Youngstown Ohio History

21 News Now, More Local News for Youngstown, Ohio - Blaze near lab largest ...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - The threat of wildfire reaching the Los Alamos nuclear lab and the town that surrounds it eased as crews made progress under cloud cover and rain, but concerns turned Friday to lands held sacred by a Native American tribe as firefighters braced for a hot, dry weekend.

The fire has blackened more than 162 square miles in the last six days, making it the largest fire in New Mexico history. Erratic winds and dry fuels helped it surpass the 2003 Dry Lakes fire, which took five months to burn through 94,000 acres in the Gila National Forest.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory remained closed, and fire officials said there was no chance the thousands of evacuated residents and lab employees would be able to resume their normal lives Friday.

Still, the fire chiefs in charge of battling the massive blaze were confident their crews would be able to keep flames from spreading down a canyon that leads to the lab and the town.

"The way it looks is we made good progress on that side as far as holding the fire from going any farther toward Los Alamos along the canyon," said fire information officer Rick Barton. "The guys are burning out in that area in places trying to strengthen the lines that we have established."

Los Alamos County Fire Chief Doug Tucker said the area in the canyon that was burning previously was thinned, providing a safe area for firefighters to attack the flames.

The challenge again Friday would be the weather.

"The good news is there may be less erratic winds, but it's going to be warmer and drier," Barton said. "The fire will start heating up later in the day as the moisture evaporates. Just hotter and drier."

Conditions in the area are so dry that the fire was burning downed trees that were scorched in the huge Cerro Grande fire in 2000. The fire also burned through moisture-rich aspen trees to push into the canyon.

"This is a fire like we've never seen before," Santa Clara Pueblo Gov. Walter Dasheno told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

He said his people are devastated by the news coming in from the front lines of the firefighting efforts - cultural sites destroyed, forest resources lost and plants and animals that the pueblo's 2,800 residents depend on gone.

"We cried when we saw Mother Nature doing what she was doing to our canyon area. We were helpless," Dasheno said.

Mahoning Valley History: David Tod: Ohio's Civil War Governor

In the mid to late 1800's David Tod was one of the most successful of a growing group of Youngstowners who combined buisness interests, such as the canal and railroad, with politics. He was the son of a prominent attorney, George Tod of Connecticut, who had come to Youngstown in 1800 with his wife Sarah and two children. David was born in 1805, was raised at the family's expansive farm at Brier Hill, and attended neighborhood schools and the Burton Academy in Geauga County before studying law and being admitted to the ohio bar in 1827. He was married in 1832 to Maria Smith of Warren. They had three daughters and four sons. When Tod inherited his father's estate in 1841, he continued his business and political activities and opened one of the first coal mines in the Valley. In addition to shipping his coal west and then north to Lake Erie via the Pennsylvania and Ohio canal, he helped to pioneer the use of the high-quality "Brier Hill" coal as a fuel in local blast furnances in the reduction of iron ore. His economic pursuits led from the canal to railroads. In combination with promoters from Youngstown, Warren and other areas he helped form the Cleveland and Mahoning Railroad and served as its preident from 1858 until his death in 1868. He established the Brier Hill Iron and Coal Company, having bought the iron works of the Akron Manufacturing Company and moving it to his Youngstown properties. He thus helped to strengthen the Valley's iron industry. Despite his prominence in the economic development of the Mahoning Valley, Tod was even better known throughout the state and nation as a Democratic politician. After running unsuccessfully for governor in 1844 and 1846, losing in both instances to Whig candidates by narrow margins, he was appointed by President James K. Polk as minister to Brazil, a post he held for five years. Between 1851 and 1861, he concentrated on his coal, iron and railroad interests in the Mahoning Valley before returning to politics. The Civil War brought Tod his greatest political prominence. A strong supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Stephen A. Douglas in 1860, he played a central role in the party convention in Baltimore, which chose the Illinoisan to oppose Abraham Lincoln. Following Douglas's defeat, the Union party combined Lincoln's Republicans with War Democrats like Tod who supported the military effort against the Confederacy.

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