Tood's Town
Tood was not known to everyone in the world, not even the Western world. However, he was very well known locally. Locally being Cairo Ohio and immediately surrounding areas such as Beaverdam, Gomer, Columbus Grove, and Lima.
Cairo is a Western Ohio village of about 500 residents located at the intersection of Route 30 ("the Lincoln Highway") and Route 65. It is almost exactly half way between Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and Chicago Illinois and about 240 miles from each. On a smaller scale, Cairo is located between Gomer on the west and Beaverdam on the east, Columbus Grove on the north and Lima on the south.
The population of Cairo has been at about 500 residents since at least the very early 1900s. So you can understand that Tood may not have been known to everyone in the world.
When I lived in Tood's Town in the 1940s and 1950s, Cairo was a small village with a small downtown shopping area comprising a collection of five stores (a grocery store, hardware, and general store, the other two stores were torn down during that time period and I don't remember what they were at present), post office, an old machine shop, library, townhall, grain elevator owned by a farmer's cooperative, cemetary vault manufacturer, railroad depot, and automotive repair shop. Away from the downtown there was a restaurant, another two auto repair garages, a gasoline station, and a welding shop. Today, the hardware, machine shop, one of the gasoline stations, vault factory, grocery, welding shop and general store are gone. The retail stores were lost in the 1950s to early shopping centers on the Northern edge of Lima.
Cairo was home to an outstanding medical doctor. The Doctor, Marcus Clemens Miller was a 1912 graduate of the Ohio State University Medical School and so far as I know practiced his entire working life in Cairo. When Dr. Miller died at an advanced age, Tood's Town lost one of its most admired citizens and an incredible asset. Dr. Miller diagnosed disease, treated wounds, dispensed drugs, helped his patients through various "spells" and "cases of the nerves", and relentlessly chain smoked unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes sometimes having two cigarettes going at the same time.
There were two railroad rights of way through Cairo, the Baltimore & Ohio ("B&O") and the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton ("DT&I"). The DT&I was, at one time, owned by Henry Ford who used it to haul various raw materials for his automobile plants.
Most of the men and women living in Cairo worked in manufacturing plants in Lima which is about 6 miles South of Cairo on Route 65.
Tood was well known with a strong personality and character. Many of the stories that follow this initial posting may involve Tood, but there were many other interesting folks in Cairo and the surrounding area that are worthy of note. But Tood stood out as a personality.
If you are familiar with the greater Cairo metropolitan area and the people who lived there in the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s, please feel free to add to this blog and the ones that follow and increase the world's knowledge of Tood and others who populated this little berg.
Dillard Farnsworth
Cairo is a Western Ohio village of about 500 residents located at the intersection of Route 30 ("the Lincoln Highway") and Route 65. It is almost exactly half way between Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and Chicago Illinois and about 240 miles from each. On a smaller scale, Cairo is located between Gomer on the west and Beaverdam on the east, Columbus Grove on the north and Lima on the south.
The population of Cairo has been at about 500 residents since at least the very early 1900s. So you can understand that Tood may not have been known to everyone in the world.
When I lived in Tood's Town in the 1940s and 1950s, Cairo was a small village with a small downtown shopping area comprising a collection of five stores (a grocery store, hardware, and general store, the other two stores were torn down during that time period and I don't remember what they were at present), post office, an old machine shop, library, townhall, grain elevator owned by a farmer's cooperative, cemetary vault manufacturer, railroad depot, and automotive repair shop. Away from the downtown there was a restaurant, another two auto repair garages, a gasoline station, and a welding shop. Today, the hardware, machine shop, one of the gasoline stations, vault factory, grocery, welding shop and general store are gone. The retail stores were lost in the 1950s to early shopping centers on the Northern edge of Lima.
Cairo was home to an outstanding medical doctor. The Doctor, Marcus Clemens Miller was a 1912 graduate of the Ohio State University Medical School and so far as I know practiced his entire working life in Cairo. When Dr. Miller died at an advanced age, Tood's Town lost one of its most admired citizens and an incredible asset. Dr. Miller diagnosed disease, treated wounds, dispensed drugs, helped his patients through various "spells" and "cases of the nerves", and relentlessly chain smoked unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes sometimes having two cigarettes going at the same time.
There were two railroad rights of way through Cairo, the Baltimore & Ohio ("B&O") and the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton ("DT&I"). The DT&I was, at one time, owned by Henry Ford who used it to haul various raw materials for his automobile plants.
Most of the men and women living in Cairo worked in manufacturing plants in Lima which is about 6 miles South of Cairo on Route 65.
Tood was well known with a strong personality and character. Many of the stories that follow this initial posting may involve Tood, but there were many other interesting folks in Cairo and the surrounding area that are worthy of note. But Tood stood out as a personality.
If you are familiar with the greater Cairo metropolitan area and the people who lived there in the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s, please feel free to add to this blog and the ones that follow and increase the world's knowledge of Tood and others who populated this little berg.
Dillard Farnsworth
posted by Tood at 7:35 PM
1 Comments:
jlynne,
Yes, I would be very interested in getting a copy of the picture. I will scan it into a Toods Town blog and return it to you if you would like.
Leave me a message and I'll figure out a way to get you an address to send it to me.
Dillard Farnsworth
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