A History of Bellaire

A HISTORY OF BELLAIRE
(Several accounts of Bellaire's history culled from various sources)

BELLAIRE
by Hewetson Ault
Retired Bellaire High School History Instructor

Written for Bellaire's Sesquicentennial Celebration on August 24, 1953 and revised for Bellaire's second Sesquicentennial Celebration on August 22, 1984.

Before the Ice Age the Ohio River flowed north-eastward but the ice dammed up the water so a new channel was cut to the south-west. Erosion created the "shelf" of which much of Bellaire stands and at one time Noble Street above Forty-first passed through a gravel bank giving that area the nickname, "The Cut." The railroad had excavated the cut but later abandoned it.

Eventually Mound Builders occupied this area but evidence of them have disappeared from within the city limits. This is also largely true of the Indians themselves although a grave was found near Thirty-Sixth and Belmont Streets. Probably there was no Indian village within the present city boundaries but Mingoes, Shawnees and Delawares (to a lesser extent) were known to have frequented the area. The Mingoes were especially savage but the Indian threat was removed by 1795 at the time of General Wayne's Greenville Treaty.

Bellaire was established as a village later than many other towns in Belmont County but let us follow the story to see how she did get going and for many years became the leading city in the county.

John Duer bought the central area of Bellaire from the Steubenville land office in 1792 but being more interested in making a speculator's profit soon sold it to John Buchannan (July 3, 1795) who in turn left it to his three sons. The son whose part lay south of Indian Run sold his part to John Rodefer and the others sold their shares to Jacob Davis who then lived for many years in a log cabin near the mouth of the creek. In 1834 he realized that he had a desirable site for a village so he had six acres of building lot sites surveyed above the present Twenty-seventh Street west to present Belmont. He named it Bell Air after his former home in Maryland. His lots were gradually sold and for twenty years the village grew as any other might. The mining and shipping of coal by John Fink was important from 1830. Jacob Heatherington, of "The House that Jack Built" fame became the outstanding coal operator later. The first church services were held in a cooper shop and the first church building, a Methodist, was erected in 1839 near Twenty-Seventh and Union Streets. Nearby an 18' by 18' school building was built in the same year and Jacob Davis, Jr. was a teacher. Two years later, a post office was established. Before this, mail had been delivered to Pultney, now Avondale, the early county seat.

Bellaire's first big boost for growth came with the building of the Central Ohio Railway (Now Baltimore & Ohio) and Col. John Sullivan should receive the credit for bringing it to Bellaire which became the eastern terminus. Goods unloaded at the foot of the Thirty-third Street and the area was expanded to the north to accommodate the Cleveland and Pittsburgh (later Pennsylvania and now Penn Central Railroad.) One track ran along the south side of the present First Methodist Church and the City Park. The U.S. Dry Cleaning building was originally a railway depot. A round house and cattle pens were located near what is now Central Avenue. Ferry boats carried the goods to south Wheeling where they were shipped on the B & O eastward. One can imagine the chaos at times when hogs and other animals got into broken sacks of grain, or literally upset people as they ran into them! The demand for a government to curb rowdyism and control drunkenness led to incorporation on May 5, 1860.

The Civil War added to the boom times in Bellaire. Fort Jefferson was established near where Rodefer-Gleason plant was and from it, General McClelland moved troops across a pontoon bridge into West Virginia to keep it from being taken over by Southern forces. The B & O even had its own hotel and restaurants where its employees could stay over between runs from Columbus.

In 1860 a nail works was organized. In 1866 the Bellaire Nail Works started operation and it became the forerunner of the Carnegie Steel Mill which down through the First World War was listed as one of the leading U.S. mills.

