OHIO: These Faded Towns Helped Build America

I visited these Ohio towns: Portsmouth & Ironton.

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Travel Vlog 287

Well everyone I am in Portsmith Ohio there’s the river I just crossed the bridge you can see the uh Appalachians rising in the [Applause] background this is downtown so I’m going to explore a little bit they do have a marker here take a look at it real

Quick but it denotes its role in the Underground Railroad long ago Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad but a system of loosely connected safe havens where those escaping the brutal conditions of slavery were sheltered yeah this was one of the bigger spots on the underground rail road people would cross

The river that I just showed you from Kentucky former slaves be sheltered here and from here on they would go north now Portsmith in the early 1900s was a major manufacturing uh City here in the United States at the time it was the fourth largest manufacturer of shoes in this country

Additionally it was the number one manufacturer of fire and Paving bricks in the United States all told there were over 100 companies manufacturing items right here in this town uh anything from car parts to Furniture to toys clothing it was all made here but as you see so many times especially

In this part of the country the manufacturing collapsed jobs went overseas and the city has struggled a bit ever since then now at its manufacturing peak in the early 1900s uh 1930 in fact the population here was almost 43,000 today there are 18,000 people here that’s over half the population of

The Town gone but you can see Signs of Life here I’ve read that they’re putting a lot of work into the downtown and renovating it you can see it in a lot of spots I’m going to show them to you I’ll just continue to explore here uh in 2019 hallmart called this

One of the hometown Christmas towns and this town has a couple of Christmas records in the Guinness Book of World Records I will tell you about those here shortly so they take Christmas very seriously here in 2020 Portsmouth was designated an all America City let’s see dollar

Building d a e h l e r it’s built in 1899 had is setting here empty I hate to see that that is a beautiful building hopefully they can uh renovate that at some point I’m um on one of the main streets here in town by the way it’s December 1 a

Friday uh it’s about 9:30 in the morning it’s pretty chilly uh 32° F 0 C do love all the Christmas decorations they have here there’s a flood wall there that’s the Ohio River on the other side I’ll go down there shortly see what else they have here this is great isn’t

It now something you may not know about Portsmith is this one of the first professional football teams in the US was right here in this town 1930 they formed they were called the Portsmith Spartans now the Spartans well they struggled a bit and in 1934 a radio station owner from Detroit bought the

Team moved them up to Detroit and renamed them you’ve probably guessed it the Detroit Lions now they really love Christmas here uh that is evident you see Christmas decorations everywhere more so than a lot of towns that I’ve seen they actually hold a couple of records as promised I’ll tell you what those

Are the first record most people simultaneously Christmas caring that is a world record that this town holds 822 carollers that is in the Guinness Book of World Records also they hold the world record for most people simultaneously wrapping Christmas presents oh what is this oh this is a

Grinch vehicle I was like something happened to Santa slay here but that’s on purpose isn’t it how about that that is awesome anyway they also hold another world record here even though it’s not Christmas and that is the most people simultaneously potting plants yes they hold that world record as well now this

Is the flood wall the Ohio river is on the other side and they have mural painted all along it Portsmouth 1903 and they’ve got a real big one here looks like it shows a picture of the town I would guess late 1800s it’s pretty awesome isn’t

It I’m glad the Street’s quiet cuz I’m walking around in the middle of it let me give you a good look at everything here’s a mural depicting their history as a shoe manufacturer now here’s a mural depicting the Spartans football team I told you about the professional

Team uh let’s see they got a little bit of information here the Spartans were admitted to the NFL in 1930 the first night football game in the NFL was played between the Spartans and the Brooklyn Dodgers the first NFL championship game and the first indoor football game was

Played in December 1932 between the Portsmouth Spartans and the Chicago Bears wow mural appears to depict Portsmith in its Heyday uh 1930s I would guess when it hit its peak population let’s see the progress of Education in the Portsmouth Ohio area they do have a university in this

Town it’s a small one yeah there it is shaie State University according to this mural Portsmouth has the nation’s oldest Cycling Club established 1893 that I did not know uh the picture is from 19113 along uh horizontal picture there yeah the flood wall ends here as does the murals should be able

