TORONTO'S FIRST PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYER

      Many men would give their souls to play just one game in the National Football League, but it was the heart of Toronto Tiger legend John "Hook" Comer that gave him that single opportunity.
      During the first quarter of the 20th Century, football players participated for the love of a game with crude equipment and often with equally crude treatment.  Those playing for semi-professional teams, such as the Toronto Tigers, supplemented their primary jobs at the local clay works with a few extra bucks against such notable teams as the Akron Silents, Bradley Eagles, Dusquesne Apprentice and various Ohio Valley clubs.
      "Those were rough and tough days the way they dressed and talked," said Tom McKelvey, who watched many semi-pro games during their heyday in the Gem City.  "I remember before one game the Toronto coach had his players diving into a mud puddle by the old home plate to practice recovering fumbles."
      Out of the most physical and punishing era of football emerged one athlete, John S. "Hook" Comer, standing 6'3" and weighing 180 pounds.
      "My father told me Hook Comer could kick the ball almost the length of the football field," John Petras Jr. said.
      "They said he could throw the football 100 yards," McKelvey said.  "Of course, that's probably exaggeration."
      What isn't hyperbole was Comer's athleticism.  Some old timers said he was equally gifted at running, kicking and passing.
      In his "Era of Elegance," author Walter M. Kestner gives this account of Comer: "As I recall the football of that era was much larger in diameter that that used today and consequently was much harder to throw.  However, John Comer or Big Hook as he was called could grasp the ball and throw it with extreme accuracy.   On one play particularly called the Formation A, Dave Ferris would lateral the ball to Hook, who would then throw a pass down field to Goose Mundy or Jim Condrim with a touchdown usually resulting from the play."

      Accounts by both Kestner and McKelvey attest that the early Toronto Tiger teams consisted of local talent, but around 1920 Doc Kilgus, club owner, wanted to increase the talent pool in the Gem City.
      "Doc Kilgus brought in guys from out of town to build up the team," McKelvey said.
      Often these athletes were collegians playing under aliases for money to maintain their amateur status  One such athlete was Pete "Fats" Henry, an All American tackle from Washington & Jefferson who played on the same side of Kaul Field with ringers and the few remaining legitimate locals, such as Hook Comer.
       Henry would go on to play with the Canton Bulldogs in 1920 and, as player-coach in 1926, he brought up fullback John "Hook" Comer, now 36 years of age and well past his prime.  Wearing number 3, Comer played but one NFL game, carrying the ball once for one yard alongside 38-year-old Jim Thorpe.
      The Bulldogs that year finished with one win, nine losses and three ties--the worst record in the fledgling National Football League.
      In 1963, Henry was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, one year before Toronto and Green Bay legend Clarke Hinkle was enshrined, arguably giving the Gem City two members in Canton.
       Comer went on to become a well respected policeman in Toronto, serving with Hinkle's brother Les.  He died in 1950 and is buried in Toronto Union Cemetery, not far from other Gem City legends, such as Clarke Hinkle and Pick Nalley.

