Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The Second Lakeview Park Bathhouse

Photo courtesy of the Lorain Historical Society
Here's a rare shot of the second bathhouse at Lakeview Park – the one that replaced the original, which was destroyed by the 1924 Lorain Tornado. (The photo is from the archives of the Lorain Historical Society, and is a nice example of the goodies that researchers can find there.)

I had no idea that this particular bathhouse even existed until I found a 1930s photo at the Lorain Historical Society with an aerial view of it (below).

Photo courtesy of the Lorain Historical Society
It had such an unusual roof-line that it obviously wasn't the original, or the squarish brick one that was there for 70 years. I guess I had forgotten that several historical sources had mentioned that the bathhouse had been rebuilt twice.

Anyways, I don't have an exact timeline for the second bathhouse, but I do know that the third one was still under construction after the Lakeview Park fountain was unveiled in 1936.