Presidential birthplace? Ummm great place for a BP gas station!
The (awesome) city of Delaware, Ohio is extremely proud of
its local celebrity: Rutherford B. Hayes. He was born in Delaware on October 4,
1822 and attended the local schools. He also met his wife, Lucy, on the Ohio Wesleyan
University campus near downtown. In short, Delaware was an important part of
Hayes’s life.
How, you may ask, does the city honor the 19th
President of the United States and his time in Delaware? Well we have Delaware
Hayes High School, streets named in his honor, and we erected a gas station
where his house once stood. Apparently there is no greater form of admiration
than gasoline.
A small monument and a flag pole are the only indications
that this was ever a place of historical significance. In fact, half of the
people who walk by the spot don’t even recognize that the monument is there. The workers at Spiegel Grove, the Hayes home and Presidential library
and museum site, remark on the hilariously funny placement of the Delaware BP. “Wanna
go fill up at the Hayes birthplace?” they joke.
Besides the monument, the only remnants of Hayes’s early
life in Delaware are in the Oak Grove Cemetery. Hayes’s parents, Rutherford and
Sophia, are buried there. Marked with a modest marker and a misspelled name (it
says Sophia “Hays”…like really?) are the president’s parents.
Misspelled names and torn down birthplaces are part of my local history. I love my town, but Delaware has really dropped the ball on
honoring Hayes.
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