THE SKUNK APE

      Few people know that one of my hobbies is the pursuit of legendary creatures, one such being Big Foot.  My passion for arcana eventually led me to a copy of Haunted Ohio II, in which author Chris Woodard dedicates an entire chapter to the incursion into the Buckeye State by the elusive man-beast.  Various accounts report sightings to have occurred in Clermont, Columbiana. Coshocton, Franklin, Lorain, Muskingum, Richland, Stark and Vinton counties.  Not one Ohioan mentions sighting the most reclusive man-beast of them all--the Skunk Ape.
      Obviously, the mere mention of this creature instilled a fear seldom exhibited by librarians, who together bestowed the distinction upon me of being the first person ever in North America to have his library card revoked.
      Thus, I directed my studies to the Internet, upon which I discovered that in Collier County, Florida numerous sightings of the Skunk Ape have been reported.  Luck was my ally at last, for my brother-in-law, Jamie Minor, is a veteran deputy sheriff for the very same county.  I left repeated messages inquiring about his Skunk Ape problem on his machine, and I even offered to repay the 50 dollars he had loaned me 20 years before, but he has yet to return my calls.
      I have long considered him the black sheep of my venerable in-laws, especially since he had said years ago: "Petras, if you had as many wrinkles in your brain as you do your forehead, you would be dangerous."
      The muses tamped my temples next.  "Authority?  Whom would I use as a lifeline on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"  The answer arrived--John Yaskanich, a close friend who shares my intellectual pursuits.
      John soon extracted some pertinent information about one Pardell Ridge, who had served briefly as proprietor of Yaskanich's Camp Logan property in northern Jefferson County.
      I soon discovered locating the whereabouts of Pardell Ridge was about as difficult as tracking the legendary Skunk Ape.  I eventually traced him near New New York, Gizzard County, where he served as a security guard at a mush bean plantation.  He was stewing a pot of beavertail fritters under the cloak of the Gizzard County night.
      As Pardell narrated his tale, he looked me squarely in the eyes, only breaking his gaze momentarily when lighting one cigarette after another.  The flickering orange firelight revealed his hands to tremble slightly, but his twangy voice never once wavered during his tale, which I present word for word.
      "I recollect it was a Saturday cause I was fixin' to take a dunk in Yeller Creek after spendin' a hard week of propriertin' when suddenly I smells somethin' stinkin' real proud from a hillside.  I'm thinkin' maybe I left my socks up thar the other day when I was pickin' pawpaws, but then I remembered I was awearin my clod hpppers cause Yeller Creek bedrock is sharper than beaver teeth.
      "Mind you, I ain't wearin nothin' except my birthday suit, but I skidaddle from the creek jest the same and starts lookin' for a big stick cause ain't no Tom Fool is gonna set his clods on Mr. Yaskanich's property, not as long as Pardell T. Ridge is doin' the propriertin'.
      "Them ole trees crost the creek start ashakin' like Box Car Willie doin' the Hoosegow Hop.  Next thing I sees makes the hair on my head stand on end, and I've been as bald as a trailer hitch for pert near 15 years.
      "Out of them thar trees steps out one of them Skunk Apes my southern grandpappy done tole me bout years afore.  He's standin' as tall as a church steeple and stinkin' to high heaven.  He's all covered with this moppy red-brown fur, except from the back of his head where tassles a silvery-white mane.  He's got this leathery mug and his nose is flatter then an Amway salesman's.
      "He tilts his head sideways and gives me the checkeye.  'Right back at you,' I says, and gives him a taste of his own medicine.  Well, I knowed then and thar this ole Skunk Ape done met his match when it comes to givin' the checkeye.  He turns around and sulks back up the hill, his long arms aswingin' like crankshafts of a locomotive."
     I interviewed Pardell another two hours, later determining his story collaborated with other reports about the mysterious Skunk Ape.  Common to various accounts is the description of the so-called checkeye, a facial expression best summarized as the quizzical look one has when discovering he is wearing someone else's underpants.
      Consensus also determines the Skunk Ape is distinguished from the more common Big Foot by a thick tress of silvery-white hair that most eye witnesses categorize as a mullet, although one or two versions classify this peculiar hair as a mohawk, indicating that perhaps another man-beast haunts the remote wilderness as the Punk Ape.  Another unique feature of the Skunk Ape is its huge footprint, which forrest biologists say looks like a mature male adult's ass print.
      One peculiar characteristic of the Skunk Ape upon which all witnesses agree is the odor the creature emits, reminding them of cowboy socks, strong enough to kill a swarm of houseflies in mid-flight.
      Pardell's tenacity  in security eventually paid off.  Recently, he was awarded a position as deputy with the Gizzard County Sheriff's Department, resulting from a game of Clue at which he beat three other officer candidates by guessing correctly Colonel Mustard, in the Conservatory, with the lead pipe.
  
