Exploring the intersection of town and gown in Oberlin, one of Ohio’s best small towns

OBERLIN, Ohio – There’s probably no other place in Ohio – maybe the country – where town and gown are so closely aligned.

Indeed, Oberlin the city and Oberlin the college were both founded in 1833 by the same man, John Jay Shipherd, who traveled south from Elyria with fellow minister Philo Stewart, looking for land to create a perfect society.

They named the place Oberlin, after a French writer who never set foot in Ohio.

Fast forward nearly 200 years and ultra-liberal Oberlin, with a population of about 8,000, may not be everyone’s definition of a perfect society. But it is a pretty terrific destination for close-to-home travelers seeking outsized doses of culture and history in a quaint, easy-to-navigate package.

There’s a lovely art museum here, nightly concerts thanks to the college’s conservatory, history tours, even a Frank Lloyd Wright house – all this, and a downtown filled with more restaurants and shops than you’ll likely have time to sample in a day or two.

Located about 35 miles west of Cleveland, it’s a great day trip for Northeast Ohioans, or, if you’re itching for an overnight, a lovely weekend away.

Exploring the history

I started my recent tour at the Ohio Heritage Center, located inside the 1866-era Monroe House, the long-time family home of James Monroe (“not President Monroe,” I was told), an abolitionist and 1846 graduate of Oberlin College.

The school, widely revered as the first college in the U.S. to admit both female and Black students, didn’t quite start out as the liberal bastion that it would become, according to Pat Price, a tour guide at the Heritage Center.

The enrollment of Black students, in particular, was controversial, a condition insisted upon by dozens of transfer students from Cincinnati’s Lane Seminary, who left southern Ohio in the 1830s due of a dispute over slavery.

“It was hotly contested,” said Price, a retired English teacher at Oberlin High School. “It passed by one vote.”

The community’s future set, it didn’t take long for Oberlin to establish itself as a safe space for runaway slaves in the years leading up to the Civil War.

During the peak years of the Underground Railroad, Price said there was no need for secret houses to hide people here. “We were integrated. We all just lived together.”

That is, until 1850 and the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, which gave slave owners the right to come into free states and recapture their property.

In one well-known case, regularly recounted in high school history books, a former slave, John Price, had been living in Oberlin for several years when he was captured by slave catchers in town. Held at a hotel in nearby Wellington until he could be transported back to Kentucky, Price was freed by a mob of Oberlin townspeople, who surrounded the hotel and helped him escape.

“He was taken to Canada and we never heard from him again,” said Price. “We hope he had a happy life.”

The Oberlin Heritage Center offers its Oberlin Origins guided tour, which includes the Monroe House and a nearby 1836-era one-room schoolhouse, on Thursdays and Saturdays at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.; cost is $6. Later this month, the center will commence its guided outdoor history walks, on themes including Oberlin’s abolitionist history, architecture, the Civil War to civil rights and more. Self-guided tours are also available. For a complete list of tour options: oberlinheritagecenter.org

Art and architecture

After a tasty lunch at Main Street Grille, I headed to the Allen Memorial Art Museum, considered one of the premier college art museums in the country.

It’s a relatively small space – just over 100,000 square feet – but can easily fill an afternoon, with a collection of more than 16,000 works, from ancient to modern. Among the displayed pieces: art by Picasso (“Glass of Absinthe,” 1911; and “Head of a Woman,” 1906;) Rodin (“The Prodigal Son,” 1905); Chagall, Cezanne, Modigliani and numerous others.

But it wasn’t just the blockbuster pieces that attracted my attention.

Among the works that I stood and studied: “Portrait of Two Girls,” from the early 19th century, featuring two girls, side by side, one Black and one white. The painting is described as “the earliest known interracial portrait in the history of American painting, in which both sitters are depicted as equals.”

I also admired the marble bust of Dr. Dudley Peter Allen, an Oberlin native and 1875 graduate of the college who became one of the first physicians in the country to specialize in surgery. In 1894, he married Clevelander Elisabeth Severance and the two helped to develop the plan for the museum, which opened in 1917 and is named in Allen’s honor.

The art museum is also well known for its Art Rental program, where college students can rent a piece of art for $5 and display it in their dorm room for the semester.

The museum maintains a special collection of about 400 works in the program, which features some heavy hitters, including pieces from Picasso and Matisse.

“We’ve never had a loss,” noted Katherine Solender, interim director of the museum, although frames do occasionally get damaged when art falls off dorm walls.

The art museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday; closed Mondays and major holidays. It is free. Information: amam.oberlin.edu

The Art Rental program was started in 1940 by Ellen Johnson, a well-known Oberlin art history professor.

Another Johnson legacy is across campus at the Weltzheimer/Johnson House, a Frank Lloyd Wright home completed in 1949 for Margaret and Charles Weltzheimer. It was acquired in 1968 by Johnson, who bequeathed the home to the college in 1992.

The house is typically open to the public on the first Sunday of the month, April through November. However, the home is scheduled to have its roof repaired this summer and will be closed for several months, starting in early June. For information: amam.oberlin.edu/flw-house

Read more: Oberlin’s Frank Lloyd Wright house to close this summer for repairs

Dinner and a show

After an art-filled afternoon, I perused several of the shops in downtown Oberlin, which include numerous college town staples: Two bookstores (MindFair Books and the Oberlin Bookstore), a bike shop (Oberlin Bike Shop), a record store (Hanson Records), a brewery (Haven Brewing), several thrift stores, gift shops and coffee shops.

Also in town: Watson Hardware, established in 1895; and Ben Franklin, a classic five-and-dime store, an Oberlin tradition since 1935.

I had lots of good choices for dinner, including long-time favorites Lorenzo’s Pizzeria, Aladdin’s Eatery and The Feve. I opted for Thi Ni Thai, with terrific curries and noodle dishes.

There were also numerous options for after-dinner entertainment, which is one of the things I love about visiting college towns.

The Oberlin Percussion Group was playing at the conservatory, the Oberlin Horn Ensemble at Warner Concert Hall, there was a small jazz ensemble performing at the Cat in the Cream Coffeeshop, and the musical “Daddy Long Legs” at Kander Theater.

Also in town: the Apollo Theatre, an historic, 1913-era movie house that was purchased by the college in 2009 and is operated by Cleveland Cinemas. It was playing “A Minecraft Movie” and “The Accountant 2” during my visit.

All intriguing options, but I chose to walk back to the art museum, which was hosting a senior recital by violist Max Andrejco, who was terrific.

Afterward, I picked up dessert to-go at Aladdin’s and headed to my car for the trip home. Honestly, though, I could have stayed.

If you go: Oberlin

Where: Oberlin, 35 miles west of Cleveland in southern Lorain County, is easy to reach via the Ohio Turnpike, Ohio 2 and U.S. 20.

Staying overnight: The college opened the 70-room Hotel at Oberlin in 2016, with 70 well-appointed rooms and a well-regarded restaurant, 1833 (the year the town and college were founded). There are also several bed and breakfasts in town.

Also nearby: Common Ground Zipline Canopy Tours, Lorain County Metro Parks’ Carlisle and Vermilion River reservations, plus the North Coast Inland Trail, a multi-use bike and walking path that travels 29 miles through Lorain County and beyond.