C.A. Smith Died On This Date

Tuesday, October 13, 1953

Charles A. Smith Dies in Chester

(left) Charles (C.A.) Smith from the 2001 Class of Lou Holtz/Upper Ohio Valley Hall of Fame Inductees.

East Liverpool, Oct. 14 - Funeral arrangements will be made here today for Charles A. Smith, 86, transit company owner, pottery manufacturer, oil operator and gentleman farmer, who died Tuesday at his home in Chester, W.Va.

Mr. Smith founded the village of Chester and named it after his uncle, Chester Mahan.

He was principal owner of the old Steubenville, East Liverpool and Beaver Valley Traction Co., now the Valley Motor Transit Co., the Taylor, Smith & Taylor Pottery Co., extensive oil and real estate interests and the 4,000-acre Hillcrest Farms.

He was formerly owner of the Ohio River bridge between East Liverpool and Chester, which he sold to the state of Ohio for $2,135,000. For many years he also operated Rock Springs Park, an amusement resort in Chester, which he built at the same time he was starting Chester.

Mr. Smith once owned light and power rights for East Liverpool and Steubenville, but sold them to what is now the Ohio Power Co. in 1917. One of the founders of the old Pennsylvania-Ohio-Maryland Baseball League, he sponsored a baseball team known as the "World Champions," which he sent around the world in 1906-'09.

He was born April 14, 1867, in Wellsville, where he began his climb from gas company waterboy to one of the Ohio Valley's wealthiest men. He made money first in West Virginia oil drilling operations.

The body is at the Dawson Funeral Home.