History links neighborhoods, sewer problems

Most of the housing lots laid out around 1920 were a fraction of the size required today.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A look at the rapid industrialization of Trumbull County about 100 years ago explains some of the 55 million of septic problems that county officials promise the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to fix over the next 15 years.
Alex Bobersky, local historian and a retired Warren city planner, said many low-income areas across the county that need sewers are neighborhoods that were hastily built near factories to house the multitudes who came to the area seeking factory work.
Between 1910 and 1920, Warren's population grew by 144 percent, the fastest growth rate of any metropolitan area in the state, Bobersky said. In 1910, Warren's population was 10,000 people; by 1930 it had swelled to more than 30,000.
The city, which had been a "cute Western Reserve town" until around the turn of the century, went in a different direction around 1902, when the Warren Board of Trade was formed, Bobersky said.
The board's goal was to attract industry by offering free land. The strategy worked well and led to the creation of the company that became Republic Steel (where WCI Steel is now). By 1930, the area had close to 100 new factories.
"It's hard to comprehend today, but at that time any able-bodied person could walk up the factory gates and get a job," Bobersky said.
Such plentiful work drew workers by the thousands, many of them immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe who spoke little English. "You could hear more foreign languages around the [Courthouse] Square than English," Bobersky said.
Housing was needed
To house these workers, many neighborhoods were built -- and most of them were built near the factories because most workers had to walk to their jobs or take streetcars. Automobiles didn't become common until the 1930s.
Mark Zigmont, a planner with the Trumbull County Planning Commission, said his grandfather was one of many Hungarians and Czechoslovakians from the same area in Pennsylvania who came here in the 1920s to work at Liberty Steel in Warren Township, in the area that's now the former Warren Recycling landfill. Many were escaping jobs in the coal mines, he said.
People like his grandfather were working-class poor and wanted to live close to the factory. In many cases, the factory built housing for workers.
Looking at the times when many of the county's worst unsewered areas were first developed -- in the 1910s and 1920s -- and their locations, Zigmont said it's apparent to him they were built to serve factory workers.
By contrast, people with money lived as close to the downtowns as possible to have access to amenities, Zigmont said.
The common theme that ties together about half of the areas Trumbull County commissioners this month agreed to sewer is the time period when they were laid out, and the approximate quarter-acre size lot sizes they had.
Document signed
The commissioners have signed a consent agreement with the Ohio EPA to address the problem areas.
The Meadowbrook area of Warren Township just west of Warren was laid out in 1920, Brookfield Center in 1924, Scott Street area of Newton Township in 1919, and the Maplewood Park area of Hubbard Township in 1920.
Alan Knapp, the county's planning director, said the areas are in six townships where the biggest septic problems exist: Brookfield, Howland, Hubbard, Newton, Warren and Weathersfield townships.
The reason, he believes, is more than 50 percent of the neighborhood plats recorded before 1959 are in those areas. The reason 1959 is significant, Knapp said, is that's about the time the county began to create zoning and subdivision regulations -- which required larger lot sizes. Larger lots have less trouble handling septic waste.
Today's county subdivision regulations require a lot to be 150 feet wide and 1.5 acres if it is going to use a septic system, Knapp noted.
Expensive problem areas
Although not all of the areas in the county's agreement with the EPA were laid out in the early part of the century, the most expensive problem areas were. The Meadowbrook project is estimated at 9 million, Brookfield Center at 4.5 million, Scott Street at 6.5 million, and Maplewood Park about 11 million -- or 56 percent of the total. Most of the areas are considered low to moderate income and qualify for state and federal grants.
Though precise histories of the areas with septic problems are not readily available, Zigmont said he is relatively sure that most of the housing in the Scott Street area of Newton Township -- laid out in 1919 -- was built by the federal government to serve workers at the Ravenna Arsenal.
Bobersky said the Meadowbrook area -- laid out in 1920 -- was considered a poor site to build houses because it was in an area prone to flooding next to the Mahoning River. However, some working-class people were drawn to the area because the river is wide there and much like a lake, where boating and fishing could be done. The county MetroPark Canoe City is there.
Because it was near a trolley line, residents of the neighborhood could commute to the Ravenna Arsenal or to the factories in the Warren-Girard area.
Bobersky said it is likely many of the unsewered neighborhoods laid out around 1920 in Weathersfield -- such as McKinley Heights, Hilltop and Heaton Chute -- and those in Howland -- such as Bolindale and Morgandale -- were built to provide housing to workers from nearby factories.
Fred Hanley, Hubbard Township trustee, said the Maplewood Park area developed to provide housing for Youngstown-area factory workers.
runyan@vindy.com