Beaver Creek Township
Pg. 93

Beaver Creek Township is one of the original four, and formerly extended as far north as Lake Erie. It is a beautiful valley, fertile, well timbered, rolling and picturesque, noted for its fine farms. The high ridge separating the waters of Beaver Creek and Mad River is a particularly fine fruit belt, where good peaches do well. The Pennsylvania and C, H. and D. Railroads and the Dayton and Xenia Traction road cross the valley. The pikes are well kept and the scenery is fine.
     Beaver Creek Township, is the cradle of Greene County. In its little log court house in 1803 the county was organized. There was the first administration of justice, the first exercise of suf­frage through the ballot box, and the first legal punishment of crime. There was the first mill north of Cincinnati where corn was ground for the settlers. It was built by Owen Davis in 1798 and called the Alpha Mill from the first letter of the Greek alphabet. The court house, mill and two blockhouses, erected for defense, were near enough together to be inclosed in a stockade should the Indians become troublesome. The old log court house was the first licensed tavern in the county. It was purchased with the surrounding acreage in 1827 by Mr. John Harbine. He and Mr. Needles laid out the town of Alpha in 1854. When what is now the Pennsylvania railroad was built Mr. Harbine gave the land required and the station was named Harbine. It was a lively manufacturing center with its distillery, flour, cotton, woolen, grist, saw and oil mills and did a large tobacco, grain and shipping business.
     From the first mill and the first barrel of flour which was marked "Alpha," the name has clung to the place. There are, in the town, a nice brick church, a school, a post-office, coal office and two stores and at upper Alpha a large K. of P. Hall, blacksmith shop, and Beaver Creek Township High School built in 1888. The population of Alpha is about 200. The waters of Beaver Creek have turned the wheels of the grist mills for more than a century and the old dam is an attractive place for picnics and fishing parties, but the site of the blockhouses is no longer indicated and the valley is peaceful, productive and beautiful.
     TREBEINS, formerly known as PINCKNEYVILLE, FROST STATION and BEAVER STATION, is two miles nearer to Xenia. For. many years a large distillery and milling business was done there. The distillery has now given place to a tobacco warehouse.  German Reformed church and a school house are midway between Alpha and Trebeins.
     ZIMMERMAN is about two miles west of Alpha on the Dayton pike.  It has a blacksmith shop and grocery, a school and two Dunker churches.  The population is about 100.  The railroad station is a quarter of a mile distant and is called SHOUP's; there is one store there and about fifteen people.