberlin City Council.
• 1970: Racial divisions in the community are highlighted following the "May 8" incident, a clash between youth and the local police.
• 1972: Folk musician Pete Seeger gives the commencement address and a performance at the request of the graduating Oberlin College seniors.
• 1973: Richard Haass, later president of the Council on Foreign Affairs and holder of numerous important governmental posts, graduates from Oberlin College. Also graduating in this class was Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.
• 1974: Julie Taymor graduates from Oberlin College. She goes on to direct the 1998 Broadway musical "The Lion King" and 2002 film "Frida."
• 1975: Morgan Street is blacktopped. It is the last street in Oberlin to be converted from brick to blacktop.
• 1975: Rev. Peter Beebe of Christ Episcopal Church is tried in ecclesiastical court for inviting women priests to celebrate mass in Oberlin.
• 1976: Freight service through Oberlin ends and the railroad tracks are subsequently removed.
• 1979: Oberlin hired Sherry Suttles as City Manger, making her the first female African American city manager in the nation. (1979-1981)
• 1979: Oberlin College graduate Frances Walker-Slocum becomes the first African American woman to have tenure teaching at Oberlin College / the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She retired in 1991.

1980-Present

• 1981: The national PATCO strike, and President Ronald Reagan's response, impacts local employees of the Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center. 
• 1983: Maya Angelou gives the Oberlin College Commencement Address and receives an honorary degree.
• 1984: The bandstand was constructed in Tappan Square. This and the Memorial Arch were the only structures allowed in the Square, as stipulated by Hall's will.
• 1986: The Oberlin High School Boys Basketball team, under the coaching of Bob Walsh, wins the AA state title.
• 1987: Archbishop Desmond Tutu gives the Oberlin College Commencement Address and receives an honorary degree.
• 1990: Grace Bible Church forms.
• 1990: The Oberlin Public Library moves from the Carnegie building at the college to the empty Fazio's grocery building on South Main Street.
• 1990: Students, campus security, and police officers violently clash on the lawn of Oberlin College president Frederick Starr's home on Forest Street after the "March Against Bigotry" protest.
• 1993: Kendal-at-Oberlin opens.
• 1997: True Praise and Deliverance Ministries forms near this time.
• 1998: Oberlin House of the Lord Fellowship forms.
• 2000: A financial crisis leads to Allen Memorial Hospital being acquired by Community Health Partners, which later becomes Mercy.
• 2000: The Oberlin African-American Genealogy and History Group forms.
• 2003: Oberlin's Main Street district is placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
• 2004: Oberlin is named one of the "Dozen Distinctive Destinations" nation-wide.
• 2007: The Oberlin schools change their mascot from Indians to Phoenix.
• 2009: The Steel family sells the Apollo Theatre to Oberlin College. 
• 2009: Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison dedicates a commemorative bench at the northeast corner of State Routes 58 and 511.
• 2010: Oberlin is one of 18 cities worldwide to begin participation in the Clinton Climate Initiative.
• 2010: The East College Street Project is completed.
• 2012: Sgt. Louis R. Torres of Oberlin dies of wounds suffered in Afghanistan.
• 2014: Demolition and construction of the new Oberlin Inn begins. The Hotel at Oberlin opens in May 2016.
• 2016: A microburst causes significant damage and power outages throughout the community.
• 2016: An incident of theft at Gibson's Bakery, shortly after a tumultuous election season, prompts rifts in town and gown relations over issues of race and the downtown economy.
• 2017: The City of Oberlin passes a resolution declaring the second Monday in October to be Indigenous Peoples Day. It is the first city in Ohio to do so.
• 2020-2022: Like the rest of the world, Oberlin residents, businesses, and students limit in-person activities and adapt as the novel coronavirus directly and indirectly impacts their lives.
  • 12/31/2020 Lorain County cumulative data: 14,786 cases, 789 hospitalizations, 162 deaths; 44074 reported cases: 334.
  • 5/28/2021 Lorain County cumulative data: 25,462 cases, 1,483 hospitalizations, 490 deaths; 44074 reported cases: 546.
  • 12/31/2021 Lorain County cumulative data: 53,732 cases, 2,966 hospitalizations, 729 deaths; 44074 reported cases: 1,298.
  • 6/30/2022 Lorain County cumulative data: 72,202 cases, 3,808 hospitalizations, 992 deaths; 44074 reported cases: 2,237.
  • 12/29/2022 Lorain County cumulative data: 86,698 cases, 4,478 hospitalizations, 1,039 deaths; 44074 reported cases: 2,718.
  • Source: State of Ohio COVID-19 Dashboard on the dates indicated
• 2022: Oberlin High School graduate and Oberlin High School history teacher Kurt Russell is named National Teacher of the Year.
• 2023: The Oberlin Underground Railroad Center has it's Grand Opening in 2023, displaying the Lee Howard Dobbins grave marker and a display by the Oberlin College Special Collections.