Newport named historic district

Resident Judith Kuti did the research that helped the area get registered.

By ALISON KEMP

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

BOARDMAN — A missing street sign on Jennette Drive was replaced in 1975.

It read “Jeanette.”

In 1985, another sign was replaced with that same spelling.

It got Jennette Drive resident Judith Kuti wanting to know which spelling was correct.

Her wish was granted in December 2004 — 18 months after her initial request — by Gary Kubic, who was Mahoning County administrator at the time.

It’s Jennette Drive.

Kuti said Kubic also urged her to do the historical research about her street and surrounding area. What she found put her street on the track to receiving placement in the National Register of Historic Places.

“I didn’t know [the street] was the Newport Village,” Kuti said.

The Newport Village is an allotment of homes just east of Lake Newport, which is part of Mill Creek MetroParks.

What started with five people interested in applying for the historical distinction grew to just over half of all the houses on Jennette Drive, Chester Drive, part of Overhill Drive and some businesses on the west side of Market Street.

Becoming a historic district

The research Kuti completed with help from local historian Rebecca Rogers led to an application for National Register inclusion. The Newport Village Allotment Historic District was entered in the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior on June 9, 2006.

But Kuti did not know where the sign from the National Register would be placed, so she and the village group went to James & Sons Insurance, which is just south of Jennette Drive on Market Street, with a proposal.

James & Sons bought the property on the north corner at Jennette and Market, tore down the building and landscaped the area so the historical marker could be placed there, said Gilbert James, one of the owners.

The marker arrived May 18 and was dedicated May 19. The sign states the history of the area, including that it was one of Youngstown’s earliest automobile-accessible suburban developments in the 1920s. The houses in this area were also required to be either Tudor or colonial architecture.

Not an easy road

Plaques were put on all of the homes in the neighborhood whose owners wanted to be included in the National Register, Kuti said. A fee was required for inclusion because of the research that needed to be completed on the history of the house, so not all of the residents joined, Kuti said.

Kuti explained not all of her neighbors enjoyed what she was trying to do.

“She took a lot of flack, but she held in there,” Jennette neighbor Sue Waring said. “People are a little different now that the sign is up.”

Kuti is different now, too.

She described the whole process as overwhelming, having many sleepless nights going through stacks of paperwork. But her overall feelings are good.

“It was a pleasure,” Kuti said.

The village will be recognized once more, too.

On June 19, the Mahoning Valley Historical Society will present the Community Revitalization Award to Newport Village Historical Center during the Historic Preservation Awards Program.