Spiegel Grove photograph   Save
Works Progress Administration, Ohio Guide Photographs
Description: This photograph is an exterior view of Spiegel Grove, the former home of U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes, in Fremont, Ohio. A portion of another building is visible on the photograph's right side. Spiegel Grove is the former home of President Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822-1893). The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center currently occupies the site, which is open to the public under the direction of the Ohio Historical Society. Spiegel Grove was constructed from 1859-1863. (“Spiegel” is the German word for “mirror,” and the home is named after pools of water that form on the estate’s grounds after a rain.) The home’s original owner was Sardis Birchard, Hayes’s uncle and guardian, who used Spiegel Grove as a summer residence. Hayes became Spiegel Grove’s owner in 1873, and he made it his permanent home. Upon completion of his presidency in 1881, Hayes expanded the home to make room for his 12,000-volume library, to provide additional room for guests, and also to install indoor plumbing. In 1889, Hayes ordered the construction of another addition to make room for his children and grandchildren who commonly visited. This final addition created a thirty-one-room mansion. Both Hayes and his wife, Lucy Hayes, died at Spiegel Grove and are interred on the grounds. Spiegel Grove remained in the Hayes family until the first decade of the 1900s, when the family deeded the property to the State of Ohio. In 1916, a museum and library opened on the site, commemorating Hayes’s political and military contributions to Ohio and to the United States. This was the first presidential library commemorating a United States president. Spiegel Grove is on the National Register of Historic Places. This image of Spiegel Grove was among the photographs produced by the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) between 1935 and 1943. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06393
Subjects: Spiegel Grove (Fremont, Ohio); Hayes, Rutherford Birchard, 1822-1893; United States. Work Progress Administration; National Register of Historic Places; Fremont (Ohio)
Places: Fremont (Ohio); Sandusky County (Ohio)