The collaboration between Alliance Historical Society and Alliance Preservation Society is off to an award-winning start.
The two organizations’ first project – the East Main Street Historic District Walking Tour – received an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Ohio Local History Alliance during the statewide organization’s annual meeting Oct. 4-5 in Columbus.
The award, included in the History Outreach Public Programming category, recognizes programs based on their historical and educational value as well as their implementation.
Dalton Rininger Kline, Karen Perone and Robb Hyde researched and wrote the descriptions of the downtown buildings. Robb Hyde designed the signs.
The East Main Street Historic District Walking Tour is the first in Alliance to be marked with permanent signs, thanks to the Anthony Lalli Downtown Fund administered by the Greater Alliance Foundation.
The self-guided walking tour has 32 stops along the main and market streets and is approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long. Each stop is marked with a permanent sign, either on a building or hanging from a pole. Each sign, created and installed by Fabin3d, contains a QR code that hikers can scan for information and images about that specific site.
The tour can be viewed on the Clio app and is the third walk in Alliance, joining the Freedom Trail from the Rodman Public Library to the Mabel Hartzell Historical Home and the Alliance City Cemetery Tour.
The city council and the owners of buildings and businesses in downtown Alliance chose to have the signs installed. Main Street Alliance helped share and promote the tours.
The walk was inaugurated on June 15 with a ceremonial ribbon cutting in the Carnation Caboose parking lot.
This article originally appeared in The Alliance Review: Alliance walking tour wins state award
