EARLY HISTORY

Warren Story

The history of a place shapes its character as much as the physical buildings and geographic features, so the reader who wishes to understand Warren needs this perspective. Warren was founded in 1798 by Ephraim Quinby on 441 acres he had purchased from the Connecticut Land Company. Quinby named it after the surveyor of the area, Moses Warren. Warren was the first capitol of the Connecticut Western Reserve. Anyone who knows both Warren and Connecticut well can easily see the influence the earliest settlers in Warren and Trumbull County imprinted on the area, from the town squares and village greens, the look of the first churches and commercial buildings, and the many tidy family farm houses and barns. Trumbull County was named for Jonathon Trumbull, a Connecticut governor from a famous family.

I’ll spare you a lot of detail on the 19th century. Of political note, Warren was an important stop on the underground railroad in the 1800’s. Of general note, suffice it to say that Warren grew steadily and became a crossroads of transportation. Small manufacturing soon took root. Warren became the first city in America to have electric street illumination in the 1890’s, provided by the Packard Electric Company, which would come to play a much bigger role in the city’s life in the 20th century. The population grew steadily to 8500 people by 1900.

By the turn of the century, industrialization had taken a firm hold on Warren. The steel industry was thriving; there were mills one after the other along the Mahoning River from Warren, into Niles, Youngstown and New Castle, PA. Copperweld and Republic were the largest in Warren, but there was also Thomas Steel and a variety of specialty finishers that prepared raw steel for particular uses.

Warren’s position in the incandescent light business also grew with two large General Electric factories. The Halsey Taylor Company became a worldwide vendor of drinking fountains.

The most notable of Warren’s entrepreneurs were the Packard brothers — W.D. and James. The brothers were born in the 1860’s and started their company in 1890. Their father had been a successful small businessman in Warren, and the brothers inherited his talent for commerce.

They began by manufacturing electric light bulbs, and as noted previously, made Warren the first U.S. city with electric street lights. The company built the first Packard automobile in 1899, largely as a result of their dissatisfaction with the electrical problems in a Winton car they’d purchased the previous year in Cleveland. The brothers complained so persistently about the car that Alexander Winton, the owner of the company that built it, told them to make their own car “if they knew so much.”

That was a mistake he’d come to regret. James Packard was a college educated, engineering genius, and he set out to do just what Winton suggested, in just one year. In 1903 the brothers sold the automobile business to Detroit investors who moved the company there. They also sold the light bulb business to GE. These divestitures allowed them to focus on, and grow their core business manufacturing and innovating electrical cables and wiring for the booming automobile industry, and other industrial and commercial uses.

All of this industry meant lots of jobs, and that required more people. Warren’s population skyrocketed; from 8500 in 1900 to over 27,000 in 1920, to more than 41,000 in 1930. In a few decades Warren went from being the home to a few thousand Yankee farmers and businessmen, to a classic, American immigrant magnet.

These new Warranties came largely from four places: 1] Greeks, who mostly came from the islands of Chios and Rhodes. 2] Italians, a large percentage of whom emigrated from the Adriatic seaside town of Vieste and its surrounding region of Foggia. 3] African-Americans, most of whom left homes in the Mississippi delta for opportunity in Warren, and 4] Eastern Europeans, especially from Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.

These are the ethnic groups that still dominate Warren’s population 100 years after they began arriving. Their cultures, religions, businesses, and talents can be seen in every corner of the city today.