Cheese Heritage Festival, Wellington, Ohio

This weekend Wellington, Ohio, hosted the Cheese Heritage Festival, which celebrates my hometown's history as the nation's one-time leader in cheese production.  Cheese was big in Wellington back in the mid to late 1800s and the town had more than 40 cheese factories.  Milk for the cheese came from Holstein cows; according to local legend one of the leading citizens purchased a Holstein called Molly Braun in Holland, and many of Molly's decendents helped provide the milk.

We had Holsteins on our family farm.  My brothers and I showed them at the county fair, along with the occasional Brown Swiss, which seemed a little sweeter tempered to me.  As for the folks that ran all those cheese businesses in the 1800s, the Warner and Horr families were the big names then.  I'm not sure if any of the Warner or Horr descendants still live in town, but they did when I was a kid. My dad was on a financial committee for the First Methodist Church and I remember him telling a story about the group discussing fund raising possibilities.  One of the committee members suggested getting donations from "all the Horrs in town,” which is a funnier said out loud. 

This year’s Cheese Festival unfortunately got a bit of a literal damper when a huge rain storm hit early Saturday.  By about noon the rain let up so we checked out the festivities.  There were food tents (including cheese and cheesecake), a beer tent, a wine tent with five local wineries, games for kids plus programs and fun stuff all weekend. You can check it out at the link in my first sentence.

After purusing the festival, Jim and I walked round town and I took photos of a few Wellington architectural details, which are below.  Wellington really is a lovely town, especially the homes on South Main Street, many of which I read were built during the cheese hey day. A little more history and some larger photos of a few buildings can be seen in an earlier post I did by clicking here.

According to the town's website former Ohio govenor, amabassador to France,  and home-town boy Myron T. Herrick donated money for Wellington's library.

A detail on Wellington's middle school.  When I was a kid, I attended all 12 years of school in this building.  I think the town is planning on building a new school and I've heard this building might be torn down and the site made into a park. 

A detail on the current middle school I never noticed before.

A front porch on South Main Street.

And another front porch.

Not sure where in town I saw this.  But I like it. 

One of the buildings in the business district of town.

I think this is the only remaining remnant of  Wellington's once-thriving cheese industry.

On the First United Methodist Church.

Also on the First United Methodist Church.

A sign on the front porch of Bonnie's sister Leslie, whose photo I ran in my last post.

I've always liked this South Main Street home and it's grounds/yard.

Another front porch details with flowers.