“If You Drink – Don’t Drive” Ads Through the Years

New Year’s Eve is only a few days away, so long-time readers of this blog know it’s time for another one of those gruesome “Don’t Drink & Drive” full-page ads that ran in the Journal.

They usually featured the Grim Reaper, or perhaps a car wreck illustration like the one at right. The ads also included a list of sponsors that provide a nice snapshot of Lorain businesses at the time.

The only problem is, I’ve been doing this so long that I’ve used up a lot of ads from the years that these things ran. So I really had to dig around on microfilm to find one I hadn’t posted before.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel, I found a few ads – but the problem is, most of them aren’t very scary.

Here’s the 1953 version (below). The ad’s message seems to be at odds with the illustrations of the partygoers holding drinks.

The ad from 1957 (below) could be considered a little scary, since it features a policeman. 

But he looks a little too kindly to be truly threatening.

The ad that ran in 1959 (below) might be considered scary today, depicting a creepy clown with his face frozen in maniacal laughter. But he still looks he’d be right at home on a 1950s box of Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks.

Finally, the 1967 edition is a little more like it – with the Grim Reaper himself doing a little bartendering.

Here’s hoping you have a safe and happy New Year’s Eve, and a great 2018!

More Lorain City Jail Fun

Remember Otis Campbell, the lovable town drunk on The Andy Griffith Show played by actor Hal Smith? After one of his binges, Otis would often lock himself up in the Mayberry jail to save Sheriff Andy the trouble.

Well, did you know that around the turn of the century, Lorain had their own version of Otis who used to lock himself up too? And that he was a poet to boot?

Read all about it in the colorful article below by Robert Siegel that appeared in the Lorain Journal on January 19, 1953. Siegel had interviewed George Horsley of 922 Lakeview Avenue., who had saved some vintage clippings that revealed the “tale of the poet-laureate of the city clink."

It’s written in an amusing manner almost reminiscent of Damon Runyon, with its references to gendarmes and the hoosegow.

Best of all, there’s even a sample of the eccentric inmate’s poetry.

Santa Visits Lorain City Jail – 1924

Merry Christmas to all my readers and contributors! Have a wonderful holiday and I hope the New Year brings you and your friends & family good health and happiness.

I’ll be taking my usual holiday break from the blog this week, but will be back in time to post some unusual New Year’s Eve “Don’t Drink and Drive” ads.

In the meantime, here’s a heartwarming story that ran in the Lorain Journal on Dec. 26, 1924. It's about how the prisoners in the Lorain city jail had a Merry Christmas that year, thanks to Lorain’s men in blue.

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SANTA VISITS LORAIN CITY JAIL
Prisoners Get Phonograph, Records, Smokes and Sweets

Routine and monotony of life behind the bars in city jail was broken by Santa Claus Christmas Eve. He came in the person of members of the Lorain police department and when prisoners looked in their stockings they found a phonograph, records, cigars, cigarettes and candy.

Today several of the prisoners, who have been doing solo dances for their fellow inmates and tripping the light fantastic with old time buck and wing dances, were walking around in their bare feet. The soles and heels had worn off on the cement floor, while they were putting on some entertainment.

It was in the wee hours of the morning on Christmas eve that prisoners finally shut off the phonograph and it was only a few hours later that they were up for more music and preparing for their Christmas special dinner.

Long-term liquor violators have been placed in charge of the phonograph and they vow dire vengeance on the first prisoner who tries to wreck it. For they want to enjoy the music for the years they are to be confined in jail.

1957 Christmas Ads

Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, so there’s just enough time to post these ads. They’re all from the Lorain Journal of December 24, 1957 – 60 years ago.

There’s a few old favorites discussed frequently on the blog, including Bazley Cash Market, Brady’s Restaurant (which will be the subject of some posts in the New Year), and the Lorain Slag Company. There’s also one for First Lutheran Church (whose congregation is no doubt enjoying the first Christmas in its wonderful new home on Sixth Street).

1953 Christmas Ads: Wissman’s Jewelers & Ideal Dairies

Here are a couple of jolly Christmas ads that appeared in the pages of the Lorain Journal on December 24, 1953.

The first one (above) is for Wissman’s Jewelers, featuring two of Santa’s older elves. I love the sheer goofiness of having them ride a candy cane like some sort of sled. (Why do I think of the ending of Dr. Strangelove when I see this ad?)