  

MERRY XXXMAS

      When I was a kid, I used to have plenty of imaginary playmates, but my parents eventually discouraged such companionship, saying I was starting to hang out with the wrong crowd.
      Looking back, I should not have told my dad my invisible friend Spike bet me that I could not kick my sister Carrie with both feet before they hit the ground.
      "That's a fact," Dad said, unhitching his belt.
       I held out a shiny quarter.  "Yepper, Spike paid off his bet and said he would like to go double or nothing."
       Dad said I had tried his patience one time too often; then he tried to lash Script Ohio onto my bazoo.
      "Let that be a lesson to you, son."
      I crouched down to pull up my long johns and Dad promptly dotted the "I" with a clodhopper.
      "What was that for?" I asked.
      "That was just your imagination.  Now, go to your room and tell your playmates to clean up their mess."
      I was sulking out the living room when I felt a karate chop to the back of my neck.
      "I suppose that's my imagination, too," I said, pointing to the new head-sized hole in the wall.
      "Nope," he replied, "that's for not asking permission."
      "For what? Playing with an imaginary playmate?"
      "Nope, for kicking your sister."
      Dad always became a little grumpier around Christmas time because, I guess, our family was so hard up.  Still, my mom always told my three sisters and me to keep a stiff upper lip, a practice that came easily to the women on her side of the family since most of them preferred to wax their own moustaches.  On her side, nobody could get Dad's goatee more than my Aunt BeeBee.
      My mother's oldest sister visited our family for the Christmas season every other year.  She said it was only fair she spent some quality time with my Aunt Tootsie during the even years.  Dad said it was fitting that Aunt BeeBee visited us during the odds because nobody in the whole Mullarky family was odder than she.
      On the other hand, Mom said that her eldest sister added to our family a touch of class.  Dad said if Mom thought that about Aunt BeeBee, she, too, was touched in the head.
      Aunt BeeBee was what my mom called refined.  She extended her pinky whenever she drank her exotic teas and spoke high falluting words, often while correcting our grammar.  She always wore a dress and a fancy-smancy hat that matched and walked as if she had a pogo stick stuck up her bazoo.
      Dad said Aunt BeeBee was always into some New Age BS.  I guess that's what she held her degree in.  Mom said Aunt BeeBee was distinguished yet avant garde, but I could not picture such a Miss Prissy Pants lining up across a middle linebacker.
      Personally, I considered her just plain wacko.  She was always talking to herself or standing on her head and chanting.
      Two days before Christmas she arrived.
      After exchanging greetings and hugging everybody, she washed her hands with rubbing alcohol.  Her wraps and coat she handed to my sisters.  She slid her suitcase on the floor toward me.  "Take these to my room, young master."
      What she meant was "my room."  Every time she visited, I had to sleep in the barn, which, in my book, was pretend.
      I did as instructed and returned, holding out my palm.
      "Very interesting, indeed," she said, reading my palm.
      "I determine in about 13 years you have not washed your hands.  Now go, sanitized yourself with a bar of soap."  She shooed her hands, then washed them with alcohol.
      I tried to say something witty, but she cut me off at the grammar pass.
      That evening, as we sat around the supper table, mom was all gaga listening to Aunt BeeBee's tales of travel, her most recent trip taking her to India where the Guru Swami himself taught her transcontinental medication or something like that--for a modest donation.
       Anyhow, this Guru Swami guy told her to close her eyes and think about something she truly desired and if she concentrated long and hard enough, her dreams would materialize as long as they weren't of the material world.
      The only thing I could see materializing from all this crapola was my next gift from Aunt BeeBee was going to be an autographed picture of the Guru Swami, and, with any luck in 20 years, it would be worth toilet paper.
      Dad said he had a vision, and in it Aunt BeeBee didn't have enough common sense to be a mannekin.
      That evening, she taught everyone except Dad some yogi and creative vizualization.
