Oberlin College's Historic Elm

The Historic Elm

I'll close out our stop at Oberlin College with a great little history of the institution from Looking Back on Lorain County by Ernie Henes. It includes the interesting story of the "Historic Elm" and includes the illustration above.

 
First Coed College in The U.S.

Volumes have been written about Oberlin College, known throughout the world as the first coeducational institution of learning in the United States; first to accept all students regardless of race, color or creed; first to award degrees to women (1841).

Its origin is due to the foresight of two men – the Rev. John Jay Shipherd and Philo Penfield Stewart, the inventor of the Stewart stove reviewed elsewhere in this book.

In 1830 Rev. Shipherd became pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Elyria. Mr. Stewart had been laboring as a missionary among the Cherokee Indians. He suffered a health breakdown and returned east.

Together they conceived the plan of organizing a community in the wilds of Lorain County, which would become the secluded home of a collegiate school. The purpose of the colony was set forth in the “Oberlin Covenant” as that of “glorifying God in doing good to men to the extent of their ability.”

Without land or funds, Rev. Shipherd prevailed upon eastern capitalists to make a pledge of 500 acres of forest in Russia Township to establish a foundation fund for the proposed college, and to set aside 5,000 acres which were to be sold at a profit of $1.50 an acre, thus providing the first funds for the foundation.

The two founders mounted horses in Elyria and picked their way westward through the forest.

Reaching a quiet spot they tied their horses to a beautiful Elm tree, fell upon their knees and prayed for guidance. Arising, they decided that this was a good a place as any to stake out their enterprise and they did so. The Elm tree under which they prayed stood for years on the southeast corner of the campus. It was carefully fenced and guarded as almost a sacred object and became known as “The Historic Elm.”

The school was opened on December 3, 1833 with 44 pupils – 29 young men and 15 young women, half of whom were from the east, the remainder from neighboring towns. In February 1834, it was chartered by the state legislature “The Oberlin Collegiate Institute.” The name was retained until 1850 when it was changed to Oberlin College.

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The "Architecture of Oberlin College" website includes a well-written history of the Historic Elm, as well as a great photo of it from July 1929.

It notes, "In 1833, the year that Oberlin's founders John J. Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart picked the site for Oberlin College, this American Elm tree was a five-inch sapling in a dense forest. The tree was located on what is now Tappan Square. 

"Legend has it that Shipherd and Stewart tied their horses to the tree, knelt beneath it to dedicate their enterprise, and saved it from the axe because if its beauty and symmetry. A short distance from the tree the first log cabin in the Oberlin Colony was built by Peter Pindar Pease. 

"In 1900 the College erected an iron fence around the tree and attached a tablet inscribed, 'Historic Elm. Near this tree the logs were laid for the first dwelling in Oberlin, April 16, 1833.' (That fence is now encircling a large tree behind Dascomb Hall.) 

"As is true for many college campuses, elms were vigorously planted at Oberlin early on and they were huge specimens when Dutch Elm Disease struck starting in 1950. The Historic Elm succumbed to this disease, spread by beetles that require a large population of elms to exist.

"It was taken down on April 13, 1965. In 1976, as a Bicentennial project, an aluminum memorial ring on the site of the Historic Elm was dedicated to the memory of Charles Martin Hall, whose bequest entailed the establishment of Tappan Square as a green space protected from the construction of buildings."

The same view as the 1929 photo as it looks today, showing the memorial ring

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The cutting down of the Historic Elm was big news and was covered by the Journal.

April 9, 1965

April 14, 1965

Oberlin College's Hall Auditorium in the News – August 8, 1956

The view on Monday night

Hall Auditorium is another Oberlin College landmarks that I never get tired of seeing. I like a lot of different styles of architecture, and to me, this building is perfection (at least from the outside). It looks as modern now as it did when it was built in 1953.

Here's its page on the Oberlin College website.

And it was already being touted as a tourist attraction (along with Allen Art Museum) in this article that ran in the Lorain Journal on August 8, 1956.

Like Wilder Hall (which the subject of yesterday's blog post), Hall Auditorium has been featured on many postcards over the years. Here's an ample sample, with approximate dates gleaned from eBay listings.

1955

1959

1960

This 1964 card featured Hall Auditorium on the bottom half of a "Greetings from..." design.

And they swapped places on this version.

By 1966, that tree/shrub just to the north of Hall Auditorium – so spindly in the earliest postcards – had reached enormous proportions.

It's interesting seeing the whole building in this aerial shot. That's the Oberlin Inn next door. Boy, has that area changed a lot in the intervening years.

But Hall Auditorium remains – just as modern and impressive as ever.

Oberlin College's Wilder Hall in the News – August 6, 1956

I've mentioned before how I enjoy working in Oberlin because I get to drive through the Oberlin College campus twice a day. It's quite beautiful and I never get tired of it. Sometimes I even stop after work and just walk around Tappan Square, just to enjoy the college environment.

I thought I was familiar with many of the campus buildings until I saw the article above from the Lorain Journal of August 6, 1956. It notes that the Oberlin College Student Union Committee had suggested housing the new student union in Wilder Hall. I understand that the building still has that function.

