St. Clairsville, Ohio
Paradise on the Hilltop
Published March 2015
Located about 11 miles from the Ohio River in the rugged hills of eastern Ohio, St. Clairsville is a community-driven city with a rich cultural heritage. The county seat of Belmont County, the city is named after Gen. Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory. The community was founded in 1796 and incorporated in 1807.
Two nationally famous transportation routes have influenced the city’s development: National Road and Interstate 70. The National Road serves as the city’s Main Street and was the nation’s first federally funded interstate highway. It is federally designated both as a National Scenic Byway and even more distinctive as an “All American Road” by the Federal Highway Administration. Interstate 70 passes along St. Clairsville’s southern corporation line.
St. Clairsville currently ranks as one of Ohio Magazine’s “Five Best Hometowns.” In 2007, the city was the national population category winner in the “America In Bloom” competition, which ranked the community on issues relating to sustainability and livability. In 1998, the city was recognized by the international “Communities In Bloom” competition for long-term community planning.
The city’s downtown district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of Interior.
St. Clairsville’s National Road Bikeway is a unique bicycle path that runs through the city, connecting residents and surrounding neighborhoods. Opening ceremonies were held in 1998 for the project, which includes Ohio’s first rail-trail tunnel that is more than 500 feet long and 40 feet high. Interior lighting was installed and the northern end of the tunnel features a two-tiered plaza overlook, allowing the user an 80-foot-high view of the bike trail from the top level.
A leader in public power promotion
St. Clairsville has been lauded by AMP many times for its dedication to community, including recently at the 2014 AMP/OMEA Conference. St. Clairsville Light & Power received a 2014 AMP Safety Award in the transmission/distribution category, and was also given a 2014 AMP System Improvement Award honorable mention nod for its recent AMI metering project. For that project, the city changed out all of its electric and water meters to increase reliability, make things more convenient and affordable for residents, and help bring more renewable energy to the grid in the future to encourage energy conservation. Other recent AMP awards received by St. Clairsville include Public Power Promotion and Environmental Stewardship awards in 2013, and the System Improvement award in 2012 and 2010.
St. Clairsville Mayor Robert Vincenzo is also a member of the Ohio Municipal Electric Association (OMEA) Board of Directors, participating in many facets to protect the independence and constitutional rights of Ohio municipal electric systems, and serves on the Board’s three-member executive committee.
St. Clairsville was one of the first small cities in Ohio to create a full Geographic Information System, and one of the first to offer internet utility billing.
As a member of AMP, St. Clairsville participates in a number of AMP programs and projects that assist in providing reliable energy and other benefits to the community and its citizen-owners. These include:
- AMP Fremont Energy Center, a natural gas combined cycle facility that provides energy and capacity
- Blue Creek Wind Farm, a wind farm in northwest Ohio that helps diversify the city’s portfolio of renewable resources providing power to members
- Mutual Aid, a network of municipal electric systems that assist each other when utility emergencies occur that are too widespread to be handled by one system alone
- North Central AMP Service Group (NCASG)
- New York Power Authority (NYPA), providing hydroelectricity generated by plants on the Niagara and St. Lawrence rivers
- OSHA compliance, a contractual-based program that expands on the general safety program
- Phase 1 Hydro, which includes the run-of-the-river generating facilities currently under construction at the Cannelton, Smithland and Willow Island dams on the Ohio River
For more information, please visit www.stclairsville.com.