Jonas J. Burns was born Sept. 20, 1850, on a small farm southwest of Akron, Ohio. After years as a postmaster and minor railroad baron, Burns retuned to the midwest to shape Goshen history with the expansion of trolley transportation throughout the region, the building of a the factory building housing Cosmo Buttermilk Soap, Co., and providing jobs to the community as well as the investment in real estate development of city neighborhoods and the additions of Parkside, now area of Goshen College