The Stone Bridge which was copied after the Roman aqueducts was completed in 1871. The stone was cut as the present City Park site was floated down the river to build piers. Horse cars appeared and the Bellaire Street Railway was organized in 1875. Bellaire's first water works was started in the same year but down through the first World War public water pumps stood on many street corners. Bellaire High School graduated its first class consisting of four members in 1878 and football appeared in the 1890's. In 1877 the City Park was donated by Sullivan, Barnhart and Cowen. Bellaire's first bank was started in 1873 and the First National began operations in 1876. The O. R. & W. started service in 1879 and was abandoned in 1929. A part of Union Street was paved in 1887 and the story is told of how a piece of a bowling alley was laid along the side of Belmont Street to make a "side walk". Bellaire was reorganized as a city in 1873 when it had a population of 8,000 having frown in forty years from a six cabin village dependent on trade and shipping. Since Bellaire had very excellent transportation facilities, she was able to challenge St. Clairsville for the location of the county seat until the coming of the automobile.

Bellaire's first glass house was built in 1861 and during the 1870's and 1880's the industry was probably the city's leading one. J. H. Sullivan was an outstanding promoter and was personally interested in about half of the plants. In the 1880's half of these were lured away by the promise of cheap natural gas in north-western Ohio and Indiana but by 1912 the local industry was employing more people and producing fifty percent more product. In the 1870's the present Rodefer-Gleason was organized as the Rodefer Plant when the Rodefer's bought the old National Glass Company, and shortly after 1900 the Imperial was organized. It is well to report here that Bellaire did not give up when the glass plant left but set about to see what could be done to remedy the situation.

Meanwhile the enamel industry was started and Tom Strong, who had worked in the glass plants, became a leader in the enamel industry. He developed an important patented process which made Bellaire one of the greatest enamel centers of the early 1900's. Unfortunately he moved to Sebring, Ohio. The Phillips Stamping Plant occupies the building of the last enamel plant. The site of the latter and the present Kroger were once occupied by enamel and glass plants. It is strange that Bellaire hasn't a single park or important street named after Jacob Davis, Col. Sullivan, or Tom Strong!

Bellaire has been changing over the years. In the loops from Crescent Street up Belmont Street to Thirty-seventh past St. John's and down Guernsey past Busack's to Crescent Street a pedestrian should be able to pick out fifty to seventy five significant changes in the appearance of Bellaire which have taken place in that many years. This is especially evident on Thirty-Second Street from Union Street to Hamilton.

Bellaire will continue to change. The building of the new Route Seven Highway may seem like a major surgical procedure but it will take many dwellings out of the flood area. Bellaire has been fortunate in the past that the main business district has been above the flood danger. In time the Bellaire housing should be better off with the development of Bel Capre and the Winding Hill area away from the highest floods.

Bellaire still has most of the advantages it enjoyed in the past. We have the highways, the river and an abundance of coal but we do need leaders with vision as we had in the past. Given the opportunity many of the young people who have been leaving Bellaire for openings elsewhere may stay to develop our potentialities. We need small industries to supplement what we have to give employment and diversity in industry. At one time Bellaire had small industries like shoe factories, ice plants and brick kilns. What can we develop today in this respect?

Bellaire is outstanding in the financial savings field and we have the coal fields around us. We have been producing leaders in many fields of endeavors, and with resources, potential manpower and leadership can we not develop a bring future?

May we quote from R. C. Faris as reported in the BELLAIRE LEADER in the Armistice Day edition of 1928:

"Now some of the things we think are indispensable were not invented then but began to need things and realizing how they went about getting improvements that they wanted, I have always been struck by the fact they did not call for outside help, but did things themselves. There were no bonuses offered. The Nail Works started as the Bellaire Works with a charter that allowed it to do almost everything and was owned and operated largely by the workmen themselves. The Belmont Glasshouse and the Bellaire Window Glass House, the Union, the Crystal and the Enterprise and the National (later Rodefers) were all local organizations. Even the stone for the B. & O. bridge represents the work of local cutters."

"When the people of Bellaire many years ago, realized the need for a water works, such a plant was built; when they realized that artificial gas could be manufactured, the local gas house was started and when transportation was to be improved, it was the people of Bellaire who built their own street car lines..."

"Bellaire has possessed enterprising and capable men who have conducted the affairs of the city, and to them is credit due for the advancement that has been made here."

