Maple Inn Grand Opening – Jan 1964

Courtesy Lorain County Auditors
website

Many of us are familiar with the Maple Inn, located at the intersection of Route 254 and West River Road, having passed it on the way to Midway Mall many times. Well, here's the Grand Opening ad for the newly remodeled Maple Inn. It ran in The Journal on January 29, 1964 – 50 years ago this month.

I've never been in the Maple Inn, but I've always admired the outside of the building. It looks like a nice, cozy place to hang out.

It's not an easy place to research, though. It's located in a kind of No-Man's Land between Lorain and Elyria, and its city directory listings shifted around between cities, depending on the year.

The earliest Lorain phone book listing that I could find for the Maple Inn was 1953.

Superior Chips are mentioned in one of the congratulatory ads. They were a regional brand out of Detroit, Michigan.

Hey, I just noticed some of my favorite beers were available at the Maple Inn back then: Old Dutch and Black Label!

Anyways, the Lorain County Auditor's website has 1900 as the year that the structure was built, and that usually means that the real date is unknown and predates that year. So there's been a business at that corner for a long, long time.

In recent years, a sign with the words "Frank and Ellie's" was added above the iconic sign with the large maple leaf. A colorful standalone sign was also installed, ushering in a new era in the inn's history.

The view last weekend