Sheffield Lake Community Days are here!

The multi-colored (and much reused) rainbow posters are all over Sheffield Lake and that can only mean one thing: Sheffield Lake Community Days are here! Yup, the fun starts tonight at Shoreway Shopping Center at 6:00, followed by a parade on Thursday night and fireworks on Friday.

The spouse and I walk the mile to the Friday night fireworks each year (it's just a good stretch of the legs) to avoid having to find a parking space.

In honor of the celebration, here's a capsule history of Sheffield Lake, from the vantage point of 1955. That's when the article below appeared in the Lorain Journal on June 21, 1955.

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Sheffield Lake Grows From Small Dairy Community

SHEFFIELD LAKE – Once a small community of dairy farmers, Sheffield Lake Village has grown in the past 35 years, and at the present time has a population of over 4,000 with a tax valuation of $5,000,000. If the population increases in the next few years as it has in the last two, the village will become a city in 1960 when the federal census is taken.

Summer Resort
Because of the wide sandy beaches and the Cleveland Beach dance hall the community became a summer resort before the depression years. Today many of the cottages have been remodeled into comfortable year around homes and a new modern school, Tennyson elementary, has been erected where the dance hall once stood.

Only a few of the sandy beaches remain today because of the rise of the water level in Lake Erie. A new public beach and picnic grounds was made available to the residents of the village when the village purchased lakefront property at Stop 86 this year. The village recently obtained the recreation field where the Little League games are played each summer.

Houses Going Up
Four building contractors are helping increase the population of the village by constructing 720 new homes, valued from $15,000 to $25,000. During the past few years approximately 100 homes have been constructed on Warwick Dr., 390 are being completed in Knickerbocker Knolls by the Land and Development Company, 168 houses in Maple Grove Allotment are now under construction by Marvin Helf Inc.; and 68 houses are to be built in Lake Breeze Manor. Paved streets, sanitary and storm sewers and utilities are being installed in these allotments.

Another step forward for the village is the construction of a sanitary sewer on East Lake Rd. that will connect with the Lorain sewer system. This sewer will service houses on East Lake Rd. and in the new allotments. Extensions down other village streets may be obtained by petition. Three quarters of this long awaited Lake Rd. sanitary sewer has been constructed.

Council has realized the additional police and fire protection that will be needed when these houses are completed and have purchased a new police cruiser and voted to increase the voltage in the police department's two way radio, thus enabling the police force to keep in contact with the Lorain police department as well as neighboring villages.

Twenty five volunteer firemen and a resident truck driver comprise the village fire department. The village has mutual and reciprocal additional fire protection agreements with the villages of Avon Lake and Sheffield so that in time of an emergency, if the villages would require assistance, one fire company would aid the other. A two-way radio will also be installed in the fire truck.

Charter Committee
Mayor Sydney W. Jordan, thinking of the future when Sheffield Lake will become a city, has made plans to appoint a charter committee to study the form of charter best suited for the village. If the village has a population of 5,000 when the federal census is taken in 1960 it will automatically become a city. To retain as much home rule as possible it will be necessary to vote for a charter before the census is taken.