(Mr. Faris had lived in Bellaire from 1871.)
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FACTS ABOUT BELLAIRE, OHIO
Written by the Bellaire Americus Club - January 1940

Bellaire, the leading business section of Belmont County, Ohio, is located directly across the Ohio River from Wheeling, W. Va.; 72 miles southwest of Pittsburg, 137 miles east of Columbus and 145 miles southeast of Cleveland. It lies between the banks of the Ohio River and the hills at an elevation above sea level that varies from 667.5 feet in the business district to 1,125 feet in the hilly district back of the city proper. It is located in the heart of the eastern Ohio coal region, the largest coal producing section in the State of Ohio. It is situated near the junctions of state routes No. 7, No. 214, No. 250 and No. 40, the National Highway. The Ohio River, is spanned at Bellaire by a modern traffic bridge connecting Bellaire with West Virginia and state route No. 2. Its location on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at its junction with the Ohio River merits the unofficial designation as "The Gateway to the Mid-West".

Bellaire was platted and incorporated in 1834 and recently celebrated its centennial as an incorporated community. It now has a population of 14,000 but due to the proximity of numerous smaller towns, mining communities and farming areas in the immediate vicinity, its business population is that of a city of approximately twenty-five thousand. Its streets are wide and in the best of repair, its main thoroughfares varying in width from fifty to sixty-five feet. Although there are three thousand five hundred passenger automobiles and trucks registered with the local deputy registrar, Bellaire is proud of the fact that it possesses one of the lowest reported accident records of any city its size in the State of Ohio according to the records of the Department of Highways. Bellaire is noted for the fact that it is one of the largest cities in the United States without a traffic light and its accident record has been made through the education of the driver as to his responsibility in the operation of a motor vehicle. It has been over two years since a fatal traffic accident has occurred in the city.

In 1854 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company constructed its present line to Bellaire from the East, this being the first line ever to reach the Ohio River and later resulted in the opening of the first railroad coal mine in the United States. This mine is located a mile west of Bellaire and is still in operation.

At the present time there are sixteen churches in Bellaire occupying their own edifices, namely: First Methodist Episcopal, South Bellaire Methodist Episcopal, Christian, Presbyterian, First United Presbyterian, Trinity Episcopal, Evangelical Reformed, Agudis Achim, Sons of Israel, St. John's Catholic, St. Michaels Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Nazarene, African Methodist Episcopal, Pentecostal, the Salvation Army and Latter Day Saints.

Bellaire possesses a million and a half dollar educational plant of nine public school buildings and two parochial school buildings mainly of fireproof construction as the majority of them have been constructed within recent years. The Bellaire High School is a grade A high school with an average enrollment of Thirteen Hundred Fifty pupils. The St. John's High School has an enrollment of approximately one hundred twenty-five with an average enrollment of three hundred in St. John's grade school. There is a total enrollment in all Bellaire Schools in excess of Thirty-Seven Hundred Students.

There are five municipally operated playgrounds in the city, all of said playgrounds being well equipped and well supervised under trained leadership. Bellaire recently purchased four and 9/10th acres of ground in the heart of the residential district, upon which a municipal swimming pool has been constructed at a cost of approximately $80,000. The pool is 75x150 feet in size with a bath-house of brick construction accommodating eight hundred persons. The balance of the acreage not needed for the pool is being landscaped, additional tennis courts constructed and the city playground located on a portion of this tract is being enlarged and additional equipment added.

Bellaire has two municipal parks, one of which is located in the business district and covers an area of 160,000 square feet. The other park is located just south of the business district on State Route No. 7 and has been dedicated as Memorial Park in honor of the men from this community who gave their lives in recent wars. Boating and other water sports on the beautiful Ohio offer another form of recreational activity for the residents of this community. Three private and three public golf courses are located within a twenty minute drive of the city and furnish adequate golfing facilities. The public school system offers four modern gymnasiums together with a recently modernized football and track stadium for school sports. It is on this latter mentioned gridiron that Bellaire's numerous college football stars received their elementary training and have earned for Bellaire the name of the "All American Town."

