110520_GYS

88  GUIDE TO YELLOW SPR INGS  |  2020 – 2021 By ROBIN HEISE Editor’s Note: Greene County archivist Robin Heise has organized several histori- cal walking tours through the village in recent years as part of one of her organizations, YS Heritage. The following information was presented for a walking tour of downtown businesses a few years ago. * * * Before Yellow Springs was incorporated, it had sev- eral other names, including Ludlow and Forest Village. In 1853, William Mills marked off the initial 436 lots on 37 streets of Forest Village, An historical walking tour of downtown Yellow Springs which was incorporated into the Village of Yellow Springs in 1856. Mills had hoped that Yellow Springs would eventually become a bustling town of 10,000 people. Also in 1853, Antioch College opened its doors to students, with Horace Mann serving as its first president. Mann was known as the “father of public education” and an abolitionist. In 1862, the Rev. Moncure Daniel Conway arrived in town with a group of Black citizens formerly enslaved in Virginia, who he believed could live a safe and prosperous life here in Yellow Springs. Over the years, Yellow Springs has been a place for new beginnings and for reju- venation. The healing waters of the Yellow Spring, source of the the village’s name, spurred the development of resorts and health spas in the 19th century. Today the village has about 3,600 residents. Independent Order of Odd Fellows The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) is one of Yellow Springs’ oldest fraternal organizations. The Yellow Springs Lodge No. 279 was instituted on May 21, 1855. This building, however, was not built until 1894. According to an 1894 newspaper article, the original IOOF building was in the planning stages. Early plans indicated that the building would be brick, two stories high, 20½ feet of frontage, 55 or 60 feet long, and fireproof. According to the article, the precautions taken during the construc- tion would allow the lodge to save $150 a year in insurance. The first floor was planned to be rented to a local business, and the upstairs would be used for offices, and at the time of the 1894 newspaper article, the rooms had already been rented in advance. The downstairs has been a phar- macy for most of its history. Gegner’s barbershop Now Yellow Springer Tees Downtown Yellow Springs was the scene of a dramatic 1964 confrontation between police and protesters at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Although Yellow Springs had the reputation as an open and welcoming com- munity, it was really a micro- cosm of the segregated U.S. at the time. In the 1940s, the Little Theatre, now the Little Art Theatre, forced black patrons to sit behind a rope in the back of the theater; the Glen Café and Ye Olde Trail Tavern refused to serve African Americans; and none of the village’s three barbershops would cut a Black person’s hair. Over the next 20 years, a local citizens group success - fully pressured most local businesses to accept Black patrons through boycotts, picketing, civil disobedience, court action and the passing of an anti-discrimination ordinance. By 1960, Lewis Gegner’s barbershop was the lone holdout. In 1961, local resident Paul Graham, who is Black, entered the shop and asked for a haircut. Gegner refused, saying that he didn’t know how to cut his hair. Gegner PHOTO: YELLOW SPRINGS HERITAGE Xenia Avenue looking north in the early years of the automobile, with a streetcar line running down the middle of the road. At right is a building erected by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in 1894 that has mostly housed the local pharmacy.