Gaylords is Destroyed – April 1974

(Journal photo by Michael Pugh)

I did a post about the former Giant Tiger/Gaylords building on Monday, and a few of the comments (including one by Alan Hopewell) mentioned the storm that "blew the roof in."

Well, here's a photo (above) of just that. It ran on April 15, 1974 (just as Alan remembered) on the front page of the Lorain Journal with headline, "Gaylords Store Destroyed As 'Hurricane' Wind Hits." No one was in the building when the roof caved in because the store was closed as it was Easter Sunday.

The article included a brief interview with the builder, Alex Fodor of Alex Fodor Realty Company, Cleveland. He stated that he had "absolutely no idea" why the roof toppled under the winds.

"The construction was 100 percent correct," said Fodor. He added, "It was architect supervised and built according to plans."

Strangely enough, at the time of the disaster the building was owned by the Journal.

The article also had a photo of the building as it looked prior to the disaster (below).