The Bellaire City Hospital is an approved voluntary hospital of fifty beds built by private subscription with modern fireproof buildings and trained personnel. Due to recent contributions many improvements have been completed within the past year until Bellaire has one of the most modern and completely equipped hospitals that it is possible to have.

Unlimited standard electric power is fed into the city over six different lines of the Wheeling Electric Company and Ohio Power Company so that power interruptions are unknown in this community. Bellaire is in the center of one of the largest interconnected power systems in the United States. Two large central stations are located near Bellaire on the Ohio River. The Windsor plant has 180,000 Kw. generating capacity and the Toronto plant has 120,000 KW. generating capacity. This entire industrial district is served by the Wheeling Electric Company and its sister company, the Ohio Power Company, whose 245,000 Kw. power plant at Philo, Ohio, is interconnected with the nearby Windsor Station. These large power stations are in turn tied into a giant interconnected distribution network having a total of 5,000,000 Kw. generating capacity. The district is "belted" with four 66,000 volt transmission lines with a fifth connecting on its southern boundary. Interconnection east and west carry 132,000 volts.

Natural gas is furnished in unlimited quantities by the Manufacturers Light and Heat Company at reasonable rates. The Ohio Bell Telephone Company furnishes communication facilities with 1797 Bellaire Exchange Subscribers with unlimited free service to 10,934 total subscribers in the Wheeling district. The Bellaire City Waterworks is municipally owned and operated and furnishes water to the residents of the city and contiguous territory. The plant has a capacity of four and one-half million gallons; the water being pumped from the Ohio River, filtered, chlorinated and tested daily and stored in two large hillside reservoirs maintaining high pressure at all times.

The Wheeling District, of which Bellaire is a unit is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wheeling & Lake Erie trunk line railroads, Greyhound Bus Lines, CCC and Suburban Motor Freight; Railway Express and Pennsylvania Truck Lines. It is located at the confluence of five main lines of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and furnishes daily passenger and freight service to all parts of the country. The Pennsylvania Railroad serves this community with two branch lines connecting with main lines 24 miles north of Bellaire. The W. & L. E. connects with the New York Central 18 miles from Bellaire.

During the past few years there has been a marked tendency on the part of large manufacturers in the upper Ohio Valley to use the Ohio River as a means of transportation. With the rapid industrial development of the South, the Ohio River has become a very important channel of commerce. Three regular Barge Lines now operate through Bellaire. When navigation is at its height, a scheduled steamboat touches at the Wheeling dock every other day. Direct and connecting service is available to the Gulf of Mexico and all parts of the world.

Bellaire has a privately owned airport that is registered with the Federal Government as an emergency landing field and furnishes landing facilities for airplanes.

Bellaire's financial needs are adequately taken care of by five modern banking and building and loan institutions with total resources of $13,987,092.62 and total deposits of $11,392,444.72. This total represents the accounts of approximately twenty-five thousand depositors.

Bellaire Civil Clubs consist of the Bellaire Americus Club, composed of one hundred and ten business and professional men of the community, the Bellaire Kiwanis Club with membership of seventy-five and the Bellaire Business Improvement Association.

Due to its location on the banks of the Ohio River, Bellaire has had its flood experiences but is fortunate in the fact that the business district and all but a small part of the industrial and residential district is above maximum flood stage.

Bellaire's chief industries consist of four glass factories; The Imperial Glass Corporation, Rodefer Glass Company, Belmont Tumbler and Cam-Bell Glass Company; one enamel manufacturer, Bellaire Enamel Company; one stove foundry, Bellaire Stove Company; two jobbing foundries, C. L. Dorer Foundry and Cupal Casting Company; the Matz Brewing Company; and an ice and storage plant that has recently modernized for the freezing, storage, and distribution of fast frozen foods, the Koehnline Ice & Storage Company and its affiliate Frederick Wassman & Company.

