Greetings!
Welcome to the Mansfield-Richland Area Chamber of Commerce website. We are pleased to bring you this valuable resource, and hope you use it often. This website is a great source for many of the finest businesses in the Mansfield, OH and
Richland County
area. It is also a valuable source for many residents and visitors to our area.
During the celebration of the city of
Mansfield
’s 200th year, I couldn't help but think about what John Chapman and the pioneers who settled
Mansfield
in the days of the frontier would think if they could see the city they founded two centuries ago. I’m sure they would never have imagined the scientific, technological, medical and other advances that have transformed life here and around the world. In less time than they could travel to
Mt.
Vernon
, we can now travel to
Florida
to enjoy the winter warmth of the sunshine state. In less time than they would have taken to go out to get wood and start a fire in their stove or fireplace, we can now microwave or prepare a fully cooked meal. With the wonders of the telephone and the Internet, today we can communicate with more people from around the globe in just a few minutes than most of them would have communicated with in an entire lifetime.
It was inventors, entrepreneurs and businesspeople, people with an idea, a dream, the courage to take a risk and the drive to overcome whatever obstacles were in their way who made all of these advances possible. In other words – it was people like you, our members – who made today’s
Mansfield
possible. While the frontier is gone, the same pioneering spirit that pushed
Mansfield
’s founders to venture out into the unknown to tame a wild land and create a settlement of homesteads in the wilderness still exists today in the enterprising spirit of those whose businesses continue to transform our community, our country and our world.
As I write this, I also can’t help but wonder about what Mansfielder’s a century or two from now will remember and think about the
Mansfield
of today. While I can’t envision what that
Mansfield
will look like, I can envision that what we do in building the
Mansfield
of today will echo throughout the coming centuries, becoming an important paving stone in the creation of that
Mansfield
of a century or two down the road. The lines of a poem by Robert Frost that my Father once read to me come to mind again as I ponder the road
Mansfield
might travel down over its next two centuries.
I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
May the road we choose be one that will make all the difference.
With fondest regards,
Kevin Nestor