Mt. Hope, Ohio

Located in Salt Creek Township in northeast Holmes County, the village of Mt. Hope is a quaint, quiet hamlet - on every day but Wednesday, that is. On this day, hundreds of visitors converge on the tiny village to attend the weekly flea market and livestock auction. The country auction, a time-honored tradition in Holmes County, brings many local residents, including many Amish people, to Mt. Hope.

The origins of this tiny hamlet can be traced to the early nineteenth century, when Salt Creek Township was first settled by Pennsylvanians with German and French backgrounds. Then, the land was covered with dense forest that had to be painstakingly cleared. The village was first called Middletown, even though calling the settlement a town was a bit of a stretch. Early pioneers must have been overwhelmed by the wildness of the area, a feeling unfamiliar to visitors today as they survey the gentle, rolling hills and fields, now neatly laid out for farming.

In a little over a century, the little village grew steadily, with many businesses developing to meet the needs of the swelling population. By 1907, tiny Middletown - now Mt. Hope - possessed all the trappings of a modern turn-of-the-century town: a dry goods store, a hardware, hotel/saloon, a meat market, two blacksmiths shops, two barbershops, a postmaster, a physician, a constable, a two-room schoolhouse and several churches. A substantial number of Amish people had settled there, and their families were growing.

Today many of these establishments have vanished, replaced by small gift and craft shops, cozy restaurants and several well-established businesses and outlying cottage industries. However, an old-time hardware store and many dry good and bulk food stores may still be found in the area. In a way, Mt. Hope really is a crossroads between the old and the new - a village existing in the twenty-first century, yet holding fast to its nineteenth century roots.

-some information taken from the Atlas of Holmes County, Ohio (1875 and 1907) and An Historical Study of Holmes County Ohio by Fred W. Almendinger, 1962.(March/April 2001 Edition)