To get a look at the Ohio yep there it is the Ohio River that is Kentucky on the other side now the sun is shining right at me hopefully you can see the bridge that I crossed earlier let me zoom in on that again yeah you do see some of this abandoned

Home it is really quiet I’ll say that well let’s see as I make my way back towards downtown let’s get into the nitty-gritty shall we what are the numbers of this town I’ve already told you the population was 18,000 down from 43,000 in 1930 that was almost 100 years ago look at this

Though total awesomeness a dairy cream they really have done a fantastic job of renovating this part of downtown it is so beautiful looks like we got a manger scene here nativity scene nice right okay 85% of this town is white 6% is black 3% is Hispanic 1% is Asian last 5% is mixed

Race the median household income here here is 34,200 a year that’s $660 a week about half what it is in the US actually a little less for the us as a whole it is 74,000 poverty it’s pretty high 35% overall for children 17 and under it is

50% that is extremely high that’s the the third highest in the state of Ohio for folks 65 and older it is 20% all those numbers are three times higher than the us as a whole the US averages now what’s the cost of living uh it’s 15% lower overall mostly because of housing

Housing is 55% lower the median home value of this town is 79,3 that is quite low especially compared to the US which is uh what over 300,000 320,000 roughly transportation is 25% higher that’s interesting groceries are 1% higher healthc care is 2% higher so there are some things that are still

Higher even though the overall is lower the overall is is lower because of housing that’s mainly the reason why crime is a little high 30 incidents per 1 10,000 people for the us as a whole is 23 26 of those 30 are property crimes four of them are

Violent and I was reading there were three murders here in the latest report so wow three murders in a town of 18,000 well I’m just walking around the town downtown area uh it’s really quiet it’s kind of eerie especially being a Friday about 10:00 a.m. now now Portsmith is the

County seat for siota County that is the county courthouse that is is a massive beautiful building it’s built in 1925 neoclassical architecture so it’s got some cues from ancient Greece and Rome lines are a little smoothed out of course the idea is to be grand and certainly it is that is some building

A lot of churches in this town there’s another one down there the huge Spire and there’s one right here Grace Community Church all right here it says Bigalow church it’s on the national register it says wow built in 1858 wow I wouldn’t have guessed that this is that old Holy Redeemer Church that is spectacular am I right that is something a big statue up

There let’s check out those domes on the top little Russian influence there that is some kind of building well let’s check out some residentials shall we I saw these two houses on the edge of town I mean like the very corner of town here they have these two old old

Houses not sure if anybody lives in them I don’t think so yeah but those have been there a long time you see the occasional house that could use some work obviously um you’re bound to see some of that with the pretty significant population loss but I got to tell

You A lot of these houses look real nice it’s great architecture isn’t it no cookie cutter here little white picket fence there are some beautiful houses here at that one and right next door that one’s tucked back a bit isn’t it in this big stately house I like the Street oh you guys see it don’t you I knew I like this street a lot it’s got a black cat he just crossed my path am I going to be be okay I think I will be this is what a lot of the Town looks like a lot of character am I

Right I like this town yeah I mean you see the occasional house uh that’s clearly been abandoned but there’s not as many as I thought there would be I be honest with you guys I saw the numbers for this town uh the low incomes and high poverty I expected it to look pretty

Bad oh and also you know the pretty significant population loss all that combined yes I expected it to look pretty bad but this town looks overall pretty awesome well okay got one more town to show you guys uh let’s head in that direction right now all right everyone I am in

Ironon look at that beautiful building that is amazing iron or Aron I’ve been told both Aron and ironon I’m going to go with iron I’ve heard that more my apologies if it’s not right but anyway let’s talk about iron of course the name is a contraction of the word Iron Town and deservedly

So in the late 1800s this town was one of the top producers of iron in the world but not only did they produce iron they produced what was considered the highest quality Iron and it was in huge demand the world over a lot of foreign countries purchased iron from here Russia England

