| On March 4, 1962 a fire destroyed a barbership that was once located between the Darfus Funeral Home and the Cruz-Her-Inn restaurant on Groveport’s Main Street near Walnut Street. The small, white frame structure, which originally served as Groveport’s first telephone office, was quickly engulfed in flames. Disastrous fires were an unfortunate fact of life in the 19th and early 20th centuries in Groveport when the lack of a water system in town made battling fires nearly impossible. Major fires in that era included: Jacob Wert’s store in 1846; Clippenger’s Tannery in 1850; Rager’s sawmill in 1879; the Laypole/Rarey Academy in 1879; the warehouse block along the Ohio and Erie Canal in 1882; Eldorado Mills in 1884; and Dr. Saylor’s barn in 1897. A large fire on Main Street near Brook Alley in December, 1932, that destroyed two homes and a grocery led to the village’s construction of a town waterworks and waterlines in 1936. |
