YOUNGSTOWN — If you were playing Trivial Pursuit and received a question asking which U.S. president signed a bill to annex the Hawaiian Islands and was largely responsible for winning the Spanish-American War, you would be correct to answer William McKinley.

“As president, he started the ball rolling for Hawaii to be a state, and he won the Spanish-American War that was from April to December of 1898, so it was a short war,” Audra Dull, coordinator of the McKinley Birthplace Home and Research Center in Niles, said.

On July 7, 1898, McKinley signed a bill to make Hawaii part of the United States.

Information about the nation’s 25th president was among the offerings during Sunday’s Founders Day at the Tyler History Center, 325 W. Federal St., downtown.

The four-hour event was to celebrate the Mahoning Valley Historical Society’s 146th anniversary, as well as the 175th anniversary of Mahoning County and 100 years since Harry Burt Sr., who invented the Good Humor bar, established himself at where the center sits, Dave Ragan, MVHS’ communications manager, noted.

Also included were 60- to 90-minute milestone walking tours throughout the city to show participants several historical landmarks, Ragan said.

McKinley, who was assassinated 120 years ago in September 1901 at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., also issued a greater number of executive orders than his predecessors, which set the tone for future presidents, Dull explained.

McKinley was a serious man who held Americans’ best interests at heart, did not grandstand and was a “good and honorable man,” she said. Dull added that the president also had personal hardships, including the death of his two daughters and his wife, Ida Saxton McKinley’s health problems.

The McKinley Birthplace Home is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays and by appointment, she said.

Beverly Nelson, an assistant with the Sutliff Museum in Warren, talked about its founder, Phebe Temperance Sutliff, who was instrumental in establishing numerous civic organizations in the city. She, along with her father, Levi Sutliff, also was part of the Underground Railroad. Both were abolitionists, Nelson noted.

“Our museum’s focus is on the family itself,” as well as the Underground Railroad through Trumbull County, she added.

The museum, which opened in November 1971, is a bastion of Victorian living and houses a collection of furniture, set pieces, local artwork, personal possessions and household items from that era.

Phebe Sutliff also had a great interest in the local library association, Nelson said.

Before entering the exhibits, many people were drawn to the only known surviving vehicle of 95 that the Mahoning Motor Car Co. built and the MVHS acquired: the burgundy, two-seat Mahoning Touring Car, which was assembled in 1905 in the company’s downtown Youngstown plant. Its original owner was Warren P. Williamson Sr., an executive who was a partner in the business.

Harry B. Burt Sr. who died in 1926, was a Youngstown-based confectioner who developed the ice cream novelty in 1920 before moving into what is now the Tyler Center, Ragan noted.

Burt and his family also left an indelible footprint on downtown Youngstown, he added.