by Emily Rinaman, Technical Services Manager
The Boston Common was the very first park in the United States and this scenic section of the bustling east coast city is not the only model of pure Americana that it has gifted to our country (we’ll visit the other one later in this article).
If a Seneca County resident in the year 2025 wants to get some fresh air and solitude, there are several parks from which to choose. Besides the natural preserves managed by the Seneca County Park District, there are community parks in both Tiffin and several of the villages surrounding the area.
But historically, it wasn’t so easy to visit the park for a day. Slowly over time, society saw the need for designated spaces for people to take a break from both the indoors and a tight schedule. What parks we enjoy today are the outcomes of this trend.
Just a few centuries ago, beautified natural areas were one of the exclusive riches of the social elite. The poorer classes simply did not have the time or money to devote to strolling through a park. Then, around the turn of the century, the wealthy started deeding portions of their land for the purpose of developing public parks. For most of the 1800s, these public areas were designed on the edges of town.
A pavilion was one of the main elements of Riverview Park on the northeast side of Tiffin and welcomed many visitors to the park for various outdoor musical performances. This photo was published in the 75th Anniversary Souvenir of Tiffin commemorative book that has been digitized on the Seneca County Digital Library.
In Tiffin, the classic park that fits this description is Hedges-Boyer Park. Hedges-Boyer Park and the city of Tiffin sits on the land once owned by Josiah Hedges. In 1822, he purchased several acres through the Government Land Office in Delaware, Ohio and with his brother General James Hedges’s help, plotted the oldest streets in Tiffin (several extensions developed over time).
Another area of Tiffin, only on the northeast edge, was developed primarily for the Junior Home orphans, but was open to the public as well. Riverview Park was known to the public as a “driving park”, and most residents (besides the orphans) visited it by way of a carriage. This park exemplified the common beliefs of the era, that public parks could serve as “neutral spaces” where the lower classes, like orphans, could “experience an educating influence to help them acclimate to a sophisticated society.” Around 1900, John and Jennie V. Benner bought their property on what’s now known as Benner Street. They promptly turned a portion of it into Empire Park until the 1920s. (This is now the site of the Adams Street Storage building).
A post card made around 1910 depicts how Meadowbrook Park in Bascom looked when it was considered a "resort” park. This postcard can be viewed on the Seneca County Digital Library.
Meadowbrook Park in Bascom was similarly developed through the charity of a combination of an organization and wealthy folk. This park was once owned by the Tiffin-Fostoria Electric Railway built street car lines directly into the park from the surrounding areas. They allowed a Mrs. Samuel Sneath Sr., who was active with the Women’s Conservation League, to “adopt it as her project”.
While she is responsible for the original pavilion, the first baseball diamond and landscaping, another wealthy individual, James Garfield Haugh, continued her legacy in the 1920s by adding the shelter houses and public swimming pool after he bought additional acreage. He invited the Lions Club to add the iconic Lions statues that over 100 years later still greet people as they enter the park.
Meadowbrook was the perfect image of how parks around the country were transitioning during this time period. Public parks at the turn of the century were becoming the sites of America’s first zoos, music pavilions, formal gardens and even museums. Playgrounds were emerging and later, baseball fields, pools and other facilities.
The popularity of Meadowbrook inspired the Toledo, Fostoria and Findlay Interurban line of streetcars a park to be developed in Arcadia—Reeves Park. It was designed as a “resort park” like Meadowbrook.
In Risingsun, Ohio, which lies just northwest of Seneca County, a former teacher, left an area of land in her will to the village. Fostoria’s Board of Realtors gifted 500 trees and the Boy Scouts planted them.
A Junior Home homekid sits on top of one of the lion statues greeting people at the entrance of Meadowbrook Park. The Bascom Lions Club donated the statues to the park in the 1920s. This photo can be found on the Seneca County Digital Library.
Another company in Seneca County, the Basic (quarry) in Bettsville deeded a portion of its land for a public park, naming it Howard P. Eels Park in April 1954 and “made available to the public 40 acres of land for recreational purposes.” For many decades thereafter, the quarry, baseball diamonds and picnic areas welcomed visitors. But as the author of this article will attest, it was its annual fireworks display on Independence Day that always enticed the largest crowds.
