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If On A Northeastern Ohio Winter’s Night a Traveler…

The good folks at Mackinaw Valley Institute ponder the passage of time and the provisioning of shelter, as people travel from place to place, needing to find a home in the meantime:…
Russell Arben Fox
December 19, 2013

Palmyra_Stagecoach_2The good folks at Mackinaw Valley Institute ponder the passage of time and the provisioning of shelter, as people travel from place to place, needing to find a home in the meantime:

The Old Stagecoach Inn is a testament to this. Standing three stories tall the building began serving travelers in 1832. Folks heading west to Cleveland enroute from Pittsburgh and Wellsville (the nearest port on the Ohio River) stopped here to nourish, rest and–at times–seek shelter. Looking at the building I can’t help but imagine the sense of relief and comfort that it must have provided. Particularly this time of year. Folks, damp and chilled, traveling over the same frozen ground I now so smugly speed across. Seeking relief from the bitter, westerly wind. I think of them rounding a bend on the Portage-Columbiana Stage Road and through a flurry of descending snowflakes, making out the illuminating candlelight and oil lamps of the Inn.

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A stack of three Local Culture journals and the book 'Localism in the Mass Age'

Russell Arben Fox

Russell Arben Fox is a Front Porch Republic Contributing Editor. He grew up milking cows and baling hay in Spokane Valley, WA, but now lives in Wichita, KS, where he runs the History & Politics and the Honors programs at Friends University, a small Christian liberal arts college. He aspires to write a book about the theory and practice of democracy, community, and environmental sustainability in small to mid-sized cities, like the one he has made his and his family’s home; his scribblings pertaining to that and related subjects are collected at the Substack “Wichita and the Mittelpolitan.” He also blogs–irregularly and usually at too-great a length–more broadly about politics, philosophy, religion, socialism, bicycling, books, farming, pop music, and whatever else strikes his fancy, at “In Medias Res.”

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