Carol Rimedio Righetti, Mahoning County commissioner, is shown along West Federal Street in Youngstown in the area where a huge parade, shown above, took place in 1908 on the day the cornerstone of the current Mahoning County Courthouse was put in place. Staff photos / R. Michael Semple

YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County’s earliest history included political intrigue and controversy, as the seat of government started in Canfield in 1846, but moved to Youngstown 30 years later.

From 1873 onward, the county’s governance has been focused on Youngstown.

Bill Lawson, Mahoning Valley Historical Society executive director, noted historic highlights to mark the county’s 175th anniversary during a recent presentation to the Mahoning County commissioners.

Commissioner Carol Rimedio Righetti suggested that some of the excitement from the 1908 laying of the cornerstone for the current county courthouse be recreated during the placing of a new time capsule into the cornerstone in the coming months.

The commissioners will work with Lawson when that event takes place after the COVID-19 pandemic eases enough for such a gathering.

The last courthouse time capsule is at the historical society’s Tyler History Center.

Rimedio Righetti suggested re-enactment of a parade down West Federal Street to the current courthouse for the next time capsule event, which also will celebrate the six-year renovation of the courthouse that wrapped up about a year ago.

“I am so proud of being a part of Youngstown,” she said, calling the current courthouse “the most beautiful courthouse in the world.”

“It certainly makes me appreciate even more what we have here,” Commissioner Anthony Traficanti said.

INTRIGUE

It’s been an intriguing 175 years.

Lawson discussed the rivalry between Canfield and Youngstown to be the seat of Mahoning County government in the 1800s, as well as rivalry between Youngstown and Warren.

That rivalry was over the decision in 1800 to establish Trumbull County to govern the huge Connecticut Western Reserve that included present-day Youngstown.

Warren was chosen as the county seat of Trumbull, which stretched westward from the Pennsylvania line nearly to Sandusky and as far south as present-day Western Reserve Road. Ohio became a state three years later.

“I won’t go too far into the political intrigue that surrounds Trumbull and Mahoning County, but let’s just say that folks in Youngstown were a little put out by that,” Lawson said of Warren being named county seat.

“At this time, the primary economic activity around here was farming,” Lawson said. “Though there some industries forming — milling and iron of course started very early in the Yellow Creek Forge in 1803 as well.”

The Hopewell Furnace in Struthers, on Yellow Creek, was built in 1802, the first blast furnace in Ohio, according to the Ohio Historical Society.

“In the 1830s and 1840s Youngstown was looking at a way to become a county seat, if not of Trumbull County then a new one,” Lawson said. “At the same time, the Ohio Legislature was very much in favor of breaking up the large counties in the state and forming smaller ones for more effective governance.

“Youngstown tried through the Legislature to look at ways of partitioning Trumbull County. In fact, at one point there was a plan to break Trumbull into three parts –north, middle and south, and Youngstown would be the county seat for the southern new county,” he said.

“But by the fall of 1845, those efforts had stalled because Youngstown literally had no represntation with a local resident in the Ohio Legislature,” he said.

CANFIELD PLAN

That is when business and political leaders in Canfield created the “Canfield Plan” to establish Mahoning County out of the southern part of Trumbull County and northern part of Columbiana County.

“That plan was approved after some lobbying and debate by the Ohio legislature on Feb. 16, 1846,” Lawson said. “Immediately after the legisature approved the bill, there were elections for the new county for the various offices and courts.”

Elected public officials were sworn in, and Mahoning County government was seated on March 1, 1846. “And of course it was in Canfield,” he said. The building is still there on the Village Green.

The first county fair, which was held in Canfield, took place in October 1847. The first county courthouse opened in 1848.

“Meanwhile, Youngstown was not at all happy with these arrangements and … was starting to grow through the iron industry and other ventures like the canal and railroads, which really opened things up for industrial and commercial developments in Youngstown,” Lawson said.

“So the population and economic power began to grow though the late 1840s and 1850s and 1860s. Still, Youngstown wanted to have that coveted county seat.

“That came to a head in 1873 when finally there were petitions to put a ballot referendum in the 1873 election for the removal of the county seat from Canfield to Youngstown. At the same time, there was a group of Youngstown backers that formed and a group of Canfield backers that formed.

“They debated locally and they debated at the Ohio Statehouse,” he said. “As it turned out, the vote came out in favor of moving the county seat from Canfield to Youngstown.”

The Canfield backers appealed the referendum. But the local appeals court, Ohio Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court all upheld the referendum, the final decision coming in 1879.

YOUNGSTOWN WINS

In 1876, the backers in Youngstown completed a new courthouse at the corner of Wick Avenue and East Wood Street across from First Presbyterian church.

“At that point, after the Ohio Supreme Court ruling, there was a caravan of 40 horse teams and wagons that drove from Youngstown to Canfield, packed up all of the county records, furniture — everything related to county government — and brought it back to Youngstown to move into the new courthouse,” Lawson said.

From 1876 to 1907, “there was alot of growth in the iron and steel industry here in the Mahoning Valley but in particular the city of Youngstown,” increasing economic and political influence, he said. Immigration was fueling a lot of the population gain coming into the region to work in these new industrial jobs.

County commissioners and courts realized the courthouse was “inadequate to carry on county government, so the commissioners and a number of city boosters got together and started to plan for a new courthouse.”

In June 1908, city leaders held an “Old Home Week” to bring former Youngstown and Mahoning Valley residents back to the city for a reunion the week of the laying of the cornerstone of the new courthouse at its present site on Market Street.

After balls and lectures, the laying of the cornerstone June 11, 1908, was the highlight of the week, Lawson said.

“What happened that day was a parade that started on Mahoning Avenue, crossed the Spring Common Bridge, went down West Federal Street,” he said. There was a huge gathering of people on Federal Street.

“At Central Square, they made a right turn and went down Market Street,” he said, describing the crowd ending up in a “big hole of a vacant lot” where the foundation for the building were being dug. The cornerstone was placed later that day, and a time capsule was put into a “little pocket” in the cornerstone.

“From 1908 to 1910, this building was built in all of its grandeur,” he said. “In March of 1911, the building was formally dedicated, and has been the seat of Mahoning County government and courts ever since.”

GOOD CARE

Lawson told the commissioners: “I commend your generation and past generations for maintaining this outstanding building, which really spoke to its time in terms of the wealth and prosperity and the looking-forward that went into designing and executing a building like this. It’s very much important to Mahoning County.”

In the decades that followed courthouse construction, industrial developments went beyond anyone’s imagination, he noted.

“Until 1924, immigrants mainly came from eastern and southern Europe to work the jobs and all of the opportunities that were available here at that time,” he said. “From before 1924 until into the 1960s, you had the group migration of African Americans from the American South, who came north.”

After the Great Depression and World War II, there was great demand for new housing for this huge population. “So you had post-war suburban development that spread out to what were traditionally rural areas of the county,” he said. “That started to come in in the 1960s and then accelerated in the late 1970s, early 1980s with the complete dislocation of the steel industry at the same time the population began to decline.”

He said Mahoning County’s population in 1850 was 23,735. The county’s peak population in the 1970s was 303,424 people. From 1890 to 1970, the majority of the population lived in Youngstown, but by 1970, the majority of the county’s population lived outside of Youngstown.

erunyan@tribtoday.com