source: Hal Weiland, Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum, 11 October 2001
Shakespeare penned the question, “What’s in a name?” Had the English bard ever been to Sulphur Springs, he may not have had to ask. “The water stunk like sulphur,” Wayne Brause said. “Not all of it, but a lot of it.” The village located northeast of Bucyrus never really had an identity crisis, but it did go through a couple of names before settling on Sulphur Springs.
John Slifer came from Maryland in 1825. He purchased a quarter section of Liberty Township from the government in the newly created Crawford County. Slifer, in 1833, drew up the town of Annapolis named after the capital of his home state. His original plat was 20 acres and laid out in some 40 lots around Paris Road. Paris, now the town of Plymouth, was on one end of the road and Bucyrus was on the other. That road is now Ohio 98.
The name Annapolis never really caught on with the residents of the village who called it Slifertown in honor of its founder. The name of Sulphur Springs was given to the community by the postal department of the federal government when a post office was opened in town. This undoubtedly was because of the sulphur spring in the northeast corner of the village. Then in 1890, the post office added an “s” to “Spring” to make it distinct from several Ohio and Midwest villages called Sulphur Spring. The town actually had a section with its own name, Wellsville.
The early population of the community was predominantly German. In addition to Slifer, some of the first homes were built by James Gurwell, John and Nicolas Bolinger, Jacob Peterman, Peter Stuckman and Benjamin Sinn. A sawmill operated by James McKee and later Frank Humiston stood at the junction of the two streams draining the village. After that mill burned, Samuel Ulmer and Charles Lantz brought in a portable mill. William Cooper, Henry Boke and David Streib also operated mills throughout the town’s history.
Some of the earliest industries were a hoop and barrel factory, five wagon and buggy shops and four tanneries. A grist mill in the town was operated by J.B. Squier and W.S. Bacon. Gurwell and Peterman owned a linseed oil mill. Dr. George Zeigler was the area’s first physician and built a large practice. Judge Robert Musgrave moved to Sulphur Springs from Bucyrus in 1841 and purchased land from Slifer who had by then become the justice of the peace. Musgrave set up a dry goods store and an ashery.
In the 1800s, the community had a cider press, several saloons and short-lived distillery and pottery businesses. Cabinet makers, harness makers, shoe makers, tailors, hatters and blacksmiths all made a living in Sulphur Springs. Even as recently as the 1930s and ‘40s, Sulphur Springs was a thriving and self-sufficient community. “There were more stores back then in Sulphur Springs than there are today in Bucyrus,” Brause said. He graduated from Sulphur Springs High School in 1942. “We had two filling stations and gas was 16 cents a gallon. We had two grocery stores and a general store. There were two hardware stores, a drug store with a soda fountain, a tin shop and a bar.”
Brause’s family farmed at the edge of town and in the fall, the cattle would have to be brought back in from their summer pasture. “We’d have a cattle drive,” Brause said laughing. “We’d drive them down the road, about 100 head.” His father had a milk route. “He sold milk at six cents a quart,” Brause said. “He put it in the trunk of his old Studebaker and drove door-to-door. Mother had milk and eggs she sold.” John Striker ran the grocery store then and John Kafer was the town butcher. “He’d go in and cut you a piece right off the quarter,” Brause said of Kafer.
The Liberty Township Fire Department now has a Firemen’s Festival every July. But Brause recalls the community’s 100th birthday party in 1933. “The only thing we really had was the centennial,” Brause said about festivals. “I had scarlet fever and couldn’t go out. They had an airplane at the school to give rides.”
The first school for the children of Sulphur Springs was actually a log schoolhouse south of town at the foot of Klingan Hill. Slifer donated property in town and in 1837, the school was moved to a “new” log home close to the old sulphur spring. A frame school was built in 1857 and used until a brick school was erected in 1873 at a cost of $3,000. The 1923 consolidation of the area county and village districts caused the current school to be built. Sulphur Springs remained a high school until it became part of the Colonel Crawford district in 1960. The 1923 school building is still in use and houses Colonel Crawford students in grades 3-5. “We had a school fire,” Walter Schimpf said. The fire was Nov. 12, 1940. “While they were working on the school to fix it, the lower six grades were in the churches. I remember we didn’t have any indoor plumbing there.”
The community and school had several moments in sports to remember. “Jake Striker signed with the Indians and made it up there to pitch,” Schimpf said. “We also had a state champion in the 100-yard dash in 1946, Herb Light. He ran a 9.9.” Basketball was a big sport in the rural communities. Hoops and backboards adorned almost every barn and out-building. Sulphur Springs was no different.
Like the country itself, Sulphur Springs had divided loyalties during the war between the states. The majority of the community sided heavily with the Union. At least 22 men from Sulphur Springs went to Camp Noble in Tiffin to enlist on Aug. 15, 1861. Their numbers were sufficient to form their own company, Co C of the 49th Regiment O.V.I.Some area residents, however, didn’t share the same sentiment according to The History of Sulphur Springs Ohio. “It is a fact that there were several places in Crawford County it was very imprudent to criticize slavery or slave owners. That the village of Annapolis was not entirely free from people who were strongly favorable to the slave owner’s contentions is very true. It seems occasions of open and free expressions of sympathy for the South and its causes often took place in the saloons of the time.
