Story by Bradford Watts Photos by Jen Domenick About twelve miles west of Gallipolis on State Route 588 there is a special country village where people have an uncanny sense of caring and loyalty for each other and their town. Third and fourth generation families are still tilling the soil of their grandparents who came to Gallia county almost two centuries ago. There is a sense of tradition and history in this town; one that its inhabitants are proud of.
Daniel Boone was the first white man to see the sun rise over the Ohio River. He weathered two winters in a small cave that cuts into the bank of Raccoon Creek. About ten years later in 1800 a former Revolutionary War Minute Man named Adam Rickabaugh brought his family there, founding a town that would be named Adamsville in his honor. Five years later he was followed by Nehemiah Wood, who moved from West Virginia with his wife and their eleven children, and a large band of freed slaves. Wood bought some property from Rickabaugh and planted his crops along Raccoon Creek. These men were the first to live permanently in what is now Rio Grande, but it was the Welsh who thoroughly settled the area and carved a community out of the wilderness.
In the summer of 1818, a flat-boat containing six Welsh families drifted upon the thriving French settlement of Gallipolis on the west bank of the Ohio River. The exhausted travelers were on the final leg of their cross-Atlantic pilgrimage and stayed the night at the request of the hospitable French townspeople. They hoped to replenish their supplies and tackle the final 175 miles of their journey to the oldest Welsh settlement in the country--Paddy's Run, just north of Cincinnati--the next morning. But they would never make it.
A violent storm swelled up that night and ripped through the town, leaving a frayed rope dangling from a dock post to remind them of their boat and belongings. Some say it was the women of the party who cut the boat loose, refusing to tolerate any more suffering. This theory has never been confirmed, but the settlers were indeed stranded, so the men decided to look for work. A road was being built at the time that would connect the nearby towns of Centerville and Jackson so they all signed up. The men met the Rickabaugh and Wood families en route to Centerville, and their farms and the surrounding landscape reminded the settlers so much of their native Wales that they decided to stay. Purchasing land for $1.25 an acre, they joined the Woods and the Rickabaughs in the settlement of Adamsville.
They worked on their farms and lived quietly until 1836 when fellow Welshmen began pouring into the region. There were so many settlers passing through that Harrison Wood, one of Nehemiah's sons, converted his home to an inn to accommodate them. By 1846 there were enough people in Adamsville to require a post office. But when Nehemiah filed with the Post Office Department he found out that Ohio already had a town called Adamsville. In order to get their mail, the people would have to decide upon a new name. According to J. Herman Porter's book In the Lamp of the Hills, one of Nehemiah's cousins came up with the name Rio Grande. He was browsing over a copy of the Gallipolis Daily Journal, and the news of the day concerned fighting that had broken out along the Rio Grande River in Texas. Everyone liked the name, but they had never heard Spanish before, so they pronounced it "Rye-O Grand."
The village has retained that original pronunciation as well as a certain hometown loyalty. People who were born in Rio Grande and even alumni of Rio Grande University don't forget it easily. Those who have moved away or amassed a fortune in the business world have proudly returned to Rio Grande to give something back to a place that was so good to them.
Basketball star Bevo Francis turned the limelight upon Rio Grande in the early 1950's, and he still makes it back every November for a basketball tournament held in his honor. Bob Evans got his start there as well. More recently, a man named Dayle Bryant and his wife Sherri reunited with their family in Rio Grande after Dayle left his stressful career. They opened a contemporary cafe and coffee shop overlooking the Rio Grande University campus last May. These people have all expressed a concern for the future of Rio Grande, but over the years Bob Evans has shown a particular concern for his hometown, providing for it in the present and planting the seeds of its future.
Evans has lived the American dream to perfection, and in his retirement he still finds the time to make frequent visits to Rio Grande University where he lectures to students in the School of Business. Evans' great-great grandfather came to Gallia County in 1838, and Bob spent his childhood on a farm 15 miles from where he now resides in retirement. He is Rio Grande's most well known offspring, though his modesty makes that easy to forget.
