Driving down East State Street leads to much more than just the grocery store, as Athens residents soon will see at a Oct. 12 historic home tour.

The tour, sponsored by the Athens County Historical Society and the Near-Eastside Neighborhood Association, features seven of the city's oldest homes in a walking tour of East State and Elmwood streets.

  Frank Bruns/FOR THE POST

Sallie Roberts, a retired education professor at OU, lives in a home first built in 1942 on East State Street.

"Because of this year's bicentennial, we wanted to see something done with the historic places in town,"said city council member Bill Bias, owner of the 60-year-old Rowland House, 170 E. State St. He and local historian and OU journalism professor Alvi McWilliams, began the project.

"It's just sort of a germ that grew,"he said. And it's certainly a contagious germ.

Marty North of the Carpenter Home at 46 Elmwood St. is looking forward to viewing nearby homes.

"All kinds of different houses are on the tour,"she said. "They don't build them like they used to."

While the construction of the homes will transport visitors to the turn of the century, the history of its occupants will transfix them.

Sally Roberts, owner of the 1842 Cornwell Townsend home, 180 E. State St., recalls a story of army major Townsend, an active political figure in early Athens.

Townsend's wife was shot on the side porch, but she did not die, Roberts said.

"His political enemies must have thought it was the Major,"she said.

Spirited college fans no longer cheer for the OU Red Devils because of Rosemary Rowland, original of the Rowland House, who won $5 in a 1920s contest to rename the OU mascot, Bias said.

"It was during a time of religious fervor and a team named the Red Devils wasn't too chic,"he said. "She saw something in the Field and Stream magazine about bobcats and entered that."

Bias remembers Rowland as a vivacious woman whose green thumb was beyond comparison. He said he plans to dedicate the stepped garden behind the Rowland House to her memory.

"Her spirit is still here,"he said. "I think that's why I love it so much."

Rosemary also was married to a prominent man in politics, Hal Rowland.

"It's ironic Ñ he was on city council as a Republican, and I'm now a very active Democrat,"Bias said.

During a wall-painting endeavor, Bias discovered the Rowlands had written political news on underlying wallpaper. Bias changed his plans to redecorate and left the paper up, but only after adding a few political comments of his own.

Visitors interested in viewing a home restored to its original state will not leave the tour disappointed.

OU Registrar Bill Jones will open his restored late Victorian Junod Home, 209 E. State St. The house was built in 1910 by the Junods, a large business family partnered in the Athens Milling Co.

"I've done a very puristic restoration,"said Jones, who studied various materials on the Victorian era to maintain authenticity.

"The hardest thing was picking the colors. I wanted it to be colorful, but I was so afraid of multiple colors, because you can make something too gaudy,"he said. After much consideration, he settled on shades of gray-green, and his neighbors have certainly noticed the change.

"There used to be tall hemlock trees so big that you never saw the house,"Jones said. After finishing the outside, he cut down the trees, "unveiling"the finished product.

"Groups of my neighbors would come to see it. I've even gotten notes on my porch,"he said.

The restoration, an ongoing project since 1975, will continue as long as Jones gets ideas for improvement.

"I probably never will have everything the way I want it,"he said. "It's time consuming and expensive. I think what I'll do is take up a collection."

The historic home tour is 1 to 4 p.m. Oct. 12. Tickets are $5 and on sale at the Athens Historical Society and Museum, Athens County Tourism, the Athens Flower Shop and Lamborn's Studio.

Tickets will be available Oct. 12 at the Junod Home.