      I was catching on to this mind-imaging thing, so much that a fantasy--er--an image of an imaginary playmate named Bunsy kept me up after everyone retired for the night.
      As I passed the door to my room on my way to the shed, I could hear Aunt BeeBee repeating something in a hoarse voice.  She was saying it so much I thought she was praying.  Then it occurred to me my sophisticated la-de-da auntie had an imaginary playmate named Barney.
      I cupped my ear to the door to learn more.  Sure enough, this Barney and her were best buddies.  She even called him a couple of nicknames like stud and big boy.
      The next afternoon, I could not erase the image of Bunsy from my mind; so I waited for Mom and Aunt BeeBee to leave the house before I stole into the room.  I lifted the part of the mattress where I thought I had placed my Sears and Roebuck catalog and National Geographics.  Where these should have been lay this thing resembling a microphone.  It was plastic, about eight inches long and nearly as wide as my wrist.  I turned on the switch; immediately it shook like a jackhammer.
       Maybe the tooth fairy or my fairy godmother left it under my bed in lieu of money when I lost a tooth or had the mumps during the time when I learned to quit expecting compensation.  This toy surely appeared as though it would be useful stirring up night crawlers.
      So I kept it.
      Just before nightfall, at the supper table, Aunt BeeBee looked as though she had lost her best friend.  She always liked when we asked her something of instructional value; so I decided to ask her what creative vittlelization meant.
       "Visualization," she said, accenting each syllable.  She promptly explained the concept and a few extras.
       A hint of her old gleam returned; so I asked her about Transcontinental Medication.
       Again she corrected my mispronunciation and elaborated upon this Eastern mysticism.  She was on a roll, almost back to her old-school New Age self.
      "Dearest Auntie," I said, "what is a stud?"
      Waving his hand, my dad cried, "I can answer that one.  It's a man or a horse that--wait a cotton-picking minute.  Have you been hanging around Spike again?"
       "Mind your P's and Q's," Mom said to me.  "Which reminds me--how about passing the peas?"
      "There is nothing her but mushbeans," I said.
      "Well, for once, you can pretend they are peas," Mom said.
      Trudy ladled the serving bowl of gumption soup, screwing her nose.  "I suppose you want to make believe this is clam chowder?"
      Carrie elbowed me gently.  "May I have the Beluga caviar, please?"
      Even dad got into the act with a phony English nobleman accent, passing the mushbeans and the gumption soup as if Chef Boyardee cooked them himself.  "And thank you my gentle lady for teaching us creative vittlization."
      Aunt Beebee's face grew as long as an aardvark's.  I felt bad for her, bad that she didn't have any family of her own, bad that we made fun of her, bad that the nearest thing she had to a husband was an invisible friend named Barney.  Then and there, I made up my mind to make this a Christmas she would never forget.  I decided to dig up a mess of night crawlers and gift-wrap with them with the worm digger.
      Christmas morning, we all gathered around the pretend Christmas tree to open our presents.  I got my first musical instrument--a shoehorn-- while my sisters received thongs, the kind you wear on your feet.
      As predicted, Aunt BeeBee gave us all an autographed picture of the Guru Swami, one in which he twisted himself like a night crawler on a fishing hook.
      To everyone's surprise, my sisters gave Aunt BeeBee three of the most elaborate packages ever wrapped in newspaper.   Aunt BeeBee discovered she received from my sisters peace, reality and awareness.
       With that kind of wacko stuff, I hoped my sisters weren't opening a new can of worms.  Speaking of which, I handed my tissue-paper-wrapped gift to Aunt BeeBee.
      Off few the paper.  Aunt BeeBee's face turned as red as Santa's bloomers.  Her mouth just quivered as though she were at a loss for words, at least those fit to print.  it isn't every day somebody received her very own worm digger.
       "It gives a whole new meaning to stocking stuffer," Dad cried, slapping a knee as Mom shooed us outside.
      Mom and Dad asked me where I got the worm digger.  Naturally, I told them Spike, whom they forbade me from seeing again.
     But I started getting better acquainted with my new imaginary playmate Bunsy, and we got along fine, even if there is no such thing as happy ever after.

