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Oberlin History Timeline
1940-1959

• 1944: Oberlin was in the throes of the so-called "barbershop controversy," regarding the integration of barber shops. The issue was resolved when a group of College students and staff purchased and began operating an integrated barber shop.
• 1945: Stanley Cohen, later 1986 Nobel laureate in medicine and physiology, graduates from Oberlin College.
• 1948: Dr. Wade Ellis becomes the first African-American faculty member at Oberlin College. [For more on race relations in Oberlin in the 1940s, see this article by former OC Arcivist William Bigglestone.]
• 1950: Oberlin's Weltzheimer-Johnson House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is completed.
• 1952: William Goldman graduates from Oberlin College. He is best known as the author (and screenwriter) of The Princess Bride, which he published under the pseudonym Simon Morgenstern, the original screenplay Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the adaptation for the screen of All the President’s Men.
• 1955: The current Oberlin Inn is constructed.
• 1955: Adlai Stevenson gives the Oberlin College Commencement Address and receives and honorary degree.
• 1956: Oberlin is officially chartered as a city after attaining a population of 5000 in the 1950 census.
• 1958: Part of College Street between was turned into a pedestrian-only mall. (Unfortunately, this venture was unsuccessful, and the road was later reinstated.)
• 1959: The Oberlin College Museum “fades away” with the destruction of its home, the former Second Church.  Today, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, constructed 1961-1964, stands on that site.