Brian Smith, Executive Director of the Butler County Historical Society, will present Signposts, Crossroads & Ghost Towns (Western Portion) – Butler County’s Hidden and Vanished Communities:  Learn the history of small and forgotten towns in Butler County from Fairfield, Hanover, Milford, Morgan, Oxford, Reily, Ross and St. Clair Townships.  Learn why many of the communities vanished. Some of the lost areas lived and died by the Miami Erie Canal or railroads that ceased to be. Others relied on mills and other industries that faded away with time. Still others were absorbed by larger communities. Hear tales from the past such as the odd animal Samuel Augspurger used to power his early grist mill, the disaster at Ball’s Ferry, an illegal bare knuckle prizefight that lasted thirty-four rounds in 1897, and how Auburn came to be known as Gandertown, Bunker Hill as Dog Town and Miltonville as Skim Milk. 

No RSVP is required.