By this point in more recent history, parks were becoming sites for recreation rather than leisurely time spent in nature. Sports facilities were being re-named as parks in the style of none other than Fenway Park in Boston (home of the Boston Red Sox). The village of Fort Seneca, Ohio, and it’s sister, Old Fort, Ohio, was caught up in this fervid baseball fever. Its baseball-filled park emerged through the combined efforts of the Old Fort Lions Club, Little League baseball coach, Robert Hersch, and the Old Fort Ex-Hi Club.
Playgrounds, baseball diamonds and picnic areas are some of the common features of modern parks. The “Kiddie Korral” at Hedges-Boyer Park in Tiffin was added to the park in the 1960s. This photo was included in “Tiffin Area, Ohio” book published in the 1970s.
Additionally, the Tiffin Garden Club and Tiffin Woman’s Club partnered with Tiffin’s Park Committee throughout the 1940s to beautify Oakley Park and Frost Parkway Park in Tiffin and add a drinking fountain in Hedges-Boyer Park. Oakley Park, which is on the north end of Tiffin, had originally been proposed as a site for a city hospital.
Republic, Ohio, also gained a park around the same time as Bettsville. When its village council originally leased the plot, it was overgrown. When it was finally ready to open, it proudly became the first park in Seneca County to have a lighted baseball diamond. The Republic Lions Club began sponsoring a baseball tournament and tractor pulls during Labor Day weekend.
Likewise, the Bloomville Lions Club has been largely responsible for the development of Beeghly Park in Bloomville, Ohio. Over the years, this park has hosted a petting zoo, horseshoe tournament and many baseball games.
As the village parks cropped up all over Seneca County, so did additional parks in Tiffin and the ones which already existed grew themselves into their more modern images we see today. The public swimming pool inside Hedges-Boyer was installed in 1953 (a video of the dedication ceremony can be viewed on the Seneca County Digital Library). The number of parks in Tiffin grew from seven parks covering 105 acres in the 1980s to 12 parks covering 142 acres in the 1990s. They collectively included playgrounds, tennis courts, shuffleboard, banquet halls, hiking trails and sidewalks, memorials, and festivals.
Works cited:
“75th Anniversary Souvenir”. 1897. Seneca County Digital Library. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/22962/rec/2
Barnes, Myron. “Josiah Hedges and His Descendants.” https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/22645/rec/4
Bascom Garden Club. “Bascom Then and Now.” 1976. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/29193
Durrett, John. “History of Bettsville.” 1984. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/29643
Earth Share. “Public Parks and Urban Green Spaces: A History of Accessibility (or Lack Thereof)” September 2024. https://www.earthshare.org/public-parks-and-urban-green-spaces-a-history-of-accessibility-or-lack-thereof/
Fort Seneca Sesquicentennial Committee. “Fort Seneca Sesquicentennial 1936-1986. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/82516
Fostoria Centennial Committee. “Fostoria Centennial Souvenir Program 1954.” Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/31504
Gershon, Livia. “Uplifting the Masses with Public Parks.” JSTOR Daily. June 2021. https://daily.jstor.org/uplifting-the-masses-with-public-parks/
“History of Public Parks in America.” Trashcans Unlimited. April 2020. https://trashcansunlimited.com/blog/the-history-of-the-public-park-in-america/
Howe, Barbara. “Building of the Week.” Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/28064
Junior Home Program and History, 1907. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/64
Iannantuono, Dawn. History of 155 Parkway. 2017. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/53274
“Risingsun, Ohio.” https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/30016/rec/6
Scipio-Republic History Society. “History of Republic”. 1989. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/33668
“Tiffin Parks, Past to Present”. League of Women Voters of Tiffin, https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/34925/rec/6
Seneca County Historical Society. “Fort Ball Gazette Newsletter.” March 1997. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/73462
Tiffin Area Chamber of Commerce. “Tiffin, Ohio A Good Community in Which to Live and Work.” 1990. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/34766
Photo of Junior Home Girl at Meadowbrook Park, 1930s: https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/48459
To watch the video of the dedication of the Hedges-Boyer swimming pool, visit this link: https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/71236