Best Hometowns 2024: Bryan

The Williams County Courthouse stands 160 feet tall, with towering turrets and a central clocktower rising through its center, reflecting the French Baroque and Romanesque Revival influences that shaped American architecture at the time it was completed in 1890.

A climb to the top is more ladder than stairway, but the effort pays off with a peek through narrow windows that gaze out across the roughly 5.5 square miles of Bryan. Strands of colored lights spiderweb out from the top of the courthouse, connecting to lampposts along the sidewalks of the city’s square. The lights stay up year-round but are lit at Christmastime as the city’s Christkindl Market sets up shop below. The annual event, which runs for 11 evenings in late November and December, routinely draws 7,000 people to its opening night alone.  

The courthouse serves as a distant beacon for those driving across the expansive and flat Williams County countryside, about an hour west of Toledo. So does the Spangler Candy Co. water tower, which appears to stand upon the legs of eight 65-foot-tall Dum Dums lollipops.

The water tower standing next to Spangler Candy Co.’s facility looks as if it’s supported by eight enormous Dum Dums lollipops (above left). The Williams County Courthouse (above right) rises over downtown Bryan. (photos by Doug Hinebaugh)

The water tower was painted in 2022 and rises next to Spangler’s factory, which employs 575 locals. The company opened here in 1906, when it made and sold baking powder in Bryan’s downtown, later producing and selling chocolates and cocoanut balls. Today, the company is the caretaker of a lineup of legendary candy brands, making Dum Dums, Bit-O-Honey, Sweethearts, Circus Peanuts and a variety of candy canes in Bryan. 

“If you look at the products that the company has made over the years, that’s evolved. It didn’t make Dum Dums or candy canes for the first 40 or 50 years,” says Kirk Vashaw, CEO of Spangler Candy Co. “And then you think, ‘What will the future be?’ It continues to evolve. And the community will evolve.”

At the end of 2023, Spangler Candy World opened along South Main Street. The more than 5,000-square-foot entertainment space features interactive touch screens, a movie theater and more. It was one of the recent changes in a downtown that has seen a lot of them since 2019, when 10% of the buildings were vacant, including key pieces of real estate surrounding the town square. 

“We were at a point where we were going to become a ghost town, or we were going to have what I call ‘pumpkin teeth’ in the downtown, where buildings were going to have to be removed,” says Mayor Carrie Schlade, who took office in 2018. “And that’s not what Bryan wanted as a community.” 

Spangler Candy World in downtown Bryan offers a space for imagination and play for kids of all ages. (photo by Doug Hinebaugh)

In 2019, the Bryan Area Chamber of Commerce director approached city council to propose a downtown ordinance that would fine business owners up to $1,600 annually for owning vacant buildings in town. The proposal was followed by a meeting organized by Bryan Development president Russ Davies to facilitate a discussion between the city and building owners. As owners decided to either rent or sell their properties, Bryan eventually saw a 7% reduction in the downtown’s vacancy.

Then, in 2021, the Bryan Area Foundation stepped in to help identify and address community needs. After a consultation with Small Nation, an Ohio company that helps support redevelopment efforts in small towns, the Bryan Area Foundation started a project fund, which allowed them to provide $1.1 million in grants from Bryan Development to fund improvements to buildings on the square. This went on to spur a great deal of private investment. The Bryan Area Foundation also helped award grants that allocated an additional $60,000 to help fund 21 projects through a match program. 

“The city, the foundation, the chamber, we were all invested in this. We were all going to be a part of it,” says Dan Yahraus, executive director of the Bryan Area Chamber of Commerce. “… We don’t care who gets the credit. We just care that it’s getting done.”

Fearfully Made Boutique is one of Bryan’s downtown businesses. Many new shops have opened their doors in recent years. (photo by Doug Hinebaugh)

Today, Bryan’s downtown is at just 3% vacancy, and businesses include boutiques, restaurants, cafes and other shops. In addition to its downtown scene, Bryan also has a wealth of multigenerational businesses that contribute to the city’s economic stability.

One such business is Bard Manufacturing, which has been in town for over 100 years and employs 300 people locally. Allied Moulded, which employs 350 people, has been around since it started in a garage in 1958. Ohio Art is another heritage company in town, having brought a factory to Bryan in 1912 that specialized in metal lithography. The company is best known for making the Etch A Sketch, which it did for over 50 years before selling the licensing rights in 2016. 

“How many places, especially in a town of 8,600 people, do you find that many companies that have been here for that many generations?” Schlade says. “I think that makes us really special.”

The community’s schools are centered on a 72.6-acre main campus near the intersection of Center Street and William County Road 13, just 2 miles southwest of downtown. All 2,000 Bryan City School District students in grades K-12 attend either the renovated elementary school building, which was completed in 2017, or the joint middle school and high school, which was completed in 2016. All of it was made possible from a bond issue the city passed in 2013 that will raise $57.4 million over a 28-year period.

Bryan’s commitment to education extends beyond the classroom, as evidenced by the support of local organizations and businesses. With the help of donations and athletic boosters, the district upgraded its high school football stadium with new turf, new lights and a new scoreboard in 2024.

“I have rarely seen an initiative fail when we partner between the schools and the community,” says Mark Rairigh, superintendent of the Bryan City School District. 

Reinvestment in Bryan’s historic downtown was a focus that transformed the city (above left). The community worked together to fund the construction of an inclusive playground called Lincoln Park (above right). (photos by Dough Hinebaugh)

In 2023, the Bryan Area Foundation worked with the city’s Parks & Recreation Department and the Bryan community to raise more than $730,000 in less than a year to fund the construction of an inclusive playground called Lincoln Park, where children of different ability levels can play. Other community improvements have included a new amphitheater at Recreation Park. 

On High Street, you’ll find Dos Eppi’s, a Puerto Rican restaurant, and Zazarac’s  Bar & Eatery, which has all the makings of a modern-day speakeasy. Beside them, a staircase leads to the upper floors and into a former ballroom. The space is now exposed and dusty, but still hints at a past grandeur. Both the ballroom and the street-level spaces are part of the Long Building, a late 1880s structure that has seen more than a century of change in Bryan — changes which haven’t stopped yet.

Dave Swanson is heading up this transformation, with plans to convert the second floor into offices and the third into a space to host weddings and other events.

Swanson, who moved to Bryan nearly 50 years ago and founded the medical device company Daavlin before selling it in 2022, has long been invested in the community. He also purchased neighboring buildings on High Street, with a vision to transform the upper floors into a 14-room boutique hotel that will connect with his existing businesses on the block. 

“I have no idea whether that money’s ever going to come back or not,” Swanson says of his investment. “I’m 77 years old, and I figured if it never comes back, it’s just a gift to Bryan. This building will be ready for another 150 years. It will be well taken care of when I get done with it, and maybe that’s enough.”

More Best Hometowns 2024-25: Bryan | Hilliard | McConnelsville | Millersburg | Urbana

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