Wissman’s Jewelers was located at 613 Broadway, making it part of the Palace Theater complex.

An ad in the July 18, 1959 Journal noted “Wissman has been a name synonymous with fine jewelry since 1945.” Indeed the company first appeared in the 1945 Lorain phone book. Raymond Wissman was the man behind the company.

(Hey, I featured Wissman Jewelers on this blog before, when I wrote about Ol’ Lanky Long!)

Wissman Jewelers continued to appear in the city directory until the 1963 edition, when the 613 Broadway location was listed as “vacant.”

This second 1953 ad is one for Ideal Dairies, which doesn’t seem to generate as much nostalgia as its better-known competitors, Home Dairy and Lorain Creamery.

Ideal Dairies was located at 115 E. 21st Street. 

It first appeared in the city directories in the late 1940s (around 1947 or so). Here’s a 1955 phone book ad.

Ideal Dairies last appearance in the Lorain City Directory was in the 1964 edition.

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Tomorrow (on Saturday?), I’ll feature a calvacade of ads from 1957.

Lorain’s Woman Santa – Dec. 21, 1946

Monday and Tuesday's posts were about a Mary Lee Tucker show, this article is a nice tie-in.

It’s a seasonal story with a twist – written by Mary Lee Tucker herself – from the front page of the December 21, 1946 Lorain Journal. The heartwarming article reveals how Mrs. Idella Holzhauer of Lorain had the unique privilege of being the city’s only female Santa Claus.

She looks like a pretty good one too – much better than many of the (ugh) ‘realistic’ Santas you see with real beards that have been the unfortunate trend for many years.

Here’s the text of the entire article (below).

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She’s Been Santa to Children
of Two Generations in Lorain
Continues to Find Some Questions Puzzlers

BY MARY LEE TUCKER

What do little folks ask Santa Claus when he greets them at parties, in stores and on the streets around holiday time?

Ask Mrs. Idella Holzhauer, 329 W. 26th-st, Lorain’s only woman Santa who has been repeating stories about the North Pole, the reindeers and the traditional chimney for the entertainment of Lorain boys and girls many years.

Mrs. Holzhauer’s role is a precarious one. Every word must be ad libbed while her manner, too, and attitude are scrutinized minutely. Christmas is a time of infinite hope, suspense and sometimes tears; The stock question is, of course, “Are you REALLY Santa Claus?”

•  •  •

SHE’S CAGEY WITH HER RESPONSES
“Well,” counters the Lorain woman, with excellent Christmas psychology, “what do you think?”

She never makes a positive promise and rarely a definitive statement. “I’ll see what my helpers can do about that,” she’ll say, or “I’ll try, but you know some things are rationed, even for Santa.”

Her most difficult request was a recurring one for the war years – “Please bring daddy home to us.”

According to Mrs. Holzhauer, who has had three children of her own, two girls and a boy, some of the most common questions asked by youngsters are: “Where’s your reindeers, Santa? Do you have a workshop? Where is your workshop where you make your toys? Do you have to stay up all night? How do you get down the chimney? Where are you in the summer time? Don’t you ever get cold?”

She will tell you that she started playing Santa Claus for her own little daughter, Janice, who died in infancy.

Later, she donned a Kris Kringle suit and was Santa for her daughter, Ladonna, and her son, George, better known as “Corky.” Both are now grown.

This Lorain St. Nick treats all children as her own. She draws them to her naturally, knows when to pick up a little boy or girl and when not to. The very young ones, sometimes afraid at first, she lets accustom themselves to her before she gently takes them on her knee or shakes their hands.

The hardest thing she has to do is to pare the modest list of a child whose parents can obviously give her little. A hundred times she has had to deny the impulse to reach into her own pocket, or to stride over to a toy counter and sweep it clean for a threadbare little boy or girl.

If, surrounded by the wonders of a modern toy department, a child asks for too much, Santa says, “Do you think you really need all of those things?” If he insists, Santa asks, “What about all the other little boys in the world? They want presents, too, and my helpers are very busy.” This appeal to the child’s better nature is nearly always successful.

•  •  •

Turn Back Pages of Time
Mrs. Joseph Wozniak, 550 5th-st remembers when St. Nick (Mrs. Holzhauer) used to visit her home around Christmas time. More recently she played Santa to Mrs. Wozniak’s daughter, Mildred.

