Tuesday, January 14, 2014

The First Lakeview Park Bathhouse

Courtesy of Lorain County Metro Parks
Right now on Ebay is something I've never seen before: this postcard of Lakeview Park's original pre-tornado bathhouse (above).

There aren't a lot of photos of that particular bathhouse available these days (unless you count the ones where it's been destroyed by the tornado). At left is a nice one from the Lorain County Metro Parks website. (Here's a link to the portion of the website about Lakeview Park with a history of the bathhouse.)

Anyway, the back of the postcard is postmarked just a half-dozen days before the tornado, which struck on June 28, 1924. Kind of eerie, knowing what would happen in a matter of days.

Contrast the first bathhouse with this postcard of the third bathhouse (below) which we all remember so well.
Vintage postcard postmarked 1943
Did you know there was a second bathhouse in between the one that was destroyed by the tornado, and the one we all grew up with? What did that one look like?
Stop by here tomorrow to find out!
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2 comments:

  1. -Alan D HopewellJanuary 14, 2014 at 1:37 PM

    I just took a picture of the third bath house off the screen with my phone; the memories, Dan!

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  2. Drew PenfieldJanuary 14, 2014 at 5:31 PM

    One of the people killed in the bathhouse by the tornado was manager Joseph Blinzley. Long before managing the Lake View bathhouse he was the manager of the Oak Point Resort, and was responsible for grading the Lake Shore Electric roadbed through that area when it was built in 1901. (The railway hired local people to do the grading for a contracted amount and then that person would hire a team of workers to do the labor.)

    Here's a link to his grave on the Find A Grave website:

    http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=40838007

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