Midvale History Day to be held Sept. 10
Three wooden plates commemorating Kelley Field in Midvale will be auctioned off at Midvale History Day on Sept. 10.
Mine-ding Midvale’s History group will turn the Midvale Park pavilion into a Midvale history museum for the day on Saturday, Sept. 10 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The group will feature the history of Kelley Field. The celebration was delayed two years after being canceled due to COVID-19 in 2020.
Kelley Field was named in memory of James R. Kelley, who donated the land for the field.
It was put into use in 1957, and its history ended Oct. 31, 2019, when the stadium hosted its last home high school football game. In 2020 Indian Valley football games were played at the new stadium in Gnadenhutten.
Every year the group features a different segment of Midvale history. In the past they’ve featured the brick yard that once employed many area residents, the school and the Midvale Speedway.
Everyone is invited to attend the event, especially former high school football team members from the Midvale Blue Devils (1957-67), Indian Valley North Big Blue (1968-88) and Indian Valley Braves (1989-2019) who have played on Kelley Field.
Mine-ding Midvale’s History will have more display boards featuring Kelley Field in addition to the one they featured for this article.
“I have like six more of these telling about when it was Indian Valley North and when it was the Braves. Of course, the Braves have won more tournament games and stuff than what any of the other teams did,” said Brenda Stafford, who helped organize the Mine-ding Midvale’s History organization.
Stafford said the teams have had some interesting nicknames over the years including “the hogs” in 1982 due to their hogging all of the yardage under coach Bob Zontini and assistants Greg Starr, John Metzger and Mike Russell. Their season record was 9-0-1.
In 1986 they were known as “the dawgs” and had a season record of 9-1. The most famous thing about holding the high school games at Kelley Field was the painting of the flat rock face above the field.
A featured event for history day will be a base ball game between the Canal Dover Redlegs and members of the Meeting of the Minds group. Meeting of the Minds is a nonprofit group that meets in Midvale and offers help to individuals and their families and friends to overcome substance abuse.
The Midvale United Methodist Church will operate a concession stand during the event.
“They’re serving sandwiches and drinks, and everything will be donation,” said Candi Wilson, who also helped organize the organization.
The history group will auction three numbered wooden Warther plates honoring Kelley Field at the event. They also will hold a raffle at the pavilion for a variety of items including raffle baskets and a $100 gas card.
Tickets for a teddy bear, made from the lining of an Indian Valley North school jacket, will be raffled at the history day event.
The base ball game will start at 10:30 a.m. Play will be a little different given the Canal Dover Redlegs play old-fashioned base ball.
“It’s going to be in the big field, in the middle between both actual ball fields, because they don’t play on the ball field. They play in the grass,” Stafford said, adding the Redlegs will wear vintage base ball uniforms.
Travis Garrett from the Meeting of the Minds group is putting together a team to compete against them. They will not wear the vintage outfits.
Former Cleveland Indians baseball pitcher Perci Garner will throw the first pitch.
There also will be a homemade pie auction during breaks in the base ball game.
“This year we are celebrating 20 years. In 2002-03 is when we first started Mine-ding Midvale’s History with our first book,” Wilson said.
The group became a 501(c)(3) organization in 2016.
It was Stafford of Midvale who came up with the idea to have her class at Midvale Elementary write a history book on the village. Wilson, who lives in nearby Brightwood, was all in when she heard the idea.
“Mine-ding Midvale’s History has really been in existence that long, starting with those three books that were student produced,” Wilson said. “And we’re trying to get information for a fourth one to put together.”
The women are glad they are permitted to teach a history lesson on Midvale at the end of the school year. In the future they would like to see a museum in Midvale for the memorabilia they’ve collected over the years.
They also are working with artist Patrick Buckohr of Canton, a former Indian Valley North graduate, to create a metal sculpture of a coal miner to be placed in the square of Midvale. Buckohr is the artist who created the carousel horse sculpture on the square of New Philadelphia. Donations are being accepted for the completion of the project.
Mine-ding Midvale’s History also was asked by Midvale Council to oversee the LoveTusc: Tuscarawas County Sculpture Trail Project for the village.
“We have our artist, and we want to meet with that person to show what we want to depict. And it’ll be the different segments of Midvale that we’ve been featuring,” Wilson said.
They plan to include coal mining, the brick yard, the speedway and the Midvale United Methodist Church, whose building was built in about 1853.
Prior to the history day event, the Midvale Village Council will host a pancake breakfast at the Midvale Park pavilion.
More volunteers for the group are always needed including board and committee members. For more information visit Mine-ding Midvale’s History on Facebook.