Down and dirty. One of the most popular summer events ever sponsored by Grove City Parks and Recreation was the annual Mud Volleyball games at Beulah Park. Participants from Grove City and southwest Franklin County participated.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, an African American Civil War abolitionist, poet and public speaker, among other accomplishments once owned land in the area of Beatty Road and Harrisburg Pike in the 1800s. In 1845, she was one of the first black women to be published in the United States. Her farm is shown on an 1872 Jackson Township map.

Cread Lawless is pictured with a neighbor at Green’s Heritage Days at Commercial Point. Lawless was an early member of the fire department and also responsible for organizing neighbors along Arbutus Avenue to construct curbs on the street. A park at Kingston and Arbutus is named in his honor.

Tiney McComb, left, president of the Heartland Bank rides in one of the first Grove City Community Parades (now the Arts in the Alley Parade.) Tiney’s bank was the first horse drawn unit to participate in the parade.

Two ladies from Grove City’s past. At left is A. Jeanette Myers, the first woman elected to Grove City Council. She wasn’t the first woman to serve. Eilene Simmons was the first to serve but she was appointed, not elected. At right is Marilyn Gibboney, long-time president of the Southwest Franklin County Historical Society. Marilyn is responsible for much of the written history of Grove City.