Friday, July 15, 2016

Anderson Acres Summer Resort Near Huron

I recently saw this postcard for Anderson Acres on Ebay and thought it was pretty interesting, as I'd never heard of it before.

Anderson Acres was a summer resort located on U.S. 6, just two miles east of the Huron city limits and west of Old Woman Creek.

Here's another version of the same postcard.

This one was postmarked September 1947 and provides a nice capsule history of the resort. The back of it reads:

ANDERSON ACRES
Settled in 1839 by James Anderson
Along Lake Erie Shore, 2 miles East of Huron, Ohio.
State Route 2      U.S. Route 6
Phone 6012  Huron, Ohio
40 Cabins – Trailer Space – Campers
Cottages – Rooms – Showers

James Anderson's biography is included in A Standard History of Erie County, Ohio (1916) by Hewson L. Peeke. (Here is a link to it.) At the time the book was published, Anderson's property included 250 acres. His biography noted that it comprised "one of the most beautiful farms to be found anywhere along the shores of Lake Erie. For a distance of 1,800 feet the farm borders on the lake shore, and in that state is found one of the finest bathing beaches in Northern Ohio, bearing the name by which the farm is also known: Lake View."

Anderson Acres was a very popular summer resort, judging by the favorable and nostalgic sentiments about it on the internet. So what does the property look like today?

Beachwood Villas Condominiums (the three tall lakefront buildings in the aerial photo below) were built on part of the former Anderson Acres land in the 1980s. The rest of the Anderson lakefront land – still a trailer park in the 1980s – has since been developed, as well as the former Anderson farm.


7 comments:

Unknown said...

My grandmother had a trailer in Anderson Acres until the late 1960s/early 1970s. There were a few of the cottages interspersed with trailers. The beach area was really nice back then. Have several old family pictures of good times on that beach. I remember the farm across the road, we used to buy fresh produce there.

Raymond Ferris said...

My wife managed Anderson Acres from 1968 thru 1970. We were just talking about some of our adventures there when we searched this post. We had a wonderful time living there. The people that came thru the summer were great.Fond memories.

William James said...

My family spent summers at Anderson Acres from the 1930's to the 1970's.
Close Family, Lauber Family, Hoyer Family. Does anyone know or remember?

ohsuzan said...

Don't remember the family, but my family (surname Kirkpatrick) was there several summers in the mid-1950s with our friends the Van Fossens and Debolts. What I remember most were the iceboxes (not refrigerators), the community bathrooms, and the Canadian soldiers on everything!

Laura James said...

Our family was there for quite a few summers in the early 1960's, (Peecooks and Darmstadts). I remember going to the "store" to get taffy and other candy with my siblings and cousins. Along with the Canadian Soldiers there were always "bubble butt spiders" on the sides of the cabins. The beach was wonderful and though I was young I have great memories of being there. I miss that place to this day. Old Woman's creek was always a great place to investigate too.

David Hogan said...

Lauber rings a bell. The Hogan family had a cottage there for 40 yrs, on one's right shortly after entering and passing the office. (You'd see the back of the cottage first.)My brother and I spent many happy summers there with our paternal grandmother, Rose Hogan, throughout the 1960s.

David Hogan said...

I remember a kid from the early 1960s, a few years older than me, named Andy Peecook. He once warned me to avoid the restrooms nearest the office because of "giant spiders."