Youngstown

Youngstown, a city and the county-seat of Mahoning county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Mahoning river, about 60 m. S.E. of Cleveland. Pop. (1900) 44,885 (12,207 being foreign-born especially English, Irish and German); (1910 census) 79,066. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, the Erie, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Pennsylvania, and the Pittsburg & Lake Erie railways, and by interurban electric lines. The Rayen High School (incorporated 1856) was endowed under the will of Judge William Rayen (1776-1854). The Reuben McMillan Public Library (about 25,000 volumes in 1910) is housed in a building finished in 1910 and is named in honour of Reuben McMillan (1820-1898), formerly superintendent of schools. Among other public buildings are the post office and Federal court house, the county court house, the city and the Mahoning Valley hospitals, and the Y.M.C.A. building. The business district lies in the valley on the N. of the river; the residential districts are chiefly on the neighbouring hills. Youngstown has four parks, including Mill Creek (483(483 acres), East End (60 acres) and Wick (48 acres), presented to the city by the Wick family, descendants of the merchant Henry Wick (1771-1845). The value of its factory products increased from $33,9 08 ,459 in 1900 to $48,126,885 in 1905. The most important establishments are blast-furnaces, iron and steel works (of the U.S. Steel Corporation) and rolling mills.

Youngstown was named in honour of John Young (1763-1825), a native of Petersborough, New Hampshire, who in 1796 bought from the Connecticut Land Company a tract of land upon which the city now stands, and lived there from 1799 until 1803. The first permanent settlement was made probably in 17 9 6 by William Hillman. The tract was set off as a township in I Soo, and the first township government was organized in 1802; the town was incorporated in 1848, and was chartered as a city of the second class in 1867. The countyseat of Mahoning county was removed from Canfield to Youngstown in 1876, and after much litigation the legality of this removal was confirmed by the United States Supreme Court in 187 9. The first iron-mining in the region was done in 1803 by Daniel Eaton, who in 1804 built the first blast-furnace W. of Pennsylvania and N. of the Ohio river. Eaton also built in 1826 the first blast-furnace within the present limits of Youngstown.