The Hayes Presidential Center, Inc. operates and manages the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums. A non-profit entity, it receives the majority of its funding through the Rutherford B. Hayes–Lucy Webb Hayes Foundation. The State of Ohio also provides an annual appropriation administered through the Ohio History Connection (formerly the Ohio Historical Society).

The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums is America’s first presidential library and the forerunner for the federal presidential library system. HPLM is located at President Hayes’ 25-acre wooded estate, called Spiegel Grove.

Shortly after President Rutherford B. Hayes died in 1893, his second son, Col. Webb C. Hayes, began plans to open a museum and library that would be a memorial to his father and make his father’s presidential papers and books available to the public for research and learning.

Webb deeded Spiegel Grove to the state of Ohio and his father’s personal papers and possessions to the Ohio Historical Society contingent on the construction of a “fireproof building” that would house the museum and library on the grounds of the estate.  [Read More]

The 700-seat Strand Theatre opened on April 8, 1915 with “Neptune’s Daughter”. In December of 1928, the theatre added a $15,000 “golden voiced” Page organ. But it was sound that was wanted and the Strand Theatre installed a Western Electric for talkies the following year. Schine Circuit took on the theatre in 1931 and – after promising a new Strand Theatre – abruptly closed it on June 7, 1931 after a showing of “Scotland Yard”.

After serving as the Masonic Lodge, in 2011, the theatre was converted back to its Strand roots as a live venue called the Strand Concert Theatre.

The Birchard Public Library of Sandusky County is a free public library which seeks to meet the information, education, and recreation needs of the residents of Sandusky County, to provide easy and equal access* to these materials in their variety of forms, and to develop broad community awareness of the Library and its services.

*Access implies innovative, imaginative delivery techniques which overcome geographic, educational, physical, and psychological barriers, as well as convenient location and schedule.