GARRETTSVILLE

On September 1, 1864, at a shoe shop, 62 voters elected a mayor, recorder and five trustees. Nine days later, at the first meeting of the incorporated village of Garrettsville, the building of a plank walk from the depot to the east side of town was unanimously approved. By that time or soon after, Garrettsville had become the home of a grist mill, carriage factories, distillery, tannery, woolen mill, chair and table factory, two or three foundries, a saw mill which also turned out rakes, a pail factory and, because flax was an important crop, a linseed oil factory.About 1820, the store which was to become The Root Store, the oldest department store in Portage County, was founded near the intersection of what today is S.R. 82 and 88. In 1830, a tin shop which added hardware in 1854 was established near the intersection of Center Street and Maple Avenue. A Farmer's Bank was founded in 1871, and in 1875, a pharmacy was established by the Morris Brothers, a descendant of Pelsue Drug ...