Why is the Bluffton football field called Harmon Field?

The answer is nearly 100 years old.

The Harmon Field we know today was originally intended to be a playground in the early 1920s. And, it soon grew from a playground to include a football field and much more.

It was one of a number of such parks in Ohio established by William E. Harmon, New York philanthropist, who was a native of Lebanon, Ohio.

Ten of the playgrounds were to be set up during 1923 in Ohio village of less than 10,000 population. In all, there were 77 original Harmon Fields in the United States were created by the foundation.

In the early 1920s a group of civic-minded people in Bluffton applied for and received money from the Harmon Foundation of New York City to build a park in Bluffton. The application was completed by a group calling themselves the Bluffton Community Association, connected to the Bluffton schools.

I.B. Beechy (Beechy Bridge at Bluffton University carries his name because he owned the property where the bridge is now located) headed the committee to make Bluffton’s application. Others on the committee were C.G. Colburn and Sidney Hauenstein.

In 1926 Bluffton won second place among all communities in the United States vying for their own Harmon fields. The original grant received totaled $500 and was used to purchase land in what is today part of the athletic complex on College Avenue.

From then on for several years, Bluffton received additional prize money as the park was improved and enlarged. 

The enlargement results after the school board continued a program of purchasing other plots of land that touched the original park, resulting in what today includes the football field, softball field and practice area behind the softball field. It also includes the Howe Tennis Courts across from Harmon Field.

The additional land purchases more than doubled the land area of the original park.

Then, during the Great Depression in 1936, separate from the Harmon Foundation, the community received a $10,000 WPA project enabling the construction of the current cement football stadium. 

The following information is from the Harmon Foundation’s 1924-26 report:
Bluffton, Ohio
Population 2,000
Area 7.39 acres
Established May, 1923 (Ohio gift offer)
Land cost $900
Sponsor: Community Association, assisted by Business Men’s Association, Women’s Clubs and High School Athletic Association
Type of field: Athletic field
Development: Field laid out for all high school athletic events. Added about 3.5 acres by purchase of adjoining property; built fence around three sides of field and secured a promise from the railroad to build the fourth side.

Entrance pillars equipped with electric ornamental lights by the Board of Public Affairs.

Having this year build a pole vaulting and jumping pit, a baseball diamond, outdoor basketball court, and renovated a building for storage and field house.

Made a volley ball court, set up a tackling dummy for football, laid out flowers beds, planted 101 trees, started work on two tennis courts, rolled the entire field with 10-ton roller, and built an open fireplace. 

Have excellent cooperating from local organizations and high school boys. Entered 1925 Honorarium Contest and won $500 for development of field.

Correspondent: I.B. Beeshy, chairman, Bluffton Community Association

Here’s more in the report about Bluffton’s Harmon Field:
At Bluffton, Ohio, the field had been used during the year previous to the opening of the contest, so that grading was not a pressing problem before beautification could begin. An old fence was removed and a new one built, trees and shrubs were planted, lamp posts were laid out. An addition was made to the field by the purchase of two more acres which doubled the recreation area.

A stone marker with a plaque exists today near the home side corner of the field. It was originally located near the creek. The plaque reads:

HARMON FIELD
This playfield was made ours
through the assistance of the
Harmon Foundation
1923
Dedicated forever to the plays
of children the development of
youth and the recreation of all
“The gift of land is the gift eternal”

Other Harmon Fields in Ohio created by the foundation were located in:
Wapakoneta
Bellefontaine
Bucyrus
Canal Fulton
Fostoria
Franklin
Fremont
Granville
Greenville
Lebanon
Miamisburg
Oberlin
Paulding
Sidney
Wauseon
Wellsville

And, what came before Harmon Field?
In 1883, Al St. John relocated a wooden sucker rod and handle factory from Lima to Bluffton, to become almost overnight the major employer of men living in Bluffton. His plant was located on the site that eventually became Harmon Field.

With the discovery of oil and natural gas in Findlay in the 1890s, the demand for sucker rods was tremendous because of their use in the oil industry.

Products of the plant were marketed on a national scale and like the other village businesses at the time, success of the industry couldn’t have been possible without the town’s newly acquired railroad, which came to Bluffton in 1872, offering outlets to all part of the country.

An abundance of native hickory trees in the woodlands of the area was the magnet, which brought the factory to Bluffton, for the wood was highly prized as the best material for hoe, fork, shovel and other handlers made in the plant, along with sucker rods, which were used in oil fields.

The sucker rods were octagon shaped rods, about two inches in diameter, ranging from 10 to 60 feet long. Their purpose was to carry the oil being pumped from the wells to the tanks.

Within a few months after operations started here, St. John was shipping his products across the U.S. A full time working force of 20 men worked at the factory, each putting in 60 hours a week.

In 1884 the reproduction of the sucker rod and handle factor was in full force. The enterprise manufactured and shipped 40,000 sucker rods and 200,000 forks and hoe handles.

His Bluffton factory operated on a large scale for nearly two decades. It finally closed near the turn of the 1900s when select timber required for handles grew care in the Bluffton area.

And, so today, the story of Harmon Field is part of forgotten Bluffton.