Brilla House

The Brilla House is near the center of old Newburgh Township, founded in 1814, which once dwarfed Cleveland as a rival community.  The waterfall at Mill Creek provided power for the area's first industry, while settlers farmed the surrounding countryside.  With the opening of the Ohio and Erie Canal in 1825, immigration increased.  In the late 1860's, one of the country's first Bessemer steel furnaces opened here.  In the early 1880's, workers began striking the mills over wage and job security issues.  The mill owners' response to the strikes forever changed the neighborhood.  They hired cheaper, newly arrived Eastern European immigrants, mostly Czech and Polish laborers, displacing native English, Welsh, and Scottish families living in the area.

Permanent exhibits chronicle those events and more recent ones such as the increasing cultural and racial diversity of the area.  A state-of-the-art large-screen flat panel computer display shows continuous programs on aspects of the region's history.  Additionally, a digital microfilm reader is available for researching microfilmed records, and the entire photograph collection of the Slavic Village Historical Society will be available through a networked computer system installed in the center.

The Brilla House, home of the Slavic Village Historical Society, is staffed by volunteers from the Mill Creek Falls History Center and is open weekends from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm, April through October.