BILL JACO REMEMBERED

        During the 60s, when I was growing up, I thought Toronto was nicknamed the Gem City because it had so many colorful characters like Nick Yanick, Singing Kate, Johnny Wasco, Chief, George Tarr, Joe Hitchcock, George Peckins, Naughty Dotty and many others.  None, however, was more memorable than the man himself who said "the town's full of nuts"--Bill Jaco.
      My first recollection of Bill came at the old A & P where the abandoned Save-a-Lot now stands.  My father was pushing a cartful of groceries to the family Ford while my mother was trying to herd her four children safely across the parking lot.  "Push cart, push cart," Bill said, knowing this courtesy usually amounted to tips of dimes and quarters.
      "That's all right," my father replied, "I can handle it."
      Bill trailed us to our car, anyhow.  As my father began stowing grocery sacks inside the trunk, Bill said, "Ford junk.  Ford junk.  Hit a bump and the seat falls down."
      I would later learn every model of car made was junk in Bill's estimation, except for funeral cars, not many of them being drove those days other than by Clarkie, of whom Bill said was goosey.
      To me, back then, Bill appeared as tall as Wilt Chamberlain, but in truth, during his prime, he stood, at tallest, six-foot, three-inches.  He was naturally big-boned and broad shouldered and had a Santa Clause-like belly.  Legends abounded about his strength, including being able to lift the rear end of a Volkswagen Beetle off the ground.
       When I was first married, my wife Debbie and I lived across the empty lot from Bill and his sister May at the top of Daniels Street.  Many people were afraid to let their children go near Bill, but he was a gentle giant who would hold the hand of our daughter Sevy and walk her up and down the block.
      Bill did not know Monday from Tuesday or a weekday from the weekend, but he did know garbage day and took out the trash faithfully the evening before garbage day, and, on cue, the following morning, regaled the truck crew with his Jaconian philosophy, usually always referring to junk Fords and that Clarkie was goosey.
      Whenever I saw Bill toting an umbrella, I knew rain was probably coming sometime soon.  The weather, however, never stopped Bill from taking his daily and evening strolls.  Wherever Johnny's Pizza Shop was located, Bill would walk in that direction, or toward whoever was passing out free goodies to Bill--nearly everybody.  I could always determine what Bill had eaten because half of it was smeared on the front of his shirt.
      Back then, Johnny's was the only pizza shop around, and it frequently moved.  For a while it stood at  the corner of Federal and Franklin, later next to the Manos Theater and still later in the heart of downtown Toronto.  No matter the location and the change of pizza cooks, Bill would always be there, one minute calling my date "skinny girl," the next minute telling me, "Man marries girl something's loose."
      Bill almost always repeated his statements as though his diaphragm had a built-in echo chamber.  He would sneak up behind you, poking his finger in your back, and in that signature flutey nasal voice, utter, "Whoops.  Goosey.  Goosey.  Clarkie's goosey."
       The Dairy Aisle was another regular stop for Bill, who held an equal affection of free ice cream, courtesy of the Henry family.  One evening, a young man coasted his car onto the Dairy Aisle parking lot, stopped by Bill and asked him directions for Kuhn's Hardware Store.
       Naturally, Bill assessed the man's car first and called it "a piece of junk."  Then Bill said, "Turn up bay.  Turn up bay.  Drive junk by Clarkie's--by Clarkie's.  Clarkie goosey.  Clarkie goosey.  Turn up bay."
        Frustrated the man crisscrossed his arms and yelled, "Just stop now; you're nuts!"
        Bill casually replied, "Ain't lost."
        Another signature quote of his was "push daddy."  I could never quite determine what that one meant, but maybe it bore some reference to his old A & P days when pushing grocery carts was in vogue.  Or just maybe he used such phrase to fill in conversation gaps.  Bill was certainly not quiet or one for a loss of words.
       The seats of my cars have never fallen down, sometimes I agree with Bill that the town was full of nuts.  About his assessment of marriage, I am going to have to plead the Fifth.
        "Push Daddy."
      

