by Marilyn Black, VP-Heritage Development 

   On February 19, several volunteers and staff members of the Oil Region Alliance took a field trip to the Mahoning Valley to become better acquainted with the exhibits, archives, personnel, and policies of a museum in a nearby state.  Several advisors working on the current feasibility study underway for a new museum about natural gas history recommended this site, especially because it houses the collection of the East Ohio Gas Company.  EOG, as it approached its 90^th anniversary in 1988, seriously considered forming and sponsoring a new museum in Cleveland about its corporate history and natural gas in general.  Elizur Strong, the first President of East Ohio Gas, resided in Oil City; he had gained his pipeline and executive experience while working at National Transit Company.

   Attending were Lois McElwee (area historian), Neil McElwee (historian and former employee of Columbia Gas Company), Megan Buchman (archaeologist who is assisting ORA with the natural gas archive collection), Melissa Mann (Deputy OIL 150 Director), Michael Henderson (Project Manager), and Marilyn Black (Vice-President for Heritage Development). 

   The Youngstown Historical Center for Industry & Labor is located at 151 West Wood in downtown Youngstown, nestled within the campus of Youngstown State University.  While the YHC remains owned by the Ohio Historical Society, effective January 2010 its daily management was transferred to YSU via an innovative partnership agreement which will continue for 18 months.  Nancy Haraburda, Historic Site Manager, is the only full-time employee; she is assisted by Graduate Assistant Interns, undergraduate work study workers, and one professor who is on site approximately 10 hours/week. 

   This 34,000 square foot three-floor facility is housed in a distinctive Postmodern style building designed by architect Michael Graves to resemble a steel blast furnace.  Its permanent exhibits concentrate on work and life among the iron and steel industries which shaped so much of the history of the Mahoning Valley.  Initially dedicated in 1992, the Youngstown Historical Center is now open Wednesday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. until 5 p.m., with holiday and Sunday hours of noon until 5 p.m.  Admission fees are $7 adult, $6 for AAA members/Senior Citizens; $3 for students; and free for children ages 5 and under, members of the Ohio Historical Society, and YSU faculty/staff/students.  Its well-maintained exhibits are typically visited by between 6,000 and 7,000 people per year. 

   The YHC exhibits combine artifacts, videotaped interviews and full-scale re-creations of the places where steelworkers lived and worked in a tribute to the men and women who forged a way of life from iron and steel for almost two centuries.  The only exhibit pieces related to natural gas are the models of the rolling mills which used natural gas as their primary fuel supply.  If ORA were to produce a traveling exhibit about natural gas, this facility would welcome it for a several-month stay in their changing exhibits wing/classroom.

   The top floor of the YHS contains one of eight regional archives administered by the Ohio Historical Society, in this case serving a 6-county area including being the repository for all municipalities therein.  Ms. Martha Bishop has served as the part-time Assistant Librarian overseeing and organizing these archives for 13 years; she is assisted by YSU student workers and volunteers.  The bulk of the archives are municipal records, plus a wide range of steel industry and area history items.  While typically 400 to 500 patrons visit these archives in person during a year, many more utilize the terrific on-line archives finding guide at www.ohiohistory.org/resource/archlib/dominion/finding. 

   The East Ohio Gas Collection constitutes about 200 Hollinger boxes of well-organized paper files, photographs, publications, and audio/visual training tapes which were donated by EOG to YHS in 1998.  The most frequently requested items from the EOG collection are vintage photos (i.e. extensive photos about laying gas pipelines), training manuals, items about the 1944 explosion in Cleveland, and back issues of the East Ohio News.  EOG was the largest retailer of natural gas in the state of Ohio; it's now part of Dominion.  EOG transferred its 3-D items to the State Museum in Columbus, Ohio, in approximately 1994-1995.

   Because Marilyn had been able to tap the on-line finding guide in advance, Ms. Bishop had the boxes pulled and waiting for in-person inspection by the ORA team who wore cotton gloves as they examined the files and selected items for Ms. Bishop to copy.  Among the information gleaned were EOG's 1988 budget, interpretive themes list, building diagrams, and initial campaign for their proposed natural gas museum; they shortly thereafter scuttled those plans and instead during the next 10 years prepared their files for formal archiving via the OHS system.  Also located were two different histories of the natural gas industry written in 1927, as well as the transcript of an excellent summative 1988 speech by then EOG President J. Richard Kelso (a grandson of Sherman Kelso, who worked as a tool dresser at the Haymaker gas well in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, in the late 1870s) and the commemorative book published for their 90^th anniversary.  Each of those items has been copied and provided to the consultant team of Experience Design which is preparing the natural gas museum study for the Oil Region Alliance.