Corky’s Restaurant & Motel

Note that the original diner building only had eight windows in front.

No address on this
December 22, 1951
ad from the
Sandusky Register

Vintage postcards of Corky’s Restaurant and Motel in Huron are pretty easy to find on Ebay. What isn’t so easy is figuring out where Corky's was located.

The postcards and matchbook all list the location as “Homan and Williams” with no real address – and it’s seemingly impossible to find Homan on a map. But research reveals that the business fronted on Cleveland Road West (U.S. Route 6) where it intersects with Williams.

So a traveler entering Huron from the west in the old days would have encountered Corky’s on the right (the south side of the street) shortly before they turned south onto Main Street into the Downtown district. 

Here are two more postcards, showing how the restaurant was enlarged from its days as a diner.

You can see the water tower (also formerly located on Williams Street)
off in the distance in the inset photo of the motel.

I believe that the motel sat just east of the restaurant. (Can any longtime Huron resident confirm this for me?) In fact, it appears that the same parked car, chimney, and tree are visible in both photos above.

Anyway, like many other longtime businesses, Corky’s eventually succumbed to Huron’s controversial urban renewal project. An attempt was made to sell the 5-unit motel and restaurant in the late 1950s, with a FOR SALE ad appearing in the April 20, 1957 Sandusky Register.

Here are two great photos taken shortly before Corky's demolition, courtesy of the Huron Historical Society and the ohiomemory.org website. One of the photo’s caption confirmed that it was on the corner of Williams and Cleveland Road.

The demolished houses shown above are on the east side of Williams Street.
Corky’s faced Cleveland Road West.

You can see these photos and others in the Huron Historical Society’s collection by clicking here.

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UPDATE (July 19, 2016)
Regular blog contributor and researcher Dennis Thompson managed to locate an 1896 map of Huron with that elusive Homan Street on it (below). Thanks, Dennis!