I thought for sure the building looked somewhat familiar, but I failed to identify it during a few commutes. It turned out that I was driving right by it twice a day – only I was seeing the back of it. Turns out that there is another nice grassy square surrounded by buildings that I wasn't even aware of – and Wilder Hall was one of them.

Wilder Hall (originally called the Men's Building and used as a dorm) was built in 1911. It has been the subject of postcards for more than a hundred years. Here's an ample sample (below); the dates are not confirmed, as they are gleaned from eBay listings and only a few postmarks.

1915

1920s

1944

1950s

1960s

And here's the 'now' view. Time to call in Paul Bunyan, I think. Why let trees hide a beautiful building?

Fortunately, there's a 1930 view that's a little bit easier to recreate.

The 'now' view doesn't quite match (I hadn't found the postcard yet) but at least you can see the beauty of the building.

1976 Ohio State Fair Program

My opportunity to be a member of the 1976 All Ohio State Fair Band remains one of the great, unforgettable experiences of my life. 

That's me, almost in the dead center of the band

Performing with such a large group of excellent high school musicians, and being able to be at the State Fair for several weeks was a big thrill. It's something I think about every year when the State Fair opens. I can hardly believe it was 50 years ago, during the nation's bicentennial year.

I did miss the summer band camp of the Admiral King Marching Band, and the photo taken for the football program. But it was worth it.

Anyway, a few years ago I picked up a copy of the 1976 Ohio State Fair program on eBay, and the memories came flooding back. It's interesting to flip through it and get a little taste of the Fair that year. Check out the incredible lineup of entertainers, including Johnny Cash, The Osmonds, Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Tanya Tucker, Lynn Anderson, Neil Sedaka, John Davidson, Pat Boone, Mac Davis, The 5th Dimension, Telly Savalas, KC & The Sunshine Band, and Dan Fleenor's Hurricane Hell Drivers – wow!

Since Borden was a sponsor of the Ohio State Fair, and was headquartered in Columbus at that time, the program was full of company ads. Here's a great one with our favorite dairy cow Elsie, as well as her husband Elmer (of Elmer's Glue fame) and their calf, Beauregard.

Much of the program consisted of pages with the Fair schedule. Here are two of them. Band members used these to decide what to do with our free time (what little there was of it). It was fun going to the various pavilions where live TV shows were being broadcast from the Fair, including TV icons Flippo the Clown (from Columbus) and Bob Braun (from Cincinnati).

I've written before how sad all of the band members were during our last performance on the grounds of Rhodes Center, our home during the Fair. Kids were crying and choking back tears; we just didn't want it to end. (One reason I didn't want it to end was that I had a crush on the trombone player sitting next to me; I wonder where she is today?)

Anyway, while the rest of the band members were packing up to go home, those of us who were in the 1976 All Ohio State Fair Stage Band (including me) got to stay a little longer, pretty much until the end of the Fair. It was odd without all the other band members there, but it was still fun. 

Here's our group shot, which I haven't posted before. I still remember the names of the two of the other trombone players.

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Be sure to visit my original All Ohio State Fair Band post where I go into more detail about my experience as a band member. I also write about 'meeting' Colonel Sanders, and seeing Bob Hope and Red Skelton up close.

July 23, 1966 – Journal TV Grids and Fred Flintstone

We watched a lot of cartoons in the Brady house back when I was a kid. Some of my earliest memories are watching the syndicated shows that came on right after dinner (like Huckleberry Hound, The Yogi Bear Show, etc.) as well as the network shows that were shown in the evening (like The Bugs Bunny Show, Jonny Quest, and Top Cat. I'm sure we watched The Flintstones, because I knew who they were and we had all the toys, including the Marx Flintstone Playset, the large vinyl figurines by Knickerbocker and those great big Flintstone Checkers.

By 1966, however, the Flintstones were just ending their original network run. But that didn't stop Hanna-Barbara from featuring them in their own full-length movie for the theaters. Since spies like James Bond, Matt Helm and Flint were big box office successes, Fred Flintstone was pressed into service as an amateur spy in The Man Called Flintstone. The upcoming movie was even the subject of an article on the Journal TV page of July 23, 1966. I like how Fred is treated as a real, live human being that happens to be starring in a movie.

We didn't go see The Man Called Flintstone in the theaters. While we loved the Hanna-Barbera TV cartoons, we were more of a Disney family when it came to big screen animated movies. My siblings and I eventually saw The Man Called Flintstone when it appeared on TV a year or two later. I remember being disappointed – too much singing and romantic misunderstanding and not enough of the usual Fred and Barney antics.

It's interesting looking at the way the movie was promoted. In the United States market, the ads featured Fred in his spy get up and the two femme fatales from the movie.

But an Australian movie poster is comically different. 

Fred looks pretty happy and why not? The cave women in the ad look less like Bedrock housewives and more like showgirls from Rock Vegas. And I won't even get into the ad's Freudian implications.

Anyways, if you're not all that interested in Fred Flintstone, it's always fun to check out the TV grids. Hey, Maverick reruns were being shown on Channel 3 on Saturday night at dinnertime!