Editing Marion, Ohio (section)

==History==
[[File:Marion Ohio City Hall.jpg|thumb|City Hall in downtown Marion]]
Marion was laid out in 1822, and is named in honor of General [[Francis Marion]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Overman |first=William Daniel |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015015361465;view=1up;seq=99 |title=Ohio Town Names |publisher=Atlantic Press |year=1958 |location=Akron, OH |page=83}}</ref> It was incorporated as a village by the Legislature of Ohio in its 1829-1830 session. On March 15, 1830, Marion elected Nathan Peters as its first Mayor.<ref>Leggett, Conaway. The History of Marion County, Ohio: Containing a History of the County; Its Townships, Towns, Churches, Schools, Etc; General and Local Statistics; Military Record; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; History of the Northwest Territory; History of Ohio, 1883, page 510.</ref>

Marion was one of Ohio's major industrial centers until the 1970s. Products of the Marion Steam Shovel Company (later [[Marion Power Shovel]]) were used by contractors to build the [[Panama Canal]], the [[Hoover Dam]], and dug the [[Holland Tunnel]] under the [[Hudson River]]. In 1911, 80% of the nation's steam shovel and heavy-duty earth moving equipment was manufactured in Marion, Ohio.  [[NASA]] contracted with Marion Power Shovel to manufacture the crawler-transporters that moved the assembled [[Saturn V]] rockets (used for [[Project Apollo]]) to the launch pad.

The city is a rail center for [[CSX Transportation|CSX]], and [[Norfolk Southern Railway|Norfolk Southern]]. Marion has long been a center of grain based (corn and popcorn) snack and other products given its close proximity to nearby growing regions in adjacent counties ([[ConAgra]] had a major presence in Marion for decades, and [[Wyandot Snacks]] has been active in Marion since the 1960s). [[Whirlpool Corporation]] is the largest employer in the city operating the largest clothes dryer manufacturing facility in the world.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Marion Area Chamber of Commerce...presents |url=http://www.marionareachamber.org/web_pages/community_profile.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081014193755/http://www.marionareachamber.org/web_pages/community_profile.htm |archive-date=2008-10-14 |access-date=2008-11-03}}</ref> [[Nucor|Nucor Steel]]'s facility in Marion is the largest producer of rebar and signpost in Ohio.

Marion, like many small American cities, has progressed in its sensibilities around race. During the 1800s Marion served as a stop in the [[Underground Railroad]] known in Ohio as the River to Lake Freedom Trail. [[1839 Marion riot|In 1839]], a Black man, Bill Mitchell, was accused of being a fugitive slave in Marion and was freed in the ensuing legal case. A number of Virginians seeking to reclaim him for his owner brawled in the courtroom in response. The former slave was spirited away by Marion abolitionists and he ultimately made his way to Canada.<ref>{{Cite news |date=May 17, 2016 |title=Underground Railroad marker returns |url=https://www.marionstar.com/story/news/2016/05/17/underground-railroad-marker-returns/84458022/ |access-date=April 19, 2019 |work=The Marion Star |publisher=Gannett Company}}</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Anderson, Bill |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of the Underground Railroad |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AKRI-GNca6oC&pg=PA29 |last=Hudson |first=J. Blaine |date=2006 |page=29 |isbn=978-0-7864-2459-7 |via=Google Books}}</ref> In February 1919, nearly all of Marion's [[African Americans|African American]] residents were [[List of expulsions of African Americans|driven out]] of town in response to an attack on a white woman.<ref>{{Cite news |date=February 4, 1919 |title=Negro Exodus Out of Marion |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30351135/ |work=[[Mansfield News Journal|The Mansfield News]] |location=Mansfield, Ohio |page=1 |via=Newspapers.com |quote='T. N. T.' (Travel, nigger, travel) placarded over the west side yesterday caused a great scattering of Marion's negro element following the brutal attack of Mrs. A. E. Christian, Sunday and the arrest of George Washington Warner, colored, known in police circles as 'Squires'. Today police estimated that over 200 negroes had left town, almost the entire colored population of the city.}}</ref> Marion subsequently became a [[sundown town]], where African Americans were prevented from residing.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Loewen |first=James W. |author-link=James W. Loewen |title=Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism |publisher=[[The New Press]] |year=2005 |isbn=156584887X |pages=13, 197, 281 |quote=In 1920, [[Warren G. Harding]] ran his famous 'front porch campaign' from his family home in Marion, Ohio; a few months before, Marion was the scene of an ethnic cleansing as whites drove out virtually every African American. According to Harding scholar Phillip Payne, 'As a consequence, Marion is an overwhelming[ly] white town to this date [2002].'}}</ref> President Harding, in spite of criticisms, employed African Americans at the ''[[The Marion Star|Marion Star]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Terborg-Penn |first=Rosalyn |author-link=Rosalyn Terborg-Penn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U6o0ttZqgtUC&pg=PA143 |title=African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850-1920 |date=1998 |publisher=[[Indiana University Press]] |isbn=0-253-33378-4 |location=Bloomington, Indiana |page=143 |quote=One of the biggest attacks from his critics was about the very thing that attracted Black women to his campaign. Harding was criticized because the newspaper office that he and his wife owned in Marion, Ohio, was staffed by women and African Americans. |via=Google Books}}</ref> In the 1920s, Marion city and [[Marion County, Ohio|Marion County]] supported [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] [[Jim Thorpe]] and his efforts to field an all–Native American [[NFL]] team called the [[Oorang Indians]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Willis |first=Chris |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1vAxDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA95 |title=Walter Lingo, Jim Thorpe, and the Oorang Indians: How a Dog Kennel Owner Created the NFL's Most Famous Traveling Team |date=May 5, 2017 |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |isbn=9781442277656 |location=Lanham, Maryland |page=95 |quote=But for the next two years, some newspapers would label the Indians as hailing from Marion. … Only the town of La Rue would get shortchanged. It wasn't until years later that Lingo would mention that La Rue, not Marion, was the home of the Oorang Indians, further stumping historians and writers throughout the decades in their documentation of the history of the NFL. Rest assured, La Rue was indeed the home base of the Oorang Indians. |via=Google Books}}</ref> In the 1970s, Dr. Dalsukh Madia, an [[Indian Americans|Indian American]], became head of the Smith Center at Marion General Hospital (now part of [[OhioHealth]]).<ref>{{Cite news |last=Jarvis |first=John |title=A 'great facilitator' retiring |url=https://www.marionstar.com/story/news/2014/04/03/-a-great-facilitator-retiring/7277795/ |access-date=April 7, 2019 |work=The Marion Star |publisher=Gannett Company |location=Marion, Ohio}}</ref>

Today, people of color constitute 14% of Marion's population.<ref>[https://suburbanstats.org/population/ohio/how-many-people-live-in-marion Current Marion, Ohio Population, Demographics and stats in 2019, 2018] Retrieved April 6, 2019</ref> In July 2020 the Marion City Council, led by Mayor Scott Schertzer, unanimously passed a resolution vowing to promote racial equality and justice for its African American community.<ref>[https://www.marionstar.com/story/news/2020/07/28/marion-city-council-passes-mayors-social-justice-resolution/5526728002/ Marion City Council passes mayor's social justice resolution] Retrieved July 29, 2020</ref>