By Fred Steiner
www.BlufftonForever.com
Bluffton’s golden age may well have been the decade of the 1890s. You might call Bluffton a boom town during this decade.
Consider:
• Oil and natural gas was discovered in Findlay 10 years earlier
• Town hall built in 1887
• Water plant in service in 1896
• Telephone arrived in 1898
• Central Mennonite College opened in 1889
• Population in 1900 was 1,783; 50 years earlier the town has 12 families