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Photographer: Mike Wintermantel
Taken: December 21, 2014
Caption: Harrison County Panel
Additional Description: When the American frontier surged to the east bank of the Upper Ohio River in the late eighteenth century, the stage was set for the settlement of Harrison County. The earliest known settlement was made in 1784, and by 1803 the county was well populated.

Harrison County was established February 1, 1813, and named for General William Henry Harrison, a hero of the War of 1812 and late President of the United States. Cadiz was designated the county seat on April 15, 1813, and the county's first courthouse was built there in 1816.

In 1833, the present county boundaries and townships were established. Twenty years later the county fair was first held in Cadiz, and during the following two years the first railroad was completed through the county.

Large numbers of Harrison Countians served during the Civil War. The county itself experienced some terror of that war in July 1863 when General John Hunt Morgan led his Confederate raiders through the southern townships.

In the period following the Civil War, stock-raising (especially sheep), business, and construction boomed in Harrison County. The presence of valuable minerals in the county resulted in a number of short-lived but exciting oil booms around the turn of the century; also large-scale coal mining began just prior to World War I.
Submitted: December 22, 2014, by Mike Wintermantel of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Database Locator Identification Number: p296071
File Size: 2.538 Megabytes

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