Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Leavitt Road Gets Widened 1964-65 – Part 2

As it turns out, the widening and repaving of the portion of Leavitt Road from W. 21st Street to North Ridge Road took a little bit longer than the estimate of one year. But it made the excitement and anticipation of the highway opening even greater.

At last, on the front page of the December 3, 1965 Journal, the small article below about the upcoming ribbon-cutting ceremony appeared.

The article noted that none other than Governor Jim Rhodes would be attending along with state highway officials. Mayor Mathna of Lorain and Mayor Marvin Davis of Amherst would be the official hosts of the ceremony, and bands from both Admiral King and Amherst High Schools were to entertain.
On December 7, 1965 the small article below appeared on the Journal’s front page.
And on Thursday, December 9, 1965, the front page of the Journal spotlighted the highway ceremony of the previous day. The article was accompanied by a great photo by Norm Bergsma showing Governor Rhodes graciously letting local children do the ribbon-cutting honors. “It’s your road. You snip the ribbon,” he told the children.
And here is the continuation of the story, with a nice photo of the Admiral King Marching Band. Hey, I recognize those band uniforms; we were still wearing them in 1977!


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who or what is Levitt Road named for? -Theresa

Anonymous said...

Leavitt. Autocorrect is tricky haha

Boilerplant said...

This made me think of the widening of South Broadway from 39th street down to Cooper Foster / 254. Remember two building torn down on the corners of North Ridge and Broadway south of Clearview School. You had Hollaway's Grocery Store on one corner and an old Fruit stand / Game Land kitty corner. You also had a Sunoco station and a Cities service on opposite corners where the Video Store is and a Roadway gas station.