This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2016.
In the 100 years that passed between these two photographs it is apparent how well the 20th Century treated Mansfield.
The community fattened up with business and industry.
Those developments transformed the county seat from an ambling country town to a bustling city. This northeast quadrant became the industrial flats district for several generations with dozens of factories that put Mansfield on the map.
When the old photo was taken this mount was known not as Ashland Hill, but as Sherman Hill. About halfway up the steeps was the summer home of Senator John Sherman, who owned the hill at that time.
A close-up scan of the skyline reveals several landmarks to orient downtown Mansfield. Left of the road there are three prominences visible: farthest left is the church steeple of the original St. John’s German Church on the SE corner of Mulberry and First (today a St. Peter’s classroom building.) Moving to the right the next steeple is that of an old St. Peter’s Church (that stood on the NW corner of Mulberry and First (today a parking lot and basketball court.)
The rounded silhouette is the tower of the old Richland County Courthouse (standing in the front lawn of our present day building.)
In the center of the close-up scan can be seen the very tall sharp steeple of the Congregational Church on Park Avenue West (roughly across the street from where the Holiday Inn is today.)
From the collection of Richland County Chapter Ohio Genealogical Society
