Block
Russell Center, Ohio
15 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1906 and the latest in 1994. It stands in Russell Township. It lies in ZIP code area 44072. It stands on Silver Creek. The Survey maps it on the South Russell quadrangle.
Then and now
1906 to 1994The same ground, surveyed 88 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.
Topographic sheets covering this place
15 sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1906 USGS Chagrin Falls quadrangle1:62500
- 1908 USGS Chagrin Falls quadrangle1:62500
- 1908 USGS Chagrin Falls quadrangle1:62500
- 1953 USGS South Russell quadrangle1:24000
- 1956 USGS Cleveland quadrangle1:250000
- 1956 USGS Cleveland quadrangle1:250000
- 1956 USGS Cleveland quadrangle1:250000
- 1962 USGS Cleveland quadrangle1:250000
- 1963 USGS South Russell quadrangle1:24000
- 1963 USGS South Russell quadrangle1:24000
- 1963 USGS South Russell quadrangle1:24000
- 1963 USGS South Russell quadrangle1:24000
- 1963 USGS South Russell quadrangle1:24000
- 1986 USGS Cleveland South quadrangle1:100000
- 1994 USGS Cleveland South quadrangle1:100000
What happened here
An account from the chapter on Russell township, The inset identifies its exact source book and publication year.
The Great Freshet
On the morning of September 13, 1878, the Chagrin river rose higher than it had ever been known to rise before. It had been raining steadily for three days, the rain falling in torrents on the night of the twelfth. The destruction of property was very great Cattle, sheep, fences, fields of grain, mill-dams and bridges were swept away.
In the county-history sources
6,754 words on this townshipPioneer and General History of Geauga County, with Sketches of Some of the Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1880 names this settlement in its chapter on Russell Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.
Clark Robinson moved from Shaftsbury, Bennington county, Vermont, to Middlefield, in the fall of 1820, and in 1825, moved to the west part of Newbury, and bought a lot of land in Russell Center, division of Thomas Kinsman, on the east line of the township, at three dollars per acre. He commenced in the woods near the spring, where his son, David, now lives, and on the eighth of November, 1825, moved his family, consisting of his wife, Rebecca, and four children - three sons, Clark, Edwin and David, and one daughter, Phebe, into the body of a log house, put up the day before, with no roof; had some loose boards for a floor, and in the night, had to get up and put up some boards endways to keep of the rain and snow. The old lady, between eighty and ninety years of age, lives with her son, David, on the same old farm. She has probably done more hard work in the township than any other woman, having lived in it more than fifty years.
Passage source: Pioneer and General History of Geauga County, with Sketches of Some of the Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1880.
July 13, 1876, there was a division of the order of the sons of temperance organized at the center of Russell, with about forty charter members, called Russell Center Division, No. 44, Sons of Temperance. The first officers were: Jacob Ghase, W. P.; Mrs. Marion Wilber, W. A.; W. A. Chase, R. S.; A. E. Pelton, A. R. S.; S. Robinson, treasurer; Joseph Wooley, chaplain; H. S. Black, P. G. W. P.; W. A. Pelton, O. S.; Mrs. W. A. Pelton, I. S.; Herman Green, C.; Mrs. Herman Green, A. C.
Passage source: Pioneer and General History of Geauga County, with Sketches of Some of the Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1880.
Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.
Specimens collected near this place
12 of 2,540 shownRegional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 2,540 specimens collected within 10 miles of Russell Center between 1887 and 1975: 2,479 Animalia, 54 Plantae, 7 Fungi. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. Hoenigman, A. M. Evans, A. Woolman and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.
| Image | Species | Year | Collected by | Where, as recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Riparia riparia riparia (Linnaeus, 1758) | 1891 | Fred Haggart | |
 | Medeola virginiana L. | 1895 | Watson,J.R. s.n. [1895-06-30] | [label: Herbarium of J.R. Watson, Berea, O.] Geauga Co. [County] |
 | Scapania undulata (L.) Dumort. | 1896 | Edo N. Claassen | Thompson Ledges |
 | Dryopteris marginalis (L.) A.Gray | 1887 | Leonard, F.E. | Munson |
 | Etheostoma caeruleum Storer, 1845 | 1893 | A. Woolman | Aurora Branch, Chagrin River, Ohio |
 | Etheostoma nigrum Rafinesque, 1820 | 1893 | A. Woolman | Aurora Branch, Chagrin River, Ohio |
 | Nocomis micropogon (Cope, 1865) | 1893 | A. Woolman | Aurora Branch, Chagrin River, Ohio |
 | Noturus flavus Rafinesque, 1818 | 1893 | A. Woolman | Aurora Branch, Chagrin River, Ohio |
 | Rhinichthys atratulus (Hermann, 1804) | 1893 | Woolman | Aurora branch of Chagrin River, Ohio |
 | Cypripedium reginae Walter | 1896 | J. R. Watson | Geauga |
 | Cypripedium parviflorum Salisb. | 1897 | J. R. Watson | Munson |
| Ranunculaceae | 1897 | Ashcroft, G.B. | Munson O. |
All 2,540 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
Mines and quarries near this place
1 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Russell Center: 1 producer. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teague Sand and Gravel Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
| Map | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Briar Hill Corners | 1.9 miles | 15 | |
| Novelty | 2.2 miles | 15 | |
| South Russell | 2.5 miles | 15 | |
| Yates Corners | 2.8 miles | 15 | |
| Fullertown | 3.0 miles | 15 | |
| McFarlands Corners | 3.5 miles | 15 | |
| Lake Lucerne | 4.0 miles | 15 | |
| Beudale (historical) | 4.0 miles | 15 |
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Russell Center | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q22695654 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1065261. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.