Memories of Avon Lake Beach Park

The Avon Beach Park pavilion in the early 1900s

The day after the Cleveland Electric Illuminating power plant started up in 1926, some Avon Lake residents were already waxing nostalgic about the days when Avon Beach Park occupied the site. They also were none too happy about the name that CEI gave the plant.

Here's an article explaining it all, sent to me by Drew Penfield.  It appeared in the Times on Thursday, August 5, 1926. (For a great online history of Avon Beach Park, as well as the Beach Park power plant, visit Drew's Lake Shore Rail Maps website by clicking here.)

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TRACE PROGRESS IN ITS PAGEANT THRU AVON LAKE
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Old Timers Recall Days When Park Occupied Power Plant Site
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SOME YEARN FOR THE OLDEN TIMES
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Majority Realize Great Industrial Step Just Taken

By J. J. Hromoda


Avon Lake – once an amusement center – now a power center.

Only a few years ago, residents of Avon Lake heard the laugh of the picnickers and the moaning of saxes in Avon Beach Park dance hall.

Wednesday the old timers of the district heard another sound – the humming of electric current being generated for the first time in the new Cleveland Electric Illuminating plant.

On the 28 acres of land with the main structure located on what once was Avon Beach Park, a mammoth building filled with five stories of engines, boilers and generators, now stands.

The first unit of the plant at Avon Lake was set in action Wednesday noon. The enterprise represents an initial investment of $15,000,000, which ultimately will increase to $30,000,000.

Avon Lake may be a power center now but the residents would prefer to have the old amusement park.

1906 poster promoting a picnic

The old timers who settled Avon Lake back in the 80's vary as to the benefits of a power plant in their midst. But they all agree as to pleasure received out of the old amusement park.

Whether the plant will be an improvement or asset falls away as an issue when people speak to these old timers about the Avon power plant.

The residents object to having the plant called Avon power house. It's located in Avon Lake they argue and should be called the Avon Lake power house.

Mrs. W. J. Curtis who has lived in the district her entire 70 some years visions the power plant as another connecting link between Lorain and Cleveland.

"I would prefer a more residential district. Up to 10 years ago we never imagined that Avon Lake would improve as much as it has," Mrs. Curtis says.

Mrs. Curtis has been through the entire development of Avon Lake township, and its general history is brief, she says.

The Nickle Plate was built 45 years ago, the car company followed 20 years ago, and then the park a year later.

The Lake Shore electric powerhouse, now destroyed, followed, then the Lake road and now the power plant. A water plant is to follow in the list of improvements."

Mr. and Mrs. Vern Miller, Stop 63, Lake Road are only two more who miss the good times residents once enjoyed at the park.

"When we had the park, we didn't want it. But now that we don't have it, we miss it." Miller says.

Charles Beard, 73, and Henry Engel, 78, old timers and well known in Lorain, are civic minded. Both believe the plant will be a taxation asset as well as being a general improvement.

Beard is another who would prefer the old pavilion.

Engel is satisfied and he has reason to be – he recollects hardships endured 40 years ago when there were no improvements.

"People nowadays don't know what hard times are," Engel states.

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The two photos above were scanned from the book The Avon Lake Story by Milburn Walker. It's a terrific book with great vintage photos, and you can find a copy of it in the local history section of the Lorain Public Library.