One of the largest single industries in the district is the mining of coal. In Belmont County within a radius of ten miles of the city of Bellaire are numerous coal lines employing approximately nine thousand coal miners with an annual output of coal amounting to ten million tons. This coal is from the Pittsburgh Seam and due to the fact that it develops from 14,000 B. T. U. up it is rated one of the best steam and industrial coals in the country. The importance of the coal mining industry in this section is readily understandable when it is realized that thirty-six percent of the coal mined in the state of Ohio is mined in Belmont County.

There are two newspapers printed in this city: Bellaire Daily Leader and Bellaire Democrat. Among the other newspapers that are properly called "local" papers are the Wheeling News-Register, Wheeling Intelligencer and the Martins Ferry Daily Times, all published daily. The Wheeling News-Register also has a Sunday edition.

Due to its location it is difficult for us to visualize Bellaire, from an industrial standpoint, as anything other than an integral part of the Ohio Valley District, which embraces a population of 275,000 within a radius of fifteen miles. This entire population is easily reached by virtue of the operation of bus routes and non-competitive street railway companies giving frequent dependable service to the twenty-nine different communities in the Ohio Valley industrial district.

At the present time there are more than five hundred industries of diversified character in this district producing over 4,000 separate marketable items.

Bellaire is one of those many small city communities that are the true life blood of this great nation of ours and a community of which its citizens are justly proud to call their home.
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LOOKING AT BELLAIRE
An Eagle Scout Project by Scout John Robinson - Troop 110

Sponsored by First United Methodist Church and The Presbyterian Church, Bellaire, Ohio

Published January 1976

Bellaire lies in the fertile valley of the Ohio River, bounded on the east by the river and on the west by beautiful rolling hills, which have given Eastern Ohio the title of "Switzerland of Ohio." The first permanent settlement was effected in 1803, the same year in which Ohio became a state.

In 1832, "Bell Air", named after Jacob Davis' home town in Maryland, consisted of six log cabins. Bell Air made little progress until 1854 when the Central Ohio Railroad from Columbus was completed. In 1862 the name was changed to Bellaire to avoid confusion in the distribution of railway freight. Bellaire was incorporated on May 22, 1860.

During the civil war a pontoon bridge was maintained from Bellaire to West Virginia for the movement of troops. Twenty-six additions to the city were made from 1856 to 1879. This was a very big time for growth in Bellaire. For 20 years after completion of the Stone Bridge in 1871 the population of Bellaire grew 500 percent.

Through all this and until the mid 1920's Bellaire's main industry was coal. Coal died down then and so did the population of Bellaire. The Carnegie Steel Mill closed at this time and that hurt Bellaire also.

Since glass houses were the main industries of early Bellaire, I will begin with them. The first flint glass house was the Belmont founded in 1861. It was soon followed by the National in 1869, the Goblet Works in 1876, the Ohio Glass Works in 1878, the Bellaire Bottle Works and Aetna Glass Works in 1880.

Rodefer-Gleason Glass was established in 1877. In the early years it manufactured lantern globes, lightning rod balls, and vault lights. About 1880 the company began making blanks for other companies to decorate. The Rodefer-Gleason Glass Company has operated on the same site, at 22nd and Union Street, longer than any other glass company in the history of the United States.

Imperial Glass was organized in 1901, was two years in building and produced its first glass in 1904. This was the first concrete foundation for a factory in the United States; the others used sandstone block. Imperial Glass was conceived by Edward Muhlmen. In 1910 production of iridescent glassware increased, new colors added, and carnival glass as we know it today was developed. During World War I demand for glass increased and automatic machines were used. Imperial Glass could not keep up so they specialized in expensive hand made items. In 1940 Imperial bought the Central Glass Works of Wheeling, in 1958 it acquired all the molds of Heisey Co. of Newark, Ohio and in 1960 bought the Cambridge Co. of Cambridge, Ohio. In 1973, Imperial merged with Lennox, Inc.