The idea for a national restaurant franchise began in 1946, when Evans noticed the increasing number of truckers passing through Gallipolis hauling automobiles from Detroit. "They would come through at all hours of the night and there was no place for them to eat breakfast," he recalls. So he decided that a 24-hour diner with 12 stools along Route 7 in Gallipolis would be a suitable investment. "Mostly all they wanted was breakfast," Bob says, so eggs and toast became the restaurant's specialty. Meat was still being rationed in 1946, but when it was cold enough for the meat to keep, Bob used to go down to the farm and slaughter a hog so his customers could enjoy fresh sausage sandwiches. In 1948 Bob picked up a second-hand refrigerator so he could serve the pork year round.
The Evans family sausage recipe soon gained a widespread reputation and business flourished. The Bidwell Sausage plant was constructed in 1948, and salesmen sold the meat all over Gallia and surrounding counties. By 1953, sales routes covered the entire state of Ohio, and another plant was built in Xenia. Then in 1968, the first diner of the chain was built in Chillicothe. The inside looked identical to the original 24 hour diners that started it all. The restaurant did well, and another was opened in Columbus, then Cincinnati. Today, there are almost four hundred red and white Bob Evans Restaurants all around the country, all modeled after the diner in Gallipolis. Though his shrewd commonsense as an entrepreneur brought great wealth to his family, Bob still considers himself a simple farmer who had a good idea. "Everybody told us we were gonna go broke anyway," Bob says with a chuckle.
In 1938, Harry A. Wood, the last descendant of Nehemiah Wood, sold the original Wood farm to Rio Grande University. The university used the farm for educational purposes for about a dozen years until, facing bankruptcy in 1951, Evans bailed it out and purchased the farm. He and his wife Jewel lived on the farm for 17 years, and raised their six children in the same home Nehemiah Wood built for his family in 1820. The building, know as the Homestead, is on the National Register of Historic Buildings. Bob Evans' sausage craze had already swept over the entire region, and he began selling one- and ten-pound packages from a shop he built on the farm. He invited so many folks over that he had to add tables and chairs to the shop, which eventually evolved into another restaurant. The restaurant still stands today, although it has been remodeled to look like any other Bob Evans Restaurant in the country.
As long as people were coming to the farm to try the sausage, Bob invited his friends and good customers to enjoy the property. He let people ride his horses, fish his pond, hike his trails or canoe down the portion of Raccoon Creek that slices through the property. Evans appreciates the simple pleasures of farm life, and he wanted to share the experience with anyone who was interested.
"In the ol' days we made our own fun," he says of his childhood. "We never had any money! We never needed any."
Bob shared his property with others as if it were given to him, and it evolved into an integral part of the community. So many people came around that he decided to have everyone together at once for a huge festival every fall, complete with the finest entertainment.
The Bob Evans Farm festival is a tradition that continues to this day, celebrating the history and culture of the region. A crowd of 35,000--mild compared to the 100,000 plus that have attended in past years--enjoyed fresh apples that were squashed in an antique wooden cider press at the entrance. Fresh-baked apple dumplings were served with a scoop of ice cream nearby, while across a field, the smell of sizzling sausage lingered in the crisp autumn air. Hordes of hungry tourists flocked to the tent that was cranking out fresh sausage sandwiches faster than Burger King flips WhopperJuniors. Antique farming equipment demonstrated methods of pre-industrial farming. A man playing "Simple Gifts" on a dulcimer created images of pre-Colonial entertainment, while a woman and her daughter sold homemade bee's honey candy next door.
The Bob Evans farm hosts a number of other community events throughout the year, and land not used for grazing is open to the public year round. "The farm is one of the best kept secrets in Southeast Ohio," explains Kevin Ray. Ray said he and his buddies take advantage of the miles of mountain biking trails that criss-cross the 1,100 acre property. The canoe livery and fishing pond are also popular attractions for community members. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, horses can by rented for the modest price of $9 an hour.
