We learned about the riots on Tuesday - or maybe you didn't, since I forgot to upload the page until 2 PM. Well, trust me, there were riots. Steel riots in the difficult 30s. Now it's a town of 35,000 souls.

Could've been called Rotch:

The original settlement of Kendal was founded in 1812 by Thomas Rotch, a Quaker originally of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut. James Duncan of New Hampshire first settled in Kendal before recording the plot for Massillon on December 6, 1826. Duncan, known as the city's founder, named the town after Jean Baptiste Massillon, a French Catholic bishop, at the request of his wife.

Let's take a look.

The building had a different facade, obviously.

And then it had a different storefront after that. Next door:

The steelworkers local office. Doesn’t look as if the dues are just flowing in like hot molten iron.

Interesting structure, and you know why:

It’s those three arches on the side street.

Well, this is the outskirts. Let’s head a little closer to the city center.

Strange, brusque building.

Seems like it was always so. It was born to be forbidding. What was on top, now stripped, is a mystery.

This a sin, and a strange thing indeed.

It appears that the front of the building was set back from the main street, and no one with any sense of beauty stuck a huge warehouse in front of it.

Let’s go around the back.

But what was it?

McClain Grocery.

A wholesale grocery had operated on Erie Street S since the 1830s under several different owners until it was acquired by three proprietors, including Charles Leslie McLain in 1883. Quick to grow, the C.L. McLain Company opened its new warehouse in 1895 on Erie Street S in the city’s first building constructed of steel and brick.

Absorbed, finally, in 1981 by a bigger firm.

Looks like retail, no? It could be some industrial building that gave the workers lots of light. Too bright for an office building. Let’s zoom in on that name.

Okay, it's a store.

Furniture, if you're wondering.

It’s as if time made them knit together.

The most interesting block yet. It feels like a big city here.

Let’s go around the corner to see what the front of that tall building looks like.

A simple lovely classical addition, a sign: the town has arrived.

Across the street:

McClymond’s:

Epxensive-looking place.

The iconic, massive building was constructed by J. Walter McClymonds to house Merchants National Bank in 1909 at 14 Lincoln Way W. It was the fist high-rise structure in the city.

McClymonds was a prominent businessman in Massillon at the turn of the century. The building was designed by architect Herman J. Albrecht, who also designed the city’s former post office at Federal Avenue and First Street.

Abandoned and trashed, but a renovation began a few years ago.

This you might not think had any particular history.

But . . .

You have to respect the people who owned the building later, and left the name intact. It adds something to a downtown.

It’s quite the eclectic assortment.

An old facade - not original, of course.

A sign of the glamorous age when storefronts were swathed in black mirror.

You can tell they had a downtown rebirth movement, with brick planters.

They look dated almost as soon as they're done.

The yellow building is giving me all sorts of confusion.

It’s the fourth possessive name so far:

As standard an office structure as they come, but a sign of better times.

You’ll note the absence of anything new downtown.

The aforementioned Post Office.

Something big was here, you can tell. And you can tell it’s not here anymore.