LIBERTY — Several downtown Youngstown street names serve as a living archive of its journey from a frontier agricultural settlement to an industrial city. Many street names still reflect its founding era, for example, Market Street, Federal Street, Boardman Street and Front Street.

Although many original street names remain, only two original 19th-century buildings still stand in downtown Youngstown: the Rossi Building and a building adjacent to it.

Traci Manning, the Mahoning Valley Historical Society’s Curator of Education, presented a history of downtown Youngstown, from its founding in 1798 by John Young to the present. The seats in the meeting room at the Liberty branch of the Warren-Trumbull County Public Library were filled.

The talk began with the early history of Central Square and the surrounding downtown areas, with Manning sharing about 60 maps, drawings and photos, including several aerial views of downtown through the years.

“This is a very tiny part of our photographic collection. This is a minuscule section of our digitized photos. And our digitized photos are a minuscule collection of the actual photos we have. We probably have about 100,000 photos of downtown,” said Manning.

Other eastern towns inspired John Young in designing downtown Youngstown. His Central Square was designed to be 250 feet by 400 feet, which is the same size it is today.

“He was not designing this for buses, trolleys and pickup trucks. He was designing this for horses and wagons. I think it is incredible that he had this vision of very broad boulevards and broad squares,” Manning said.

An 1830 picture of the Square shows an area that appears to be a pond. It was actually a dip in Market Square that would fill with water when it rained during spring and summer, Manning explained. People would take their livestock to that area for market.

In 1846, industry began to develop in the area, particularly the iron industry. An 1869 photo shows the busy downtown area, with tightrope walker Charles Blondin walking a tightrope across West Federal Street as a large crowd watches.

In the 1870s, streetcars and trolleys began to appear in photos. A photo of the Man on the Monument, dedicated to local Civil War veterans, depicts a large crowd attending the dedication ceremony. Nothing in the picture of the Central Square monument’s dedication photo still stands today except the monument itself.

The Tod House Hotel was a luxury hotel that underwent many renovations and additions, and survived several fires. It was torn down in 1968.

“When we think about downtown, we tend to think about shopping and businesses and art. But downtown was also home to tenement housing. Tens of thousands of mostly immigrant families lived on the east end of downtown in what was called Christ Mission. A mile away was Millionaire’s Row,” Manning said.

Manning shared many pictures, including the Idora Park trolley and their ads, the Palace Theatre, bank buildings that changed names multiple times over the years, the Strouss-Hirshberg Department Store, McKelvey’s, the Stambaugh Building (headquarters of Youngstown Sheet and Tube), Republic Steel and the Mahoning National Bank, built in 1909. Mahoning National’s picture shows men sitting near the bank with their penny farthing bicycles (bikes having one small and one huge wheel).

A beautiful art deco building completed in 1929 still stands today, although the facade is very different. It is now the First National Bank. Storefronts at one time were on the sides of that building and many others. The Covelli Centre stands on the former Republic Steel grounds. Many buildings were torn down during urban renewal of the 1970s and 1980s.

“There was a store called Consolidated. You could find almost anything there, almost like Star Supply. There was also a guy who sold hot dogs and he would line the hot dogs up his arm, Jay’s Hotdogs,” recalled attendee Harold Wilson of Austintown.

“My whole purpose of this program is to encourage you to come down and look at these images. There are 100,000 more. And that is just downtown. We have a walking tour on July 3 on Central Square,” Manning said.

Anyone wishing to see the collection of maps, drawings and photos can make an appointment with the Mahoning Valley Historical Society by calling 330-743-7210.