Uh France use it to build their warships the USS monitor the first ironclad ship was made with iron produced here Henry Ford used iron from here to build his cars I was reading that most of this downtown is on the national register as well you can see some beautiful old

Buildings bus here iron is the county seat of Lawrence County there’s the county courthouse built in 1907 it is still used as a County Courthouse to this day neoclassical architecture so it takes cues from ancient Rome and Greece you can see the uh columns there anyway back to iron and it’s iron

Production the city prospered with all the iron that was being made here and I was reading that the furnaces ran 24 hours a day trying to keep up but as is the story so often in this part of the country the demand for iron decreased it was replaced by Steel this

Town has never fully recovered now the peak population of the town was in 1950 there were 16,000 people here today there’s a little over 10,000 like Portsmith there are a ton of churches here uh this is the Episcopal Church you can see some more up here in

The distance so we’ll go take a look at them but before we get there we’ll talk about football like fors iron had a professional football team in fact they had one long before Portsmith they were organized in 1919 the team played from 1919 to

1930 then ran out of money a lot of the players went up to Portsmouth and played with the Spartans but this is the thing with the ironon tanks they were one of the first teams to play on Thanksgiving so when those players that ended up in Portsmouth uh ended up in

Detroit the uh owners of the Detroit team asked them what do you think the best day to play football is and those players said we always had the biggest crowds on Thanksgiving and so the tradition of Detroit plane on Thanksgiving was born that’s where that came

From I was always wondering in that you may have been too that is the story behind Detroit always playing on Thanksgiving day I’m just uh looking at this church First Methodist Church that is something isn’t it and look at this one down here we’ll go down there and take a look at that one and so this is the St Paul Lutheran Church and across the street there’s this one W that is something isn’t it St Lawrence otou is what it says on the

Front huh that is a spectacular building and just walk into a neighborhood that is quite beautiful wow I’m just out on foot just wandering around the downtown area it’s rather beautiful and these homes wow something else about this town I haven’t told you yet by the way it’s

Known for its Memorial Day Parade the first Memorial Day Parade held in this town was in 1868 and it has been held every year since it is the oldest continuously running Memorial Day Parade in the United States and the town is famous for it uh let’s see First Presbyterian Church

Wow I’m a little surprised at the condition of it specifically the tower there it is an incredibly beautiful building but it needs a little TLC doesn’t it there’s a building here called Memorial Hall not sure what’s going on here it looks like it’s been gutted I think it’s military Memorial of some

Sort maybe they plan on refurbishing it not sure but it is in really bad condition right now a little door here it’s just full of trash now wonder why I think I read somewhere this building it’s pretty old built in the 1800s mid 1800s I really hate to see this hm

But you always like to see this y That’s a cat Two Towns two cats take another look in here wow huh that’s crazy it’s kind of strange they have padlocked gate but you can just walk in it in the back well hopefully they’ll do something with this in time

I love that awesome Furniture sign Furniture mcau Aaron City Hardware Furniture well as I Meander through downtown here let’s check out the hard Numbers already told you the population 1950 A little over 16,000 a little over 10,000 now so the town has lost pretty significant population median age is 42 that’s a little higher than the US the US is 39 54% of the town is female 46% male very similar to the last

Town uh 95% % of this town is white 2% is black 1% is Hispanic 2% is mixed race the median household income here is 38,700 a year that is $744 a week poverty is 26% children 17 and9 under 37% folk 65 and over it’s 18% it’s a great old theater looks like

It’s still in operation irton wizardfest oh that you’d like to see lot of Christmas decorations in there uh cost of living here is 13% lower mostly because of housing housing is 47% lower uh Transportation like Portsmith is 24% higher interesting groceries are 1% higher healthc care is 2% higher those numbers are very

Similar Portsmith median home value here is $91,000 crime in this town is extremely low uh latest report seven incidents per 1,000 people that is a third of what the US is us is 20 23 23 per 1000 they have seven uh it’s almost all property crime too six of those seven crimes were

Property crime one violent crime that is crazy low crazy low crime it’s impressive well everyone that’s going to be the end of this video we are heading into West Virginia that’s coming up next we will see you there and the church bells ring