George Washington Crile was born in 1864 at Chili in Crawford Township, Coshocton County. Before beginning his notable medical career, he graduated from Northwestern Ohio Normal School, now Ohio Northern University, at Ada, taught for two years, and then became principal at Plainfield School. He first studied medicine under village physician Dr. A.E. Walker, who loaned him medical books and took him on calls to rural patients, and Crile later credited his early experience in education at Plainfield as one of the most influential points in his career. A pioneering surgeon and medical researcher of the early twentieth century, he graduated from Wooster University Medical School in 1887, joined the college as a professor, and continued teaching throughout his life. He served in the Spanish-American War as an Army surgeon and brought clinical advances to the battlefields of World War I. As an innovator in surgery, he greatly advanced understanding of the role of shock in surgical physiology, including new techniques in nerve-block anesthesia and blood transfusion. In 1921 he co-founded the Cleveland Clinic and served as chief surgeon and president of the internationally acclaimed medical facility until the end of his career. Crile died in 1943.