Zoar Historic District

Zoar is a small village in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, laid out five streets long by five wide and still dominated by early and mid 19th century buildings. German Separatists founded it in 1817 as a religious community and soon adopted communal living to pay their land debts and secure their livelihoods. The settlement included a church, bakery, tin shop, blacksmith shop, pottery, mills, a brewery, an ornamental garden with greenhouse, and two hotels. Under Joseph Baumeler the society prospered, and its holdings were valued at more than a million dollars by his death in 1853. Later leaders abandoned his practice of reinvesting profits, and economic decline, fading idealism and internal dissension ended the society in 1898. Most buildings are half-timbered with rubble-filled walls, with some brick houses, four early log houses and a few red-tile roofs made in Zoar. The village was listed because its core survives nearly intact and shows European culture and architecture in Ohio.