If you’ve never visited Ohio’s Magic City, this holiday season may be
the right time to discover it.
Barberton was an early planned community, the brainchild of an
industrialist by the unlikely name of Ohio Columbus Barber. In the
early 1890s, O. C. Barber and a few wealthy cronies bought land
surrounding a lovely glacial lake, which they designated the center of
town. They routed a railroad spur around it to serve new industries,
paved streets, built houses, and invited new residents. They came in
droves. A few years later, when the Panic of 1893 left so many other
new settlements economically devastated, Barber’s relocation of the
Diamond Match Company to the new town guaranteed not only survival but
phenomenal prosperity, earning Barberton the nickname of “Magic City.”
Over the course of the last half-century, the city of Barberton has
been virtually surrounded by the Akron-Canton metropolis, but much of
the magic remains, or has been reinvented. One such invention is the
Magical Theatre Company, one of only six professional resident theaters
for young audiences in the country. Founded thirty years ago as the
Akron Children’s Theatre, the MTC now occupies a renovated 1919 theater
in the heart of Barberton’s historic retail district. For the next
three weekends, Magical Theatre Company will be staging an original
production, A Little House Christmas, adapted from the works of Laura
Ingalls Wilder. Friday evening shows are at 7:30 pm; Saturday and
Sunday matinees are at 2 pm. Tickets are $8, and should be ordered in
advance by calling the box office (330.848.3708).
A visit to Barberton makes a nice Sunday afternoon outing, but if you
can finagle it any other day, you’ll enjoy more of the cozy nostalgia
that downtown Barberton has to offer. On Saturdays, most of the small
downtown shops are open, including an antiques arcade and the wonderful
Al’s Quality Market, a grocer and butcher shop that could easily pass
for a set from the Andy Griffith Show. Of course, on Saturdays you’ll
still be left pressing your nose up against the glass at Al’s Corner
Restaurant, the neighborhood diner which is open only for weekday lunch.
However, if you can’t get homemade cabbage rolls, dumplings and
paprikas at Al’s, you can enjoy another local specialty: the Barberton
Chicken Dinner. Barbertonians and their guests consume more than 7-1/2
tons of chicken every week (!) — more chicken per capita than any
other city in the nation. The city boasts several decent chicken
houses, but the most centrally-located is Whitehouse Chicken, just four
blocks east and three blocks north of the theater (180 Wooster Road
North, 330.745.0449). Here you can feed a family of four for $25. To
get the authentic local meal, be sure to order a side of “hot sauce” —
really a spicy rice dish — and Barberton’s version of coleslaw.
While you’re in town, visit the vestiges of two of O.C. Barber’s
consuming passions: the Diamond Match Company and Anna Dean Farm. From
the Park Theatre, the old match factory buildings can be found by
taking Tuscarawas Avenue east three blocks to 2nd Street. Turn south
and watch for Diamond Avenue. Once you’ve had a look at the factory
complex, backtrack to Tuscarawas and continue east again across the
railroad tracks to East 1st Street. Turn south, cross Robinson, and
you’ll see the remaining buildings of Barber’s great industrial farming
experiment, preserved in a 13-acre municipal park. A short trail brings
you up close to the piggery, colt barn, powerhouse and the big No. 1
barn.
End your day in Barberton with a stroll around Lake Anna to see the
city’s holiday light display before heading back north.
(To get to downtown Barberton, take I-77 south, continuing on SR-21
when the highway separates near Montrose. Follow I-76 east; take the
Barber Rd. exit south. Barber becomes 4th St. NW, which ends at Lake
Anna. The theatre and retail district is one block south of the lake,
on Tuscarawas between 3rd and 6th Streets.)