BARNESVILLE — Originally published in 1942 by local physician Dr. Dempsey O. Sheppard, “The Story of Barnesville, Ohio 1808-1940” is a detailed account of the community’s earliest years to its formal founding in 1808 up until just before World War II.

The book, reprinted by the Barnesville Junior Women’s Club during Barnesville’s 175th celebration, has long been out of print.

The new book is not a page-by-page photographic reproduction, but rather a digitally processed reproduction of the original book in a larger page size and print size than the original. Some typographical errors have been repaired, and some misspellings have been fixed.

The book’s original index is reproduced in larger type and only scratches the surface toward covering the thousands of names included within the book’s text. Inspired by the hand-assembled personal name index created for the 1983 reprint, a similar 33-page personal name index assembled by computer from name tags in the text concludes the pages of this reproduction.

A bonus of the new edition is 50 pages of vintage photographs selected from the Watt Center’s archive of fine old Barnesville pictures interspersed among this book’s original pages, making more visual and vivid some of the things described in the original publication.

The Watt Center is thankful for the Belmont County Tourism Council’s grant program that helped fund the project and the hard work of Watt Center members and volunteers whose efforts resulted in an updated and expanded index.

“The Story of Barnesville, Ohio 1808-1940,” an 8 ½ – x 11-inch softbound 463-page publication, is now on sale at four Barnesville locations just in time for Christmas giving – Avenues of Barnesville, Barnesville Antique Mall, Barnesville Area Chamber of Commerce office and The Flower Gardens.

Mailed copies cost $40.25 each to cover purchase and mailing costs. Address orders to: Watt Center, P.O. Box 463, Barnesville, OH 43713 and make checks payable to The Watt Center.

The Watt Center for History and the Arts is a nonprofit organization formed to provide a museum and artisan center for the community. The museum houses permanent collections reflecting the historical record of industry and agriculture in the area. The Artisan Center provides classes and programs to encourage appreciation and excellence in the arts.

Sheppard was an avid student of local history. Active in the Masonic Order, he penned histories of the lodge chapters prior to completing this seminal volume. He was born on a farm near Sewellsville in 1867. He attended Ohio Wesleyan University and taught school before gaining his medical degree in medicine and surgery at Starling Medical College, now part of Ohio State University, in 1897. At his death in 1953 at the age of 86, he was known as the “dean of the medical profession of Belmont County.” At that time, Ray Palmer, Barnesville Enterprise editor, noted Sheppard was “a practicing physician for over a half century, one of the last survivors of the horse-and-buggy era of medicine.”