(Publisher’s Note: This article is the first in a series on Mayor Kathryn Thalman, her perspective on today’s St. Clairsville, and on the future of “Paradise on the Hill”.)
St. Clairsville, Ohio – “Just bring the jobs here. Bring them here and they will come,” says St. Clairsville, Ohio Mayor Kathryn Thalman.
That’s the population solution in this East Ohio city just as it’s the answer in every other Rust Belt community that’s lost taxpayers since manufacturing moved out of the region, if not the country.
Mayor Thalman, though, describes her city as “dynamic” with schools, healthcare, recreation, and infrastructure all primed to attract new residents, businesses, and jobs to the community. St. Clairsville is, after all, the county seat “headquarters” for Belmont County with the courthouse as the centerpiece of a downtown that is surrounded by neighborhoods in every direction.
There are “Ma and Pa” shops and boutiques, the Ohio Valley Mall is less than a few miles away, and the municipality is equipped with amenities like walking trails, a bike path, and a public amphitheater where live and local entertainment frequently takes place.
That’s why Thalman believe St. Clairsville is finally prepared to grow commercially, yes, but also residentially.
Losing City Status?
Like many communities in the Upper Ohio Valley, the city of St. Clairsville has seen its population decline in recent decades as the coal, steel and manufacturing sectors contracted. For St. Clairsville, attracting new residents is paramount to the community maintaining its official designation as a city. In Ohio, a municipality needs at least 5,000 residents, as determined by the federal census, to be classified as a city. Communities with less than 5,000 residents are deemed villages.
St. Clairsville achieved city status in 1977, and Thalman said the current population is around 5,100. She added that it is important that St. Clairsville maintains its city status due to grant opportunities.
“We don’t want to fall below that status. We want to stay a city because it affects some of the grants you get. If you lose your city status, you don’t get grants that are eligible for cities, so we wish to maintain it,” she explained.
Thalman, who has served as mayor for a little more six years, said city officials have discussed expanding – or “annexing” – the city limits outward to add more residents to the census.
“There are some talks right now about trying to push the city limits out, but, unfortunately, there is not a lot of room to grow, at least toward the interstate. We have talked about maybe pushing the boundaries because we don’t want to fall below that (city) status,” Thalman explained.
Thalman said St. Clairsville is also attracting new residents, and the addition of the Trinity Health System St. Clairsville Neighborhood Hospital in 2025 and a new recreation center could make the Belmont County community a magnet for families and retirees seeking to move to a safe, vibrant community.
“The fact that we have now gotten a hospital which has been a huge attraction and the fact that we’re getting more recreational facilities, this is a place that people want to be. We have a couple of people who are interested in building homes in town, so we’re always willing to help them because we want to see our population grow,” Thalman said.
Healthcare options are expanding even more as St. Clairsville will soon be home to a second hospital by the end of 2027 with WVU Medicine planning to open its WVU Medicine St. Clairsville Community Hospital at 67670 South Ebbert Road just off I-70 near the Ohio Valley Mall.
Thalman, who formerly worked in pharmaceutical sales, says these two new hospitals will fill a gap left by the recent closures of other medical facilities in the area.
“Wheeling Hospital WVU is just moving ground to put another emergency hospital in. I’m so pleased about that because I had come out of medical sales and I’m very attuned to what was going on,” the mayor explained. “In the past 25 years, we have lost Bellaire Hospital, we’ve lost Ohio Valley Hospital [OVMC] and we’ve lost East Ohio, and that is a major loss as far as emergency room beds.
“You look at how many emergency room beds are in a county and are in an area. We lost a lot, so having our hospital at Trinity and then to have this built is a plus when it comes to adding population.”
Thalman said she still holds out hope that East Ohio Regional Hospital in Martins Ferry could reopen.
“I know we have not yet heard the death knell yet for East Ohio (even though no one placed a bid on the property last week). I think it is for sale. I would love to see somebody buy it and reopen it, but we don’t know. But to get some of those beds back to serve our populations would be wonderful,” she said.
Here. There. Everywhere.
Thalman said local mayors on both sides of the Ohio River are working together to highlight the opportunities throughout the Ohio Valley, and to attract jobs and residents to work them.
“So, some of it is out of the hands of the local mayors, but I do give the mayor of Barnesville (Jake Hershberger) credit. He has re-instituted the mayor’s monthly meeting, so we had a chance three weeks ago to sit down and kind of go over common problems and goals,” Thalman explained. “We all decided we’re not all just St. Clairsville or just Bellare or just Barnesville. We are the valley.
“And I’ve even reached out to Mayor Denny Magruder in Wheeling,” she said. “We need to attract businesses to this valley and to this part of our state to really get the high growth and to keep our populations up.”
Evolving with the Times
These days, there are more office-like operations in St. Clairsville than she remembers, and now there are doctors, attorneys, financial folks filling the vacancies left by businesses consumed by larger versions of grocery stores, urgent cares, and auto dealerships.
Thalman, though, is optimistic about St. Clairsville’s future, noting that it has evolved with the times and now houses many legal offices as the seat of Belmont County and home to the county courthouse.
“St. Clairsville,” the mayor insisted, “has evolved into more of a business community.”
Plus, “Paradise on the Hill” is home to the St. Clairsville-Richland City School District, St. Mary’s Central School, East Richland Christian School, Belmont Career Center, Belmont College, and Ohio University Eastern, and several new eateries have opened, recreational opportunities continue to increase, and safety is a constant priority.
“We have several new restaurants now, and they are fabulous, and we have a very excellent police department so we have a very safe town,” she insisted. “It’s just a tight-knit little community so it truly is a special place.”
(Cover photo by Karen Fatula)
(“St. Clairsville’s Mayor – Part 2” will publish tomorrow evening here on LEDENews.com)
