Updated: 2:33 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016 |Posted: 2:33 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016

Historicalsociety revisits Middletown’s 1957 All-America City status

By Mike Rutledge

Staff Writer

MIDDLETOWN — 

The Middletown Historical SocietyWednesday will transport people back to 1957, when Middletownwas named an All-America City.

The society will host a 7 p.m.presentation that features a video interview of 97-year-old Middletownnative Knight Goodman, the man who gave the presentation in Clevelandthat won the award for Middletown.The video will be shown at the society’s building, 120 N. Verity Parkway, Middletown.

Although Middletown won the award in 1957, work towardthat award started 70 years ago, in 1946. Interest in the award was revivedrecently when City Manager Doug Adkins announced he would like to win thedesignation for a second time in 2020.

“The work that eventually led to the All-America City award started in 1946, right afterthe war,” said Sam Ashworth, president of the society. “That’s kind of whywe’re featuring it now.”

“They actually started working when thesoldiers came back home and there was the need for housing and all that kind ofstuff,” Ashworth said. “So they got this stuff going that over the next 10years, they were able to achieve all these things, and then submitted anapplication for All-America City designation, made their presentation up in Cleveland.”

After the 20-25-minute video, Ashworthwill give a presentation about the “Middletown Peace Plan,” which was developedhere, as Americans dealt with “a real paranoia about the atom bomb, and what todo about that,” he said. “They were absolutely afraid in this country that Russia wasgoing to get the bomb. The gist of it was to strengthen the United Nations, toavoid World War III.”