“This Town is Our Town,” but How Did It Get That Way?

In 1981, the Yellow Springs Library Association received grants to produce a slideshow/cassette tape history of Yellow Springs. Tony Dallas collected oral histories and Sandra Love wrote the script. The images on the slides came from Antiochiana, The Yellow Springs News, and other sources. The result was This Town Is Our Town, a two-part program covering the years 1804–1981.

For several years, the program has been unavailable. Recently, Deanna Ulvestad of Greene County Public Library’s Greene County Room was able to get DVDs made from an old VHS tape copy. The production is viewable once again and available for checkout at Yellow Springs Community Library. The quality is not perfect—about what you’d expect for a copy of a copy of a copy—but the images and information are there.

This Town Is Our Town: Part 1, 1804–1918 and This Town Is Our Town: Part 2, 1918–1981

Whether you’d like to learn about the past, do some reminiscing, or both, This Town Is Our Town will get you started. Two challenges remain for local historians: to make a better quality digital copy from the slides and original recordings, and to document the years from 1981 to the present.

For more on Yellow Springs history, check out these books:

Two Hundred Years of Yellow Springs

Yellow Springs: Anecdotes and Reflections

Celebrating Women: The Women's Park of Yellow Springs

Why They Came: The Story of Yellow Springs, Ohio, Commemorating Its Centennial