After the last steel mill closed in Steubenville, Ohio, in 2005, the life soon went out of the city’s downtown. Windows were dark, and the mood was even darker.
“It was devastating. It was so abandoned that you could have held a picnic in the middle of the street and there would have been nothing going on and nobody coming by,” said John Kuhner, who owns Bookmarx Bookstore on the town’s main thoroughfare, Fourth Street.
The hometown of legendary singer Dean Martin was literally half of what it had been, plummeting from a population of about 40,000 in 1940 to about 18,000 today.
“For years, people weren’t hopeful that the downtown would come back,” Kuhner said.
Then, in early 2015, there was a community meeting about how to revitalize the town, located near the Pennsylvania line about 40 miles from Pittsburgh.
Jerry Barilla, then the owner of a downtown appliance store, suggested putting nutcrackers around town at Christmastime to make it more festive.
“I got the idea from the city of Cambridge, Ohio, where they put out life-size [Charles] Dickens characters every year,” he said. “I wondered if maybe we could do something like that, only with nutcrackers.”
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Another business owner, Mark Nelson, said he wanted to help.
Nelson, who runs a gift-manufacturing company in Steubenville, proposed using his company’s equipment to make giant nutcrackers for the town’s annual Advent Market that year at Historic Fort Steuben.
Nelson’s son-in-law, Brodie Stutzman, carved 37 giant nutcrackers out of fiberglass and foam. Then the rest of the family — Nelson’s wife, Gretchen, and many of their 10 children — helped give them individual flourishes and bring them to life. Nelson’s daughter Therese Fedoryka oversaw most of the painting, he said.
The nutcrackers were so popular at the festival that the Nelson family decided to keep the tradition going and moved the display one block downtown to Fourth Street several years later.
“The second year, we had 75 nutcrackers, and we just kept going from there,” Nelson said. “People who had been hesitant to come to this part of town were suddenly calling their friends up and telling them to get down there and see the nutcrackers.”
“For the first time in years, our downtown was lively again,” he said. “It was like a miracle happened.”
The Steubenville Nutcracker Village, now in its ninth year, is a free event that this year runs from Thanksgiving week to Jan. 6. It draws thousands of tourists to the former steel town every holiday season, said Barilla, now the mayor of Steubenville.
“It’s been a tremendous asset for the city. People come from miles around to see this unique display,” he said. “Parents and grandparents bring their kids to take memorable photos with the nutcrackers. It’s just a delight.”
The nutcrackers have also enticed people to open businesses in Steubenville, Nelson said, noting that several new shops and restaurants are now thriving on Fourth Street.
“It’s been a game changer,” he said.
Like many steel towns, Steubenville took a big hit during the economic downturn of the 1970s and ’80s.
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The town’s largest employer, the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel mill, managed to hang on until 2005, when the last blast furnace was permanently idled. By then, the damage to Steubenville’s economy was already underway, Barilla said, noting that the mill once employed 13,000 people.
When he and Nelson saw the looks of joy on residents’ faces at the first nutcracker lineup, they knew the town was on to something.
An annual exhibit of life-size nutcrackers wouldn’t undo all of Steubenville’s hardship, but it was a positive start.
Nelson said the town now has one of the largest collections of life-size nutcrackers in the world, with this year’s display featuring 209 designs ranging in size from five to nine feet tall. About 60 volunteers now help to set them up every year downtown, he said, adding that the local newspaper always covers the event.
Nelson’s company manufactures and paints the nutcrackers free of charge, he said, but the company offers sponsorships to help pay for event costs and the nutcrackers’ upkeep.
Each nutcracker takes at least 40 hours to design, carve and paint, said Stutzman, who added 10 nutcrackers to the collection this year, including a steel welder and a Mrs. Claus. They’re now greeting tourists downtown with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Charlie Brown, “The Terminutter” and Jake from State Farm.
“Our aim is to have something for everyone,” said Stutzman, 33.
Some of his past creations include traditional soldiers and the mouse king from “The Nutcracker” ballet, along with Ebenezer Scrooge, Sherlock Holmes, Captain Nemo and Superman’s Clark Kent and Lois Lane, he said.
Characters from “The Wizard of Oz” and hometown favorite Dean Martin and his Rat Pack are also represented, but Stutzman said his personal favorite is a nutcracker of David Bowie as “Starman.”
“After David Bowie died [in 2016], I wanted to pay tribute to him by incorporating different themes from that period in the nutcracker’s design and costume,” he said.
Once the paint has dried on each new nutcracker, Gretchen Nelson adds accessories such as wigs, ribbons and hand-sewn skirts and aprons.
“This year, Brodie’s welder nutcracker needed an authentic cap and a leather apron, so it was fun to add those touches,” she said. “Whatever character we’re creating, we always try to make it accurate.”
The bustle downtown every holiday season makes all the effort worthwhile, her husband added.
“I couldn’t pick a favorite nutcracker. Like my children, I love them all the same,” Mark Nelson said. “But I love seeing people interact with the nutcrackers and find the one that might hold some special meaning to them.”
After all his town has been through, “it’s a magical feeling,” he said.
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