William J. Neuman Dairy Farm Part 3

Here's another copy of the photo with the cows that I shot from the original in the BRHS archives. It enlarges with a little more detail than the one I copied from the Images of Lorain book, so you can get a good look at those buildings in the background.

Personally, I wonder if the 1932 date on the photo is correct. If it was 1922 instead, it might make a little more sense. Perhaps the buildings in the background had been torn down and thus weren't in the 1924 aerials.

And since yesterday, I've begun to wonder if that is really Leavitt Road in the background. (Note: It isn't, as noted here in a later post.)

Anyway, there's one final component to this mystery: the Neuman farm house.

My parents told me many years ago that an old farm house originally stood where the gas station is located on the northwest corner of Meister and Oberlin, and that the house had been moved slightly west down Meister Road.

The city directory seems to bear that out. A few years after the Neuman name was no longer listed at that corner, Super's Sohio Station appeared around 1957 – and a house appeared on Meister immediately west of the gas station. It originally was listed as vacant for a few years before receiving a new number address and a tenant – which might make sense if you consider that the house had been moved and would need some work.

The house is still there today (below), and seemingly of a different era than the other 1950s ranch houses next to it.

Was I able to positively identify the above house on the Neuman farm in that 1924 aerial shot (below)? It's hard to tell.

My go-to man down at the Black River Historical Society – Frank Sipkovsky – says that the grey house on Meister is the old Neuman farmhouse. So that's two votes in favor of that belief.

I'm currently trying to contact one of the families that lived in it to confirm it.

Until then, if any of you old-timers have any knowledge or memories of the Neuman Dairy Farm (or that house), please be sure to leave a comment. With the years rapidly passing by, information and recollections about things like this are rapidly fading away in peoples' memories.