“And I am going to keep my suit and whiskers handy for many years to come because I love being Santa Claus,” says the Lorain woman whose crinkles around her  dancing blue eyes affect exactly the right mixture of humor, kindness and mischief to make her an ideal Santa. She wears no mask, only mustache and whiskers.

This holiday season has been a busy one for the Lorain woman who was Santa Claus at all the Mary Lee Tucker Christmas parties – for the children at the Lorain-co home, the old folks at the Lorain-co infirmary, at the benefit Mary Lee Tucker show, in Lorain schools and churches.

She doesn’t charge for her services. On the contrary, she frequently spends her own money on the youngsters – makes them popcorn balls. And when the children from the Oberlin home came down last week-end as guests of Mary Lee Tucker she slipped a popcorn ball in the hand of each little boy and girl to eat on the return home by bus.

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Idella Holzhauer lived to the ripe old age of 96, passing away on May 12, 1995. The newspaper account of her death noted that she had been awarded a plaque by Lorain Mayor Alex Olejko for her 95th birthday on New Year's Day 1994.

Surprisingly, her obituary made no mention of her role as Lorain’s female Santa Claus, or the happiness she brought to countless local children.

Spaid's Sportsmen's Shop Ad – Dec. 20, 1946

I love this Christmas-themed ad for Spaid's Sportsmen's Shop, which was located at 116 Eighth Street in Lorain. The ad appeared in the Lorain Journal on December 20, 1946 – 71 years ago.

Look at the unbridled glee in the eyes of the man, who received a new Nydar Shotgun Sight. He's crazed with excitement as he looks forward to greater accuracy and bringing home more game.

Meanwhile, his wife looks pretty happy too, as she lovingly examines the tag on her new fur coat. (And please don't ask me what she's wearing under that fur coat.)

It's just a thought, but perhaps if she had bought him that Nydar shotgun sight sooner, he might have been able to blast the fur-bearing critter himself and have a custom coat made for her.

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Jack W. Spaid was the man behind Spaid's Sportsmen's Shop. The store carried Evinrude outdoor motors, fishing tackle, guns, ammunition and other hunting supplies.

According to his obituary in the Frederick News-Post, Jack W. Spaid "grew up in Lorain, Ohio, where he developed a life-long interest in boating, hunting and fishing.

"During W.W. II he proudly served as an officer of the U. S. Army Transportation Corp. in Australia, New Guinea and the Philippines. He received an honorable discharge in February of 1945. In 1950, he married his beloved wife (Phyllis) and they settled in Frederick in 1957 and raised their family there."

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But getting back to that shotgun sight in the ad. Here's a link to the forgottenweapons.com website, where you can take a look at a Nydar Model 47 sight, introduced in 1945.

I saw a 1940s ad online for a Model 47, which looks pretty much like the sight in the Spaid ad. The price? $27.45. That's about $350 bucks in today's dollars, which won't even buy you a fur muff.

I think the wife in the Spaid ad got the better deal.

Frank Fontaine MC's the Mary Lee Tucker Benefit Show – 1957 – Part 2

It’s impressive just how much time and effort went into putting on the Mary Lee Tucker Christmas benefit shows of the 1950s and 60s. Besides booking nationally known talent like Frank Fontaine to headline and emcee the show, there was the auditioning and selection of local acts to make up the majority of the program.

Sometimes there were additional professional acts added to make the show even more spectacular. For the 1957 show, the Cornell Sisters were added to the list of performers. As the article below (which appeared in the Lorain Journal on November 28, 1957) notes, the Cornell Sisters had appeared in Detroit and Chicago nightclubs, as well as on the Arthur Godfrey Talent Scout program.

The Sisters were in town for an engagement at Ben Hart’s Showbar in early December. At some point in their career they issued a 45 RPM record with One Sided Love on one side and Walking Along on the other.

But getting back to the show. On December 4, 1957 the Journal included a last promotional article for the show, which was to take place that night. The High Toppers dance group were featured in a cute photo.

As expected, the show was a big success, raising $1,500 (that’s $13,000 in today’s money). Frank Fontaine was featured in a photo in the article below, which ran the next day.

The article stated that Fontaine kept the show moving at a fast pace. "He ‘fractured’ the audience with his ventriloquist bit in which he used two St. Mary High School boys picked from the audience as his “dummies,” it noted.

“He brought down the rafters with his impersonations of Arthur Godfrey, Amos and Andy, Alfred Hitchcock, Peter Lorre, Claude Rains, Jimmy Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Charles Boyer, Jimmy Durante, Winston Churchill, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Liberace and Billy Eckstine.”