Students at Rio Grande University have been enjoying the farm and the country around Rio Grande since 1876. In 1974, Rio Grande Community College was added to the campus, bringing in even more students, and offering a more affordable option for first- and second-year students. The two schools share the same campus, and students can choose classes from either one. Cathriene Gierhart, assistant to the president for university relations, says the students and the local townsfolk fit together like "bookends." "By in large there is not the friction between town and gown that you find on many college campuses," she explains. While three-fourths of Rio Grande University's 2,057 students commute, the 457 who live in the university's residence halls have a huge impact on a town with a population of only 995.
Rio Grande University and Rio Grande Community College always fit nicely into a town that would otherwise be a simple farming community. An institute of higher learning, its presence has brought some culture into town. About 75 students from multicultural backgrounds share the community with residents who might not otherwise be exposed to such diversity. The basketball team recently recruited two promising players from Bosnia--a move that has personalized the unrest overseas for friends of Mirza Omercajic and Zeljko Bojic.
The University has also attracted something still unconventional to most Southeast Ohio Towns. A cafe and coffee shop has been a welcome addition to the town. La Casa Del Qahwa put up its contemporary purple and green sign last May and the aroma of fine imported coffee first wafted across the campus. The shady porch overlooks the university's student center, and has attracted students and locals alike. The shop brings a contemporary option for entertainment and relaxation that is new to residents who have rarely strayed from Gallia County. Dayle and Sherri Bryant understand this, and the cafe represents their effort to bring some modern culture back home.
Dayle's occupation as a photogrammetric engineer took him and his wife Sherri around the world, but 14 years ago, they decided to return to the place Dayle's family has called home since the 1960's. Dayle says business and life in the city started getting to him. "People who were your friends sort of turned cold from business pressure." His health was failing him as well, so on the advice of a doctor, Dayle decided it was time to settle back down to a place where he could put the back-stabbing business world behind him and enjoy life's simple pleasures.
"We bought an old farm and turned it into the showplace of Gallia County," he proudly declares. He and Sherri have recently made their living breeding kosher veal on their farm about three miles from the coffee shop. Although it wasn't easy, Dayle has managed to return home and he's blessed Rio Grande with a slice of culture from his worldly travels. His health has improved since he's been back, and he's still only about two hours from the hustle and bustle of Columbus. As Sherri puts it, "It's not enclosed. You've got quite a bit of room and its still basically a farming community."
This is a farming community with notable diversity. Sherri says it's common for her to look up at the bar and see an Asian student sitting next to a farmer, sitting next to a lawyer. Dayle says there are sometimes so many different types of people inside that it's tough to settle on the right entertainment. But that's the beauty of it. The cafe works as a melting pot between local and international culture. The lack of a television forces people to interact with each other, preserving the art of conversation and an exchange of ideas.
In a way, the coffee shop embodies the soul of the village of Rio Grande. It is a new type of establishment, presenting townspeople with 18 varieties of coffee, cappuccino, and chocolate covered coffee beans--things people have never seen or even heard of before. It also preserves genuine interaction between diverse groups of people. Rio Grande is an asylum from the stress of a hectic world, a place people remember when they're away. And as Dayle Bryant explains, the same spirit of pioneering in which the village was originally founded exists today.
"One of the nicest thing we've seen lately is the Amish moving in nearby. We'll be sitting on the porch with the wind blowing and the leaves falling and we hear the clop-clop, clip-clop of the Amish buggies coming into town with children poking their heads out of the back." Amish families have been moving onto farms on the outskirts of Rio Grande for the past year or so. They are preserving traditions by bringing their lifestyles and beliefs and their culture. But most important to the people of Rio Grande, they are bringing themselves.