The Dairy Queen on Route 20

I exchange a lot of emails with the person behind the great Oberlin In The Past Facebook page. As we both feel it's our duty to perpetuate local history online, we have a lot in common. And The Oberlin In The Past Facebook page is a gem, always full of wonderful, rarely seen vintage photos.

A week or two ago we were discussing soft serve ice cream stands in the Oberlin area, including the gone but not forgotten Dari Land on Route 58, as well as the Dairy Twist on Route 20 east of town, which is still in business and very popular.

Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I remarked how the Dairy Twist sign is obviously a retrofitted Dairy Queen sign, and a question arose. Did Oberlin have an actual Dairy Queen – and when?

I had to admit I didn't really know. I remembered my father taking my brothers and I fishing at Oberlin Reservoir in the early 1970s, and getting soft serve ice cream afterwards somewhere out there in that neck of the woods (on Route 20 if I remember correctly). But I have no idea what the name of the place was.

So I had to look it up in the few vintage Oberlin phone books and old Lorain County directories available at the Lorain Public Library.

It turns out that the Oberlin area had not one, but two Dairy Queens.

The first one – as best as I can tell – showed up in the phone book for the first time in the 1957-58 phone book (below). It was on Route 20 West.

The listing promptly disappeared in subsequent editions.

It wasn't until the 1973 edition of the Dickman Criss-Criss Directory that Dairy Queen appeared again, this time on Route 20 East (below).

As you can see, Dairy Queen and many other listings have no address at all, and are arranged alphabetically (for maximum confusion for someone trying to figure it out 40 years later). 

The Dairy Queen on Route 20 West apparently didn't last very long either. It too seemed to disappear in subsequent books.

I did find a listing for something called Polar Freeze Bar on Route 20 West in the 1978 book, but I don't know if it was a dairy stand or a poorly insulated tavern.

Anyway, the Dairy Twist seemed to first appear in the 1981 directory, and an online website that features businesses and their incorporation dates states that it was established in 1984.

At any rate, the company made great use of the former DQ sign, and I'm glad they found the recipe for success in Oberlin.