A look at the predictions made in 1901

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall,
What's the Fairest Town of All
December 26, 1999, article two

A favorite annual year-end ritual for soothsayers, mediums, prognosticators, and fortune-tellers is to predict what will happen during the upcoming new year.

So it was with the local Cassandras of Jan. 1, 1901, the dawn of the 20th century. The Fostoria Daily Review-Dispatch ventured some bold forecasts for Fostoria.

"A hundred years!" mused the paper. "What will Fostoria be then?"

Well, a hundred years have come and gone (almost) and here's what they thought might happen. (It's a good bet these predictions have a "tongue in cheek" quality to them.)

What will Fostoria be then? "A thriving city of a hundred thousand, possibly."

That prediction seems hopelessly laughable in hindsight, but it might not be so unreasonable from the perspective of 1901.

At that time, the merger of Rome and Risdon and the incorporation of Fostoria in 1854 was within living memory for some residents.

Consider how Fostoria's population had grown from then to 1900.

From 700 in 1850 to 1,000 in 1860 (a 43% increase); to 1,700 in 1870 (70% increase"; to 4,000 in 1880 (a whopping 135% jump); to 7,000 in 1890 (a 75% increase); to 7,700 in 1900 (a 10% increase).

That's an average population gain of roughly 65% per decade. Had that rate of growth been sustained, Fostoria would have reached 100,000 people in the early 1950s and finished the century with somewhere in excess of one million, one hundred thousand happy, if crowded, residents.

That'll just set you muttering to yourself over the pitfalls inherent in linear extrapolations, by golly.

What will Fostoria be then? "A stopover station for the International Airship Company's through trains from New York to Chicago."

Farfetched? You bet, but not hopelessly farfetched.

The paper glimpsed the potential of air travel even though the Wright Brothers' historic Kitty Hawk flight was two years in the future.

In addition, Fostoria was the site of five railroad lines, the state of the art means of transportation, so people were accustomed to seeing the town as a transportation center.

It's also interesting that the Daily Review-Dispatch referred to the anticipated flying vehicles as "airships" and "trains." Apparently, the word "airplane" wasn't even part of the language then.

What will Fostoria be then? "Possibly on the line of a deep-waterway canal from the lakes to the Mississippi."

As of 1901, of course, no one had realized the potential of the internal combustion engine and how the mass production of cars and trucks would change the transportation of people and goods.

But in the 19th century people in Ohio understood canals very well. They were vital to the state's economic development.

Ohio had two major canals, the Miami and Erie Canal and the Ohio Canal. The Miami and Erie ran from Toledo to Cincinnati via Defiance, Piqua and Dayton. It was completed in 1845.

The Ohio was constructed from 1825-32 and ran from Cleveland south to Tuscarawas County, turned west to Columbus then south to Portsmouth.

Both canals, but especially the Ohio, were linked to a number of feeder canals and at one point the state had roughly 1,000 miles of canals.

The canals, never a financial success, failed when they couldn't compete with the boom in railway construction in 1850-60.

But Fostoria's population hasn't reached 100,000 and isn't likely to for a couple more years. Fostoria does have an airport, and a nice one, but it's not a bustling hub for air travelers plying the skies between New York and Chicago.

And there aren't any deep-waterway canals in the area, though they did straighten the Portage River a few decades back.

In short, none of those predictions came true, but the Daily Review-Dispatch of Jan. 1, 1901, had some other thoughts to offer for those of us whom might read them 100 years later.

"The twentieth century in Fostoria -- the birth of it. A cold night, with strong winds from the west, carrying snowy sleet of pill pellet size, which, striking the face, cut like a knife.

"The streets deserted, with only a straggler here and there, or the burly form of a policeman in his long night coat. A cannon cracker fired now and then, or a rocket cleaving the sky -- that's the extent of the pyrotechnics.

"The blue light of the Brush lamps flicker and crack, and ghostly shadows hover on the buildings. Indoors, it's more cheerful. A hundred dancers in the queer costumes of the nineteenth century were tripping through the odd dances, so popular now.

"You, reader of a hundred years hence, don't understand the beauty of the two-step, but, say, resurrect it if possible. It's great.

"The churches of Fostoria were illuminated and services were held in most all of them. Christ and the Cross had a great hold on the people of 1900 -- we hope you of 2000 have increased the lead.

"The New Year was ideal. A brilliant sun, on rising met a world covered with snow which would not melt away."

(A thank you to reader Mike Bauer for bringing this article to our attention.)