WE ARE MARSHALL

     Andy Warhol once said everybody has fifteen minutes of fame.  Eight of my fifteen minutes probably were spent in the 2006 movie We Are Marshall, starring Matthew McConaughhey.
      Fellow THS 1971 graduate Bob Eshbaugh and I played on the Young Thundering herd team that followed the one devastated in the tragic plane crash November 14, 1970.  We won two games that year, the big one against Xavier just our second contest of the 71 season.
      I tell everyone that I am the long-haired skinny blond kid who disrespectfully picks up the Falls City beer and drinks it inside Reggie Oliver's dorm room.  I was probably the skinniest player on the team, undoubtedly the main reason my football career was short.  Truth of the matter is that we were not allowed alcoholic drinks in our rooms.  Even truer, I did not like Falls City, despite the fact it fit a college boy's budget.
      Despite the Hollywood fictionalizing of a true story and all the slow motion sport cliches, We Are Marshall conveys the loss, grief and suffering of a college and a community in an artistic and sensitive manner.
        I am very proud to have been a part of the rebirth of Marshall football.
       PICTURES:  Me on the sidelines against Potomac State.
       My Young Thundering Herd Certificate
       Matthew McConaughey, who played head coach Jack Lengyel and Matthew Fox as assistant coach Red Dawson.
       Number 43 Bob Eshbaugh, holding football Jack Lengyel, number 58 me, Bob Petras.
       1971 football team and coaching staff--the Young Thundering Herd.

THE LOST VILLAGE OF PORT HOMER

       It was not always a coal yard and barge harbor that occupied the floodplain north of Stratton and Goose Run, but rather a town once called Port Homer, a village that preceded Stratton, Empire and Toronto.
      The lost village of Port Homer was founded by a Quebec expatriate named William H. Wallace, who opened a small store near the mouth of Goose Run on the right descending bank of the Ohio River sometime around 1840.  Wallace named the site Port Homer after his son, Homer.  "It soon became a prominent shipping point for the entire section," wrote Mary Ekey Robinson in The Stratton Village Story. "Products from distilleries, flour mills and salt wells were brought here to be shipped on river boats."
      In the early years of Jefferson County, farming was the primary occupation for residents, with one of the most profitable products being wool.  Steubenville and Jeddo with wool mills were two of the larger exporting sites in the area, but evidence suggests Port Homer might have been the largest.  "Sheep growers would bring their wool," wrote Robinson, "there would be long lines of these wagons waiting for the wool to be weighed and loaded on the barge."
      Wallace move to Hammondsville in 1851.  Unfortunately for him and his family, power from steam was increasing and accelerating transportation by both rail and water, making the still young country a glutton for coal.  Miners tapped into the vein of coal from the hill sides of Goose Run.  The Cleveland and Pittsburgh Rail laid track and established a depot at Port Homer in 1958.  The Ohio River here was easily forded from then Virginia across the Ohio and its islands of Nessley and Cluster.   Fossil fuel, wool, produce and other goods and the available access to transport them soon attracted other business to the small community.   Sprouting along the floodplain were a carpentry shop, a one-room schoolhouse, a post office, a ferry service, a barber shop and the Mineral Paint Oil Works.
      Oil was also discovered at Port Homer.  "The first well was drilled in the winter of 1899-1900, but was very small, making a barrel or two only per day," an early Ohio geological survey reported.  "The Berea grit is said to have been struck at a depth of 715 feet.  In the spring of 1900, the second well was completed and started at 100 barrels per day, but this rate was not long maintained."
      Like the nearby Knoxville and Yellow Creek oil fields, those of Port Homer soon dried, but it was the clay industry that continued industry and commerce in this tiny community.
      In the early 1900s, the Peerless Clay company established the manufacturing of sewer pipes and other vitreous clay products.  Company housing and stores soon flanked the plant and clay fields.  In 1960, the U.S. census showed that the incorporated village of Port Homer had a population of 75 people, including a mayor.
      In 1971, Peerless Clay ceased operations, and by 1980, Ohio Edison razed the last two remaining houses of the village.

