TWINSBURG HEIGHTS, Ohio — It looks like a misprint. But it's not.
After years of watching the world around it develop, the self-contained village of Twinsburg Heights finally received water and sewer lines in the 1970s.
For most of us, we don’t remember a time when we didn’t have everyday luxuries like running water or a flushing toilet, but Adrienne Hubbard-Caffee does.
She still lives in the neighborhood where she grew up more than 60 years ago.
"It was land, it was woods, it was fields," she said. "We had mud streets. When we walked from street to street, by the time you got there, you had to pull your shoes off because you were full of mud walking to the next street."
As we celebrate Black History Month, News 5 wanted to revisit the push to bring these essential utilities to the community of about 500 more than 50 years ago.
Caffee reminisced how a community with streets named after elite colleges felt like anything but when compared to neighboring communities.
"We had a toilet in the backyard," she said. "We take what we call the slop jar from the house and use the bathroom, go out and dump it and clean it and bring it back in the house. If you had to go number two, you had to go outside [to the outhouse]."
Indoor plumbing and sewer systems first started being developed in the late 1800s. But time and time again, those in this community said they felt they had to keep waiting for their turn.
When Chrysler built a plant right next to Twinsburg Heights in the 1950s, water lines were laid in front of those homes. But access to them was out of the question.
A 2016 documentary titled "Voices of the Hill" chronicled the oversight and the push that followed.
"I actually had to go to an outhouse until 1973," resident Kim Fagalar said. "It was exciting when we got indoor plumbing."
For Fagalar's cousins who would come to visit from just 10 miles away in Warrensville Heights, coming to Twinsburg Heights felt like time traveling.
"I felt like we were in Mayberry," cousin Lisa Rice said. "Why don't we have this stuff? It felt like I'm [standing] in the 1940s or 1950s and it's the 1970s."
For Lisa Rice and Leslie White-Wilson, it was too much for their father, Luke White, to witness. White ran the Twinsburg Heights Community Center.
"Nobody cared enough to see they got the resources they needed," White-Wilson said. "He took it upon himself to say, 'We can’t go on like this. We’re going to make significant changes in the community.'"
In 1972, White and others successfully lobbied the U.S. Department of Federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and were granted $1.2 million in federal funding to help pay for water and sewer lines.
Luke White passed away almost two years ago, but the sights and sounds of his legacy flow through today.
"This is one man gathering up his friends, his neighbors to get it done," Rice said. "Anything you want to do, you can do it. If you got a conviction within you, you can do it."
"I say it was his calling to serve the community," Fagalar smiled.
Clay LePard is a special projects reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on Twitter @ClayLePard or on Facebook Clay LePard News 5.
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