Not a bad little town
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2/5/2009
Having lived in and around Polk most of my life, I might be a little biased but Polk is a nice small town, roughly 15 miles in any direction from any towns of significant size. The town doesn't have the things it once did, partly because a lot of people have moved from town or moved to outlying areas because of a desire to have a more "country" setting for their home than living within the corporation limits of the town. During the years I grew up there, the town had three stores (Neal's Market, Polk Country Store, and a pool-hall that later became Smetzer's Hardware), post office, bank, school, and volunteer fire station. That was in the early 1970's. Since then, the post office is still there but the old Polk Country Store is now a residence beside what used to be the Polk State Bank (which later became a branch of First National Bank of Ashland and then National City Bank of Ashland and is now unused as far as I know). What was once Neal's Market is now the Polk Country Store. There was a large addition to that existing building to house a small hardware store but that addition has since become a residence. The large building that used to be across state route 89 from the old bank, which was the pool-hall during my early childhood, was a horse-carriage factory in the town's early days and was used for various other things in following years. The last owner was my father, who housed office and garage space there for his business. He ultimately sold the building to the town and it was subsequently razed and turned into the large parking lot you see there today, on the south east corner of the town square. The little white garage-type building on the south side of that parking lot was once the fire department. In the latter 1970's a new fire station was built behind it, on Congress Street. That building is still there but since then yet another and much newer fire station was built a short distance further down Congress Street and is, as of 2009, the current location for the Polk Volunteer Fire Department. The Polk School, once a neighborhood elementary school that was part of the Mapleton Local School district, was demolished once the district consolidation project was completed, just a few years ago, at the site of what was the existing Mapleton High School (now the Middle School) at the intersection of county roads 620 and 801. Part of the Polk School playground and the baseball diamond are still there. The little park area immediately adjacent to the south of the original fire department building (that little white garage building with its front now bricked up), on state route 89 (South Main Street) is where annual carnivals were once held for the town. Believe it or not, in the 1970's the town hosted square-dances in the town square for several of my early childhood years. I also remember a parade or two in the town square during my childhood. Things like that in Polk are completely unheard of now. The water tower and "city water" lines were installed in the town in the early 1980's. Also, there is still a single run of railroad tracks that crosses North Main Street at the far north side of town but is largely unused now. At one time, there were two runs of tracks on that rail-bed and trains ran through there very frequently, day and night. Across the tracks was the old grain elevator. The building is still there but was purchased and rennovated extensively, I believe in an effort to preserve its structural integrity, and has not been used as a grain elevator in several decades. I think it now stands mostly as a symbol of the town's history.
John | Polk, OH