      Pictures-- Port Homer today buried under fossil fuel.
                      Unknown woman and infant standing before row of company houses in Port Homer.
                      The village of Port Homer in Ohio River flood.
                       Probably only known  picture of the four-room Port Homer School.
                       Hand-drawn maps of Port Homer, artist unknown.
                        Peerless Clay.

THE DIAMOND MINE OF YELLOW CREEK

      "To the paleontologist there are few places in the world more interesting than the Diamond Mine at Linton," wrote Cleveland geologist John Strong Newberry in 1856, "since here he gets such a view of the life of the Carboniferous age as is afforded nowhere else, and of the great number of species found there."
      Few people other than men of science have heard of the Linton, Ohio to which Newberry referred, but it was a small village that once sprawled along the mouth of Yellow Creek.  No more  than a roadside park now sits at this historic site, and yet paleontologists still refer to it as Linton, and have excavated the hillside for fossils as recently as 2007.
      Linton was known primarily as the mouth of Yellow Creek prior to the 1800s when settlers erected a small blockhouse as protection from hostile Indians.  It remained an unincorporated village for more than a half-century, although a post office and a railroad depot put Linton upon maps by the mid-1850s.  This began the period when Connecticut entrepreneurs started operating the Diamond Mine, which produced a nine-foot seam of Freeport coal.  Below this rich seam, miners discovered a six-inch slate-like coal called canal from which they culled one of the richest pockets of fossils produced in the United States.
      Newberry and some of the most renowned paleontologists have visited the Diamond Mine, one such being Edward D. Cope, perhaps the most prominent paleontologist of the 19th Century.  His most notable contributions to science included the discovery of dozens of dinosaurs and the development of Cope's Law, which expounds upon the gradual enlargement of mammalian species.
     During the 150 years scientists have documented fossils gleaned from the Diamond Mine, ten dozen taxa of invertebrates, including small worms, millipedes and crustaceans, and forty taxa of vertebrates, mostly fish, have been documented.  According to Dr. Mark J. Camp in his book "Roadside Geology of Ohio," some fossils found at Linton are the only such kind ever discovered.
      "The Linton location ranks as the most prolific Pennsylvanian vertebrate fossil in the world," Camp wrote.
      Camp also stated that the most common fish found at Linton, numbering in the thousands, is the coelacanth, a carnivore that attained sizes of 6.5 feet in length and weighed nearly 198 pounds.  It was thought to have gone extinct with dinosaurs, but was discovered off the south coast of Africa in 1938.  A group of scientists theorize the coelacanth represented an early stage in the evolution of fish to terrestrial four-legged animals like amphibians.
      Long before the Ohio swept past what is now Linton, once sat an ox-box lake in which these fish including sharks and the coelacanth--as well as invertebrates inhabited.  A complex chemical process under enormous tonnage of sedimentary deposits preserved and fossilized these once living creatures in the canal seam of the Diamond Mine.
      The Diamond Mine officially operated from 1855 to 1921, collapsing during 1924.  In the ensuing years, scientists continued collecting specimens at dump sites of the mine and by the 1960s were taking them from the road cut nearby the development of the four-lane highway now consisting of Ohio Route Seven.  Scientific activity at the hillside cut discontinued during 2007.
      Many of the Linton fossils can be observed at numerous museums, including the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Orton Geological Museum of Ohio State University and the Smithstonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.