Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The Second Lakeview Park Bathhouse

Photo courtesy of the Lorain Historical Society
Here's a rare shot of the second bathhouse at Lakeview Park – the one that replaced the original, which was destroyed by the 1924 Lorain Tornado. (The photo is from the archives of the Lorain Historical Society, and is a nice example of the goodies that researchers can find there.)

I had no idea that this particular bathhouse even existed until I found a 1930s photo at the Lorain Historical Society with an aerial view of it (below).

Photo courtesy of the Lorain Historical Society
It had such an unusual roof-line that it obviously wasn't the original, or the squarish brick one that was there for 70 years. I guess I had forgotten that several historical sources had mentioned that the bathhouse had been rebuilt twice.

Anyways, I don't have an exact timeline for the second bathhouse, but I do know that the third one was still under construction after the Lakeview Park fountain was unveiled in 1936.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

These are great photos. The first one almost looks like a gigantic sand castle.

How did you get hold of these pictures? At the center itself?

Dan Brady said...

Members of the Lorain Historical Society, are allowed to do research there under supervision. They have volunteers that help you locate information in their archives.

That bathhouse was an unusual looking structure, that's for sure.