January 2017 | Business View Magazine

100 101 It is said that the town of Berea, a city of 19,000 souls in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, got its name by the flip of a coin, back in 1836. In one version of the tale, the Reverend Henry O. Sheldon, a circuit rider, and later the town’s first postmas- ter, had suggested two possible names for the small com- munity due west of Cleveland: Berea and Tabor. As the story goes, John Baldwin, an educator from New England who had moved to the area in 1828, called heads. So, Berea it was. In addition to founding the Baldwin Institute in 1846, which later became Baldwin Wallace College, this somewhat unconventional but multi-talented man was also largely responsible for the town’s early prosperity. Another story goes that one day, while walking home, Baldwin impulsively BEREA, OHIO Berea, Ohio Innovative and proactive AT A GLANCE BEREA, OHIO WHAT: A town of 19,000 WHERE: In Cuyahoga County, about 17 miles southwest of Cleveland WEBSITE: www.cityofberea.org took a new route across the river on his farm and noticed a grouping of exposed rock on its banks. And that was the beginning of the successful Berea quarrying industry that began in the 1840s and lasted for another hundred years. Baldwin surmised that the sand- stone he espied would be suitable for grindstones for the sharpening of tools for farms, homes, and industry. So, he invented a lathe that cut slabs of sandstone into grindstones and shipped them to Cleveland by ox cart. Later on, he built a spur rail- road line to connect his quarries to Matt Madzy