Our Heritage
Sugar Creek's rich history
The rolling fields and woods that are now Golf at Sugar Creek and the surrounding Village @ Sugar Creek boast a rich, mid-western heritage. Many Union soldiers returning north in the mid-1860's headed for the newly-opened Black Swamp area of northwest Ohio looking for productive farmland. Traveling through the area, Civil War veterans staked homestead claims and raised barns for each other along the way.
Among the historic buildings constructed during this migration was a large white barn on North Dixie Highway adjacent to the sixth green at Sugar Creek. Built between 1865 and 1868 from timber on the property, the structure was completely restored in 1997. Removal of several additions constructed over the years returned the barn to its original 1860's dimensions and appearance. Workers came from upstate New York to hoist and reposition the barn that had shifted over time from its flagstone foundation of Ohio limestone.
Once the barn was back on its foundation, Amos J. Graber & Sons from Bern, Indiana, began restoration of the rest of the structure. They replaced a number of beams, refurbished exterior siding and felled trees on the Sugar Creek property for lumber to reconstruct the upper floor of the barn. Today this historic building's foundation serves as the maintenance shop for the Golf at Sugar Creek maintenance and groundskeeping crew. A violent wind storm in 2006 destroyed the second floor of the barn.
The core 165 acres of what is now the golf course were purchased by Dr. D. Wayne Myers in 1954 from Dr. Faust, an area dentist. Charlie Coates farmed the property for Dr. Myers and for his daughter and son-in-law Mary Beth and Wes Runk until construction of the golf course began in 1997. Major crops farmed on the property include soybeans, corn and wheat, but it has also included a large hog farm and an apple orchard. Oldtimers still tell stories about people coming from miles around for the famous melons grown in the fields where the seventh hole at Sugar Creek now lies. Part of the property was also a well-known rest stop for travelers on the Dixie Highway, old US 25.
The Runks lived in the main farmhouse from 1976 - 2005. The house was constructed by Andrew Plaugher in 1893. Like the barn, the house sits on a flagstone foundation of Ohio limestone. Bricks for the structure were made on the property and the walls are all three bricks thick so the building remains warm in winter and cool in summer. The original two-story house consisted of four rooms on each floor. The Runks believe at least three additions have been made to the house over the years, including updates for plumbing and heating. In spite of renovations, the house retains its historic charm and still includes the original high, flat baseboards and crystal chandeliers.
The springhouse on the pond behind the farmhouse remains active, and during dry periods the Runks pump water from the springs into the two-room underground, flagstone cistern between the house and the garage. Approximately five springs feed the pond adjacent to the original springhouse. In addition, natural gas wells exist on the property on holes two and three at the golf course.
With completion of the golf course in 1999 and the opening of the Village @ Sugar Creek in 2004, the rural woods and fields once tilled by generations of farmers are becoming a premier residential home sites. Property acquisition has increased the total Sugar Creek area to 375 acres and the landscape is changing. But the Village at Sugar Creek will retain its close-to-nature qualities and the country living environment cherished by previous inhabitants.