Thursday, October 18, 2012

Mill Hollow House Then & Now

Here's an undated vintage postcard of the Mill Hollow House that was recently on Ebay.

I'm not sure why I decided that it would make a good "then and now" subject, seeing as how it probably wouldn't look very different being a historical subject. But it gave me a good excuse to drive over to Mill Hollow on three successive weekends, trying to get a nice shot.

Unfortunately, several trees and a large, overgrown bush made it impossible to recreate the original photo's composition. But here's the best I can do (below).

If you wonder what the exact same view as the postcard would look like, well, here it is (below).

The Park District should really consider getting rid of that bush and some of the trees; they just detract from the scene as far as I'm concerned.

Here's the view from the back.

Anyway, according to a Lorain Journal article published on Saturday, June 13, 1964, the restored Mill Hollow House was to open to the public on July 4, 1964 – the 147th anniversary of the first people arriving in Brownhelm.

2 comments:

Drew Penfield said...

I have an even better "then" photo for you:

http://www.vermilionohio.org/vermviews/mhollow1876vv.jpg

This is a view of Mill Hollow from 1876 which shows both the house and the mill for which the park was named. It must have been taken from atop the cliff and I highly doubt anyone could get this shot today, given all the trees that have grown up since then. This shows the house from behind. The bridge over the river and the hill up to the top can be seen just to the left of the house.

As you can tell from the link, the photo came from Rich Tarrant's Vermilion Views blog, which says the following:

"A mill existed when Benjamin Bacon purchased it in 1835. The house was constructed in 1845. And when Bacon died in 1868 the mill was sold to a J. Hyman.

"In 1876 the mill burned to the ground and another - a steam powered mill - was built the following year. Bacon's son, Frederick, bought the mill back in 1879. And sometime in 1890's it was sold to an "A" and "D" Christman. They moved it to the Village of Vermilion.

"Apparently the mill that once occupied the site of what is currently the "Mill Manor" elder-care facility on south Exchange Street was the place where the mill had been re-located."

Dan Brady said...

Pretty interesting photo--thanks, Drew!