Other performers included Maria Bryant, who played the accordion while blindfolded and wearing gloves and with the keyboard covered with a black cloth; the Mozambi Trio, three ‘educated and talented apes’ in formal attire (behind the rubber ape masks were Harry Mayer, Russ Owens and Nate Margolis); the Jimmy Dulio 14-piece band, which supplied all the music for both professional and local entertainers; Joe Kohart, who did a pantomime of Elvis Presley; tap dancers Sandy Humphrey and Danny Walker; and many, many more.

Frank Fontaine MC's the Mary Lee Tucker Benefit Show – 1957 – Part 1

The Morning Journal’s annual Mary Lee Tucker Clothe-a-Child program has been underway now for several weeks, so it’s a good time for this post.

Back in 1957, the Mary Lee Tucker program still included a big charity show at the Palace theater as the primary fundraiser. (I’ve written extensively about these shows, with multi-part series about the early days of the program, as well as a more thorough history of it through the decades.)

Anyway, for the 1957 benefit show, there was a very special Master of Ceremonies: Frank Fontaine. Of course, you might know him better from his role as lovable drunk Crazy Guggenheim (shown at right) on the Jackie Gleason Show. Gleason (as Joe the Bartender) would enjoy a comedic chat with Crazy, who would eventually be cajoled into singing a song with his beautiful voice.

But in 1957, Fontaine had not yet created his Guggenheim character. Instead, he was well known from The Jack Benny Program from his appearances as a bum named John L. C. Sivoney.

Here’s a portion of the front page Journal article announcing his upcoming appearance at the Mary Lee Tucker show on December 4, 1957.

The balance of the article reveals his family’s show biz heritage, noting that his parents were vaudeville performers and that his paternal grandparents were a well known Barnum and Bailey circus team. "His grandfather was a strong man and his grandmother, a trapeze artist."

“Frank and his brother Raymond toured with their parents, went to school all over the United States and Canada or had private tutors when truant officers caught up with them.

“Frank’s talent became apparent when he imitated his parents from the time he was five.

“Married at 17, he depended on amateur show prizes for subsistence until he was able to get nightclub bookings.”

Fontaine served his country during World War II, and after his discharge, “returned to the nightclub circuit, then joined up with Vaughn Monroe and toured with the bandleader’s orchestra as featured comedian for two years.”

Here’s the ad that appeared in the Journal on November 29, 1957, with Fontaine in character as John L. C. Sivoney.

The cover of this record album (below) showcasing Fontaine’s singing provides a better view of the photo used in the Journal ad.

Want to see Fontaine in action as John L. C. Sivoney on the Jack Benny show? He makes his appearance on the 1961 program below at the 16:22 mark in a police station sketch. It’s pretty funny, and nice to hear that inimitable laugh again. Fontaine also comes in at the end of the sketch for a final punchline, and even makes a curtain call as himself at the close of the show.

Schenley Whiskey Ad – Dec. 5, 1952

Courtesy
whiskyantique.com

I've mentioned before how it seems that the Lorain Journal ran liquor ads in its pages every day during the 1950s. A few of the whiskey brands became blog fodder, including Old Log Cabin (which I wrote about here and here) and PM Blended Whiskey.

Well, above is an ad for another whiskey brand: Schenley. The ad appeared in the Lorain Journal on Dec. 5, 1952. It features a nicely stylized snowman. (I love it when classic children's holiday icons sell adult products.)

Unfortunately, it appears that the Schenley brand melted away over the years.

According to this Wiki page, the liquor company was purchased by Guinness in the late 1980s. The brand has not been available in the United States for some time. It seems to have been discontinued in Canada as well over the last few years, although there are still some cases out there according to this website.

Whistle Ad – December 17, 1947

Vintage sign currently on Ebay

Since I mentioned Canada Dry yesterday, here’s an ad for another soft drink that in days gone by was bottled in Lorain – Whistle.

The ad, which ran in the Lorain Journal on December 17, 1947 – 70 years ago this month – is quite charming, with chubby elves involved in wintertime antics. Gee, those guys really aren’t dressed for snow.

I did a two-part series on the Lorain Whistle Bottling Company back here in 2012. The company was located near the railroad tracks at 1138 Lexington Avenue.

