Attracted by Springville's rich forests and abundant streams, New Englanders settled the area in the early 1800s. Not long after, industries abounded, such as agriculture and education. In 1830, Springville Academy emerged as Erie County's first high school and has produced an array of distinguished citizens, including politicians, football innovator Glenn "Pop" Warner, and painless dentistry pioneer Dr. Ralph Waite. In 1834, Springville was incorporated from the Town of Concord. In 1878, the Springville & Sardinia Railroad was built, and access to distant markets connected local businesses and Springville with the rest of the country. Visionaries Bert and Jenny Chaffee donated their home to the community for the creation of the Bertrand Chaffee Hospital in 1946, and the community received another economic boost in the 1960s when the world's first privately owned nuclear fuel reprocessing facility was built between Springville and West Valley. Multimillion dollar agricultural enterprises, which have replaced family farms, are served by expanded local farm equipment dealers and animal feed formulation mills. Today, medical and agricultural services, manufacturing, and education are key elements in the area's economy.
During the American Civil War, Maryland did not join the Confederacy but nonetheless possessed divided loyalties and sentiments. These divisions came to a head in the years that followed the war. In Loyalty on the Line, David K. Graham argues that Maryland did not adopt a unified postbellum identity and that the state remained divided, with some identifying with the state’s Unionist efforts and others maintaining a connection to the Confederacy and its defeated cause. Depictions of Civil War Maryland, both inside and outside the state, hinged on interpretations of the state’s loyalty. The contested Civil War memories of Maryland not only mirror a much larger national struggle and debate but also reflect a conflict that is more intense and vitriolic than that in the larger national narrative. The close proximity of conflicting Civil War memories within the state contributed to a perpetual contestation. In addition, those outside the state also vigorously argued over the place of Maryland in Civil War memory in order to establish its place in the divisive legacy of the war. By using the dynamics interior to Maryland as a lens for viewing the Civil War, Graham shows how divisive the war remained and how central its memory would be to the United States well into the twentieth century.
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