Hudsonhubtimes.com - Kaleidoscope: Smucker's, Smith's Dairy are prides of Orrville in Wayne County

by Ken Lahmers, Aurora Advocate editor

On Route 57 northeast of Smithville in Wayne County is Orrville, a town of about 8,500 which is home to the famous J.M Smucker Co. and Smith's Dairy -- "the dairy in the country."

Founded in 1897, Smucker's has a large retail store south of town called Simply Smucker's.

The firm is the nation's largest maker of fruit spreads, peanut butter, shortening/oils, ice cream toppings, sweetened condensed milk and health/natural foods.

Smucker's is in the middle of acquiring Proctor & Gamble's Folgers coffee business, and recently was added to the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, replacing Terex.

Smith Dairy was founded in 1909. It owns the Ruggles ice cream brand, and bought out the 100-year-old Goshen Dairy in my hometown of New Philadelphia in 2002.

It processes more than 100,000 gallons of milk a day and sells 4 million gallons of ice cream a year. Since 1999, it has sold milk in Yellow Super Jugs.

Orrville is the hometown of legendary basketball coach Bobby Knight. Other major industries there are Orrco, which makes Orrville Pet Products; the Schantz Organ Co., JLG and Quality Castings.

A couple of unique museums are in Orrville. The Toy and Hobby Museum features toy trucks, miniature farm equipment and pedal tractors, while the Remember When Agriculture Museum covers the history of farming, with many old-time farm implements.

Orrville also is the place I went to board two Orrville Railroad Heritage Society train excursions this year. A restored depot houses a museum.

About 5 miles north of Orrville on Route 57, I stopped to snap a photo of an old Page walking dragline -- from the 1940s or 1950s -- at Zollinger Sand & Gravel.

It sets serenely a few hundred feet off the road, and appeared not to be used for some time.

John W. Page invented the dragline in 1904. The company existed until 1988, when the Harnischfeger Co. -- maker of the P & H line of mining and construction equipment -- acquired it.

In the 1960s, Page Engineering pioneered an archless bucket for its draglines.

Wooster: County seat

Wooster, with a population of 24,000, is the county seat and home to a private college.

For 124 years, the town has been home to Freedlander's, one of the nation's oldest department stores. Sadly, it will close at the end of the year. The downtown building will be razed for future development.

Stanley Gault, once a chief executive officer for the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., owned the store for a few years. He also was CEO of Rubbermaid, which has a big store called Everything Rubbermaid in Wooster.

In the summer, the College of Wooster hosts the Ohio Light Opera, the only professional company in the nation devoted to operetta.

One of the major industries in Wooster is the Gerstenslager Co., part of Worthington Industries since 1997 and the leading independent supplier of past model service stampings to major automakers.

A few other neat spots

I visited Dalton (population 1,600), the hometown of Aurora residents Gordon Ober and Darryl Mast. It's on Old Route 30 (Lincoln Highway) not far from the Stark County line.

Natives of the town are quick to point out the name is pronounced "dal-ton" (like in Dallas) not "doll-ton," like most outsiders pronounce it.

Dalton is home to the Buckeye Event Center, where many trade shows, banquets and conferences take place, and the 9 1/2-mile Sippo Valley Rail-Trail runs from the village east into Stark County.

I traveled through Marshallville (pop. 800) on Route 94 north of Dalton, and Mount Eaton (pop. 250) and Apple Creek (pop. 1,000), both on Route 250.

Marshallville is home to the Marshallville Packing Co., one of Ohio's largest meat markets featuring sausage, smoked meat, fresh beef, pork and chicken.

I passed through Mount Eaton and Apple Creek many times in my younger years on my way to and from horse shows in the Wooster/Ashland area.

I was surprised to see that the Golden Bear and Guerne Heights Drive-In, two of my favorite spots to grab ice cream cones near Apple Creek, are still in business.

I didn't get to Shreve (pop. 1,600), but it's close to Killbuck Marsh, the largest freshwater wildlife marsh in Ohio. Its 5,492 acres feature hunting, trapping, fishing, bird watching and hiking.

Wayne County has many businesses which sell Amish-made goods such as furniture and quilts, and also many Amish-style restaurants.

I stopped for a mid-afternoon dinner at the Amish Door just outside Wooster. Some other great places are The Barn near Smithville, Das Dutch Kitchen near Dalton, the Smithville Inn and Des Dutch Essenhaus near Shreve.

Even if you don't stop anywhere along the way, a drive through the county is enjoyable, with many Amish buggies sharing the roads and large silos poking up toward the sky at Amish and modern farms.

In the fall, there plenty of leaves are turning colors, and one can see corn shocks in fields at Amish farms and self-propelled combines crawling through large fields of corn.

E-mail: klahmers@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3155