Bethany sophomore preserving history in his Ohio hometown

BETHANY, W.Va. – A Bethany College sophomore spent his winter break preserving the history of his hometown of Dover, Ohio.

As an intern with the Dover Public Library, Noah Gill was part of a project to collect and archive vintage postcards as a way to showcase the city’s history over the last century.

“I have always liked history and I thought this would be a fun experience to work with local historical documents,” he said.

The collection was a joint project with the Dover Historical Society Archives. Donated postcards were digitized, cataloged in binders, and archived in the Local History Room of the library. Other were scanned and returned to their owners.

The city of Dover was founded along the Ohio and Erie Canal in 1807 and once was the only canal stop in the region. In Tuscarawas County, Dover is about 75 miles from Bethany.

“It is especially interesting to see 100-year-old post cards featuring many sites and structures that can be seen in Dover today, but also to see pictures of demolished historic sites that could have only been dreamt of being seen in person,” Gill said.

Gill said he was most fascinated by a series of postcards illustrating the construction of the Dover Dam in the mid-1930s.

“I just thought it was interesting because, to me, it did not seem like the type of thing to feature on a postcard someone would send out, but it was also very amazing to see how the dam was actually built,” he said.

While Gill is back on campus for the spring term, he said he plans to resume the internship in this summer.

Gill, a sports management major, is a Presidential and Honors Scholar at Bethany and is part of the Disciples and Friends student group that works with Bethany Memorial Church. He is also part of a campus Bible study and keeps statistics for many of the Bison athletic teams.

ABOUT BETHANY COLLEGE

Bethany College, founded in 1840, is the oldest private college in West Virginia. The Bethany experience focuses on academic excellence in the area of liberal arts and prepares students for a lifetime of work and a life of significance.