Youngstown (Ohio): Astrological Article and Chart

About this event

Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the largest city and county seat of Mahoning County. According to the 2020 United States Census, Youngstown had a city population of 60,068. The Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, OH-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, with a population of 541,243 is the 107th-largest metropolitan area in the United States.

Youngstown is on the Mahoning River, approximately 65 miles (105 km) southeast of Cleveland and 61 miles (100 km) northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Despite having its own media market, Youngstown is often included in commercial and cultural depictions of both Northeast Ohio as well as the Greater Pittsburgh Region due to these proximities. Youngstown is also the midway between Chicago and New York City via Interstate 80.

The city was named for John Young, an early settler from Whitestown, New York, who established the community's first sawmill and gristmill. Youngstown is a midwestern city, falling within a region of America often referred to as the Rust Belt. Traditionally known as a center of steel production, Youngstown was forced to redefine itself when the steel industry in the United States fell into decline in the 1970s, leaving communities throughout the region without any major industry. The city has experienced a decline of over 60% of its population since 1959. Youngstown falls within the Appalachian Ohio region, among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

Downtown Youngstown has seen tremendous change within the last several years, becoming a center of culture, entertainment and innovation. It is now home to bars, restaurants, and the recently completed Youngstown Foundation Amphitheater. Youngstown's first new downtown hotel since 1974—the DoubleTree by Hilton—opened in 2018 in the historic Stambaugh Building with first floor commercial space including a restaurant. Several businesses, such as Turning Technologies, an education technology company, are headquartered in Downtown Youngstown.

Founding

Youngstown was named for New York native John Young, who surveyed the area in 1796 and settled there soon afterward. On February 9, 1797, Young purchased the township of 15,560 acres (6,300 ha) from the Western Reserve Land Company for $16,085. The 1797 establishment of Youngstown was officially recorded on August 19, 1802.

The area that includes present-day Youngstown was part of the Connecticut Western Reserve, a section of the Northwest Territory that Connecticut initially did not cede to the Federal government. Upon cession, Connecticut retained the title to the land in the Western Reserve, which it sold to the Connecticut Land Company for $1,200,000. While many of the area's early settlers came from Connecticut, Youngstown attracted many Scots-Irish settlers from neighboring Pennsylvania. The first European Americans to settle permanently in the area were Pittsburgh native James Hillman and wife Catherine Dougherty. By 1798, Youngstown was the home of several families who were concentrated near where Mill Creek meets the Mahoning River. Boardman Township was founded in 1798 by Elijah Boardman, a member of the Connecticut Land Company. Also founded in 1798 was Austintown by John McCollum who was a settler from New Jersey.

As the Western Reserve's population grew, the need for administrative districts became apparent. In 1800, territorial governor Arthur St. Clair established Trumbull County (named in honor of Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull), and designated the smaller settlement of Warren as its administrative center, or "county seat". In 1813, Trumbull County was divided into townships, with Youngstown Township comprising much of what became Mahoning County. The village of Youngstown was incorporated in 1848, and in 1867 Youngstown was chartered as a city. It became the county seat in 1876, when the administrative center of Mahoning County was moved from neighboring Canfield. Youngstown has been Mahoning County's county seat to this day.