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Oberlin History Timeline
1900-1919

• 1902: A second traction line, leading to Norwalk, is opened in Oberlin.
• 1903: Oberlin builds a water-softening plant, the first of its kind in the United States.
• 1903: The Oberlin Council sets the speed limit for Oberlin at 8 miles per hour.
• 1903: Memorial Arch is erected in Tappan Square to commemorate the American missionaries who died in the Boxer Uprising in China. Of the 18 Americans killed in this event, nine of them were alumni of Oberlin College or Oberlin Seminary.
• 1903: The Oberlin College Chapel burns down.
• 1905: Gibson's Bakery moves into the building that it still occupies today.
• 1906: H.H. Kung, a native of China who later becomes Premier of the Republic of China (1938-1939), graduates from Oberlin.
• 1907: The Oberlin Hospital Association is incorporated and leases the house at 21 South Cedar Street to serve as the town's first hospital.
• 1907: A movie theatre, showing silent films, is opened on the second floor of the Gibson block building.
• 1913: The Oberlin Flood of 1913, followed by the Blizzard of 1913.
• 1914: The Apollo Theatre, a local movie theatre still operating today, opens.
• 1917: Oberlin gets its first motorized fire engine.
• 1917: Construction on the Allen Memorial Art Museum is completed.