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Want to see some more Whistle advertising featuring the drink’s distinctive elves? Then you’ll have to visit this blog: Enchanted America: In Search of Elves, Fairies, And Other Mythical, Magical Beings, Places and Things Along the Highways & Byways of North America (whew, that’s a long one).

Canada Dry Ad – Dec. 19, 1959

I found this ad (which appeared in the Lorain Journal on December 19, 1959) interesting, because it identified the name of a drink that I like to make at home. That is, I like to add some Canadian Club to my Canada Dry Diet Ginger Ale for a nice, Canadian-themed drink.

According to the ad, that drink is called a highball. Gee, I’d heard of that drink but didn’t realize that was what I was making. Suddenly I feel very old.

Anyway, I have another reason for posting this ad.

One of the features of this blogger website is the ability to review statistics to see which posts get the most visits. And for some inexplicable reason, one of the most-visited posts that I have ever written is this one  from 2013 about the old Canada Dry bottling plant building at 1251 Colorado Avenue.

I don’t know why, but when I check my stats each week, that Canada Dry post is usually at the top of the heap. It had more than 500 visits in November. Why?

I can’t figure it out. Does anybody out there have any ideas?

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Here’s some information about the Canada Dry bottling plant on Colorado Avenue that I've found since that original post.

According to an article in the Lorain Journal on June 21, 1955, “Canada Dry Bottling Co. of Lorain was established here as a franchised carbonated beverage manufacturing firm in 1947.

“The company, which bottles Canada Dry beverages for Lorain, Huron and Erie counties, is owned and managed by David E. Mowrey.

“Mowrey is widely known in Lorain and is past president of the Lorain board of education.

“The firm employs five persons. Three large trucks are used for quick delivery service.”

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Our old pal, longtime blog contributor Bob Kovach sent me (as he put it) the "relic" at right. 

It's a well-worn piece of correspondence from the Canada Dry Bottling Company of Lorain, Ohio, Inc. to its customers, dated August 27, 1948.

The letter is on an elegantly designed masthead that shows some of its Canada Dry products at the time, including two I'd never heard of: Spur and Hi-Spot.

Spur appears to have been Canada Dry's cola product. Hi-Spot was a lemon-lime soda that probably competed with Seven-Up.

Thanks for sharing your find with us, Bob!

To visit a terrific vintage advertising website that includes a history of Canada Dry along with vintage labels and ads, click here. 

Saturday Evening Post Cover by Stevan Dohanos – December 27, 1952

The "Log of Lorain" column in the Lorain Journal of January 13, 1953 included a mention of Lorain artist and illustrator Stevan Dohanos' latest Saturday Evening Post cover.

It noted, "Lorainites were well represented on the cover of the Dec. 27 issue of Saturday Evening Post. Steve Dohanos, a Lorain native, painted the cover. The man carrying pine boughs into the church is also a Lorain native. He is Loyal Theron Lucas.

"Lucas was working summer stock in Connecticut last summer and apparently posed for the picture at Dohanos' studio at Stamford, Conn."

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Loyal T. Lucas was born in Lorain on December 4, 1904. Although his name doesn't seem to be included in the list of successful Lorain-born entertainers, Mr. Lucas enjoyed a fine career in Hollywood, judging by his page on imdb.com. Here is the link.

It looks like he specialized in playing miners and old coots on TV Westerns. These appearances included Have Gun – Will Travel (1961), Tales of Wells Fargo (1962), Death Valley Days (1964), Branded (1965), Wagon Train (1964 & 1965), Gunsmoke (1961 & 1965), and The Virginian (1965).

He also had roles on Bachelor Father (1962), The Addams Family (1965 & 1966) and Quincy M.E. (1980).

Madge's Grand Opening – December 10, 1963

The view on Sunday

Remember when I wrote about the one-story brick building located on the southeast corner of Colorado Avenue (State Route 611) and Abbe Road in Sheffield? Although the building is empty now, a variety of businesses were located there at 5316 Colorado Avenue beginning in the 1950s and into the 1990s.

One of the businesses that called that address home was Madge’s Coffee Shop. Above is its Grand Opening ad that appeared in the Lorain Journal on December 10, 1963, just in time for the holiday season.

“Madge” was Mrs. Magdeline Delgado. As you can see from the ad, Spanish foods were the specialties of the house. I’m sure the food was great (and much better than the canned tamales I buy at the grocery store).

Madge's Coffee Shop’s only listing in Lorain city directories was in the 1964 edition. By the time of the next directory, Chris’ Sub Shop had taken over the space.