The Stone Bridge connecting the Central Ohio Railroad with the B & O Railroad was completed in 1871. Up until this time people traveling the railroads had to get off one train and be ferried across the river where they would board another. At the time of its completion the bridge was the longest stone arch in the United States. Practically all of the stone for the bridge was quarried near where the City Park now lies. This area was called Union Square.

Many farmers from the near-by area helped in the cutting of the stone. Cost of the bridge was estimated at 1.5 million dollars. The construction of the bridge began in 1867, but it wasn't until June 21, 1871 that engine number 519 took the first trial run from Bellaire to Benwood, West Virginia.

In the twenty year succeeding completion of the bridge Bellaire went through a population growth of 500 percent, mainly due to the completion of the Stone Bridge.

One of the oldest brick buildings in Bellaire stands near South Bellaire Park. It was originally used as a livery stable. Another old building in Bellaire is the Globe Hotel. William Jennings Bryant spoke from the balcony and the streets were full of listeners. The Globe Hotel sits in the 3200 block on Union Street facing toward the Ohio River.

Two of the oldest cemeteries near Bellaire are the Greenwood Cemetery and the High Ridge Cemetery. Many of the early Bellaire citizens are buried there.

The House that Jack Built is no longer standing, but I feel it was one of the most important buildings ever built in Bellaire. Jacob Heatherington was born in England in 1814. At the age of seven he went to work in a coal mine 2400 feet deep for 16 to 18 hours a day and never had a days schooling in his life. In 1837 he, a resident of Bellaire, rented a coal mine and bough 8 acres of land on credit. He took in a partner, a mule named Jack. The mule would not work for anyone except for Jacob. At first Jacob's wife Liza worked too, but soon men were hired. Jake's 8 acres soon grew to 800. He owned 30 dwellings, shares in glass works and many steamboats. In 1870 he built the $35,000 house which he dedicated to his mule Jack. Upon completion the mule was given a tour of the mansion. This made Jack the first creature to get a tour of the house. At the age of forty the mule, which was white with age, died and was buried beneath an apple tree near the house.

The building that houses the Bellaire Glass Museum was built around 1895. It is a typical example of the architectural style of houses built at this time. There are a few more houses in Bellaire constructed at about the same time and that look about the same.

Some of the old schools of the town are still standing. Among these are the old Gravel Hill School, which is now the Diamon Apartments, and the old Rose Hill School which is now the Rosser Apartments.

OHIO RIVER AND WESTERN RAILROAD

The O. R. and W. was originally called the Bellaire and Southern Railway Company. The first spike on the B. and S.W. was driven on November 27, 1877 at Bellaire. It was to be a narrow gauge railroad (three feet wide, while standard is four foot eight and one-half inches wide). Formal opening was December 2, 1879. On December 5 the main office was moved from Bellaire to Woodsfield. Soon westward expansion from Woodsfield began.

On January 20, 1882 the Bellaire and Southwestern and the Zanesville and Southeastern were consolidated. The new railroad became known as the Bellaire, Zanesville and Cincinnati, thinking it would be eventually connected with the narrow gauge network in the southwestern part of the state. Bellaire and Zanesville were then connected by narrow gauge line 112 miles long and a yard wide. This railroad was soon called the Bent, Zig-Zag, and Crooked because of all of the curves and turns. The railroad had a little more than six miles of trestles. There were three tunnels on the line, the St. Clair, the Perryopolis, and the Standing Stone.

In 1902 the name was changed to the Ohio River and Western Railroad (O. R. and W.). It was later called by some people the Old Rusty and Wobbly.

Derailments and wrecks were quite numerous. Three trains were wrecked in just one afternoon, one falling into a stream and two in a collision. Model "T" Fords would sometimes get into the way too. Law suits were also quite frequent. Trainsmen and passengers sued for burning of their rail fences and hay stacks caused by sparks from the locomotives and the killing of their livestock. The company also got into the act by suing the stockholders for non-payment of their subscriptions, and for right of way.

The final run between Zanesville and Woodsfield was in 1928. Three years later the run between Woodsfield and Bellaire was also discontinued. On May 30, 1931 taps were sounded for the railroad.