Editing Amherst, Ohio (section)

==History==
[[Image:Church Street, looking South in Amherst, Ohio, 1910s.jpg|thumb|left|Church Street, looking South in Amherst, Ohio, circa 1910]]
The original village, which eventually became known as Amherst, was established/founded by pioneer settler Jacob Shupe <ref name="Geo.F. 1916">{{cite book|last=Geo.F.|first=Wright|title=A standard history of Lorain county, Ohio|year=1916|publisher=Lewis Publishing Co.}}</ref> (who came to this area in 1811; however, what would become the specific “downtown” area was settled by Josiah Harris in 1818), although the original tiny village was first known only as "Amherst Corners" in the early-1830s. When the village-plat was officially recorded in 1836, it was simply named the "town plat of Amherst", but became "Amherstville" circa-1839, and was later changed to "North Amherst", until finally again simply 'Amherst' in 1909.<ref name="Geo.F. 1916"/> (The original 1820s postal-name of the village's first post-office was "Plato"; and the village's post-office retained that postal-name into the 1840s, even after the local-government name of the village officially became 'Amherstville' by 1840.)<ref>directories of U.S.Post-Offices, var.years beginning 1828.</ref>

The village is often said to have had its beginnings as early as 1811, because land which was settled by pioneer Jacob Shupe, in the [[Beaver Creek settlement (Ohio)|"Beaver Creek Settlement"]] (about a mile north of the later village site), was eventually included into the Amherst city-limits. Shupe's pioneering efforts within the township, which included constructing his own grist-mill/saw-mill and distillery, certainly added to the area's desirability for later pioneers to settle here).<ref name="Geo.F. 1916"/>
By the latter 1800s, Amherst acquired the title ''Sandstone Center of the World''.{{efn-ua|Nearby [[Berea, Ohio]] proclaimed itself "The Grindstone Capital of the World".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kucinich |first1=Dennis |author-link1=Dennis Kucinich |access-date=2013-06-16 |url=http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r112:E21SE2-0166: |title=In Honor of the City of Berea |publisher=[[Congressional Record]] |date=2012-09-21 |archive-date=2014-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140701091801/http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r112:E21SE2-0166: |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}
Many early buildings are constructed of native sandstone, and the quarries were also an important source of [[grindstone (tool)|grindstones]]. There were nine [[sandstone]] [[quarry|quarries]] in the area operating at the peak of production. Cleveland Quarries Company, established in 1868, no longer quarries in Amherst but is still actively quarrying [[Berea Sandstone]].