My history of Youngstown Ohio.

  September 19, 1977 is referred to in Youngstown as "Black Monday." That's when the first big mill closing was announced. Others followed, and soon more than 25,000 jobs were gone. Why did the Youngstown mills close? Several reasons. One is that they were not  able to compete with cheap steel produced in other countries like Japan. Another is that the companies had not  put money into the factories, and they had become outdated. Still another reason: new environment regulations that were expensive to comply with. The result was the departure of the industry that had built Youngstown, and that Youngstown had been built around.

   I remember the trips to Campbell Ohio to visit my cousins. We drove over bridges that went over The Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company. T Looking down into the factory was beautiful,especially at night. I miss those trips. My whole family worked at that facility until it closed.  The company was at fault for sucking every cent out of that business and the union was also at fault for letting them by demanding outrageous salary and benefits. Every one lost in the end.

  Today, Youngstown's steel industry is greatly diminished. Yet, there are remnants–reminders of this heritage. Homes built for the mill workers still stand, and there are ethnic neighborhoods where their descendants live. The churches they built remain as momuments to the many immigrant groups of the city, and a certain gritty feeling remains.

  Today, the largest employers in Mahoning County include the health care industry and education. Youngstown College, a school with about 800 students in 1940, has grown into Youngstown State University with an enrollment of over 12,500. Youngstown hosts several national distribution centers, taking advantage of the city’s central location. And the General Motors facility at Lordstown is a large employer of Mahoning County residents, though it’s located in Trumbull County.

  Youngstown wasn’t known for just its  steel industry

 Good Humor started in Youngstown. The Good Humor Ice Cream Bar was introduced here in 1920 by a drug store owner named Harry Burt. Harry Burt was experimenting with chocolate syrups to pour over ice cream when he came up with the idea of coating a slab of ice cream with chocolate and putting it on a stick. After three years, he perfected his product which he named Good Humor because he believed that a person’s good humor is related to what one eats.

Another contribution to the American landscape with roots in Youngstown is Arby’s Roast Beef. The first Arby’s appeared in 1964 in the community of Boardman, to Youngstown’s south, and it was a harbinger of things to come. Today there are more than 3,000 Arby’s worldwide.

   And here is another contribution of Youngstown to America’s landscape: the push-up bra. A Youngstown native who invented the contraption. Now, can you imagine an America without Good Humor, Arby’s or the push-up bra? Not a pretty thought, is it?.

  Sometimes it isn’t a great place to live but we call it home. There are a lot of interesting things to see and do in the area. Someday I feel that others ill see the potential in our area and return to take advantage or our large eager work force. That is a dream of mine .  I hope it comes true.