The House at 1403 E. Erie Avenue

Several people emailed me a few weeks ago to tell me that the fine old house at 1403 E. Erie Avenue – the house adjacent to the St. Anthony of Padua parking lot – was going to be torn down. I had always kind of admired the house while sitting at the stop light there, so I made sure I grabbed a few shots when I went through there.

The house was finally demolished last week.

How long had the house been there? The Lorain County Auditor website had 1900 listed as the year it was built, meaning that the actual date was unknown. So I hit the city directories to see if I could find out.

As usual, Lorain's penchant for renumbering the house addresses has made it quite confusing. Fortunately, many of the homeowners in that area stayed put from 1912 on – allowing me to possibly determine when the house showed up in the directory.

The 1915 Lorain City Directory included an address not found in the 1912 book: 1405 E. Erie Avenue (owned by P.A. Rissman). It was the only odd-numbered (lakeside) address in the immediate area.

The 1405 E. Erie address disappeared in the next available book in the library, which was the 1919 edition. In that book, 1407 E. Erie Avenue appeared, owned by Anton Cooper, a general contractor. He continued to live at this address (sometimes listed as Anthony M. Cooper) into the early 1930s, when his 1407 E. Erie Avenue address became 1403 E. Erie Avenue.

Anthony M. Cooper lived at 1403 E. Erie all the way into the 1950s. The house was still in the Cooper family in the 1960s (owned by Mrs. Thomasina Cooper) before going vacant around 1967. It remained that way for a few years before being listed in the directory as the Meeting House for St. Anthony of Padua.

With the demolition of the house, as well as that of the commercial building across the street at 1368 E. Erie earlier this year, that intersection of E. Erie and Kansas Avenue sure has changed!