Perhaps Madge was just a little ahead of her time, offering authentic Spanish foods to a general public that wasn’t familiar with that type of food – yet.

Pre-Civil War Avon Lake House Vandalized - Dec. 8, 1965

Here’s a sad story from the pages of the December 8, 1965 issue of the Lorain Journal. It’s about an Avon Lake farmhouse that predated the Civil War that was senselessly vandalized a few weeks earlier. As stated in the article above, “A onetime farm house, lived-in before there was an Avon Lake or even a Civil War, is now under the legal axe of quick repair or demolition, courtesy of Thanksgiving week vandals.

“The house, said to have been part of a family history for the past 143 years by owner Mrs. Ruth Bramen, No. 2 Putnam Hill, Greenwich, Conn., is the first house in Avon Lake west of Bay Village on the south side of Walker Road. It is part of a 93 acre estate on the verge of being sold for “around $93,000.” Value of the house itself was never set and may be considered a small fraction of the final price.”

The damage was considerable. According to the article, “Every window was smashed; screens and doors were splintered; mattress springs, mattress and bedding were hurled through upper floor windows; a bag of cement was bashed open and the fine powder combed by breezes through the house; lamps, fixtures and non-bearing walls were broken, ripped or kicked.”

The sad thing is that until the end of the first week of that November, the house had been occupied by tenants, and appeared to be in order. So the vandals worked pretty quickly.

The photos by Bob Cotleur accompanying the full-page article are disturbing, even if it was unlikely that the house would be restored or saved after the sale of the land.

I’m not too familiar with Avon Lake history, but it appears that today the property is part of Walker Road Park, which is co-owned and managed by both Avon Lake and Bay Village. Judging by the views on the Historic Aerial website, the farm house was indeed gone by 1970.

Fireball! December 9, 1965

I often wonder if a meteor is going to clobber the Earth in my lifetime. I don't worry about it too much, but it crosses my mind from time to time.

Anyway, back on December 9, 1965 – 52 years ago this week – something fiery did indeed fall out of the sky and hit some Lorain County terra firma. It was said to be a fireball, part of a meteorite that apparently was seen over a seven-state area and possibly California. But even now, there is some debate as to what it was that everyone saw, both in the sky and on the ground.

Here's the original story as reported, written by Charles Gray, as it appeared on the front page of the Lorain Journal the next day.

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So what was it? According to this report in the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, it was – as originally thought – a meteorite.

Or was it possibly some kind of spy craft, as described in this account published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the 50th anniversary of the event?

Lorain Country Club Clubhouse Burns – Dec. 6, 1954

On this day back in 1954, fire swept through the Lorain Country Club building on W. Lake Road (U. S. Route 6). It was located on the north side of the highway, just east of the undercut and opposite the Pueblo.

According to the article below, which ran on the front page of the Lorain Journal on December 7, 1954, the building had been used as the clubhouse until the golf course was abandoned in the early 1940s. Prior to the fire, the former clubhouse had been used as a tavern and residence.

Here's a closeup view of the photo.

On page 13 of the same edition of the Journal was this photo and caption (below). Sorry it’s so dark.

I have more material about the early days of the Lorain Country Club that I will have to organize and post one of these days (years).

Grand Opening of Faroh’s Candy Center – Dec. 5, 1952

Back on December 5, 1952 – 65 years ago today – Faroh’s Candies was celebrating the Grand Opening of its new facility on Henderson Drive in Lorain.

The full-page ad above ran on that day in the Lorain Journal.

I’ve featured Faroh’s ads on this blog many times: Valentine’s Day ads; a 1962 Easter ad; a 1963 Christmas ad; a 1964 Father’s Day ad; a 1970s Easter ad.

Faroh’s enjoyed many decades at the Henderson Drive location, along with several satellite stores.

The Henderson Drive facility eventually closed (after the Henderson Bridge was closed for months while it was being repaired). The distinctive building has housed various companies since then, including a nightclub and, currently, an auto dealership. Here’s a view of the building this past weekend.

Back in late 2009, Faroh’s returned to Downtown Lorain with a new store at 657 Broadway.

Today, Faroh’s retail store has a new home at 300 Broadway in the City Center Building where the old driver’s license bureau was located. As the company explained to me in an email, "Spectrum Consulting Services and Spectrum Resource Center & School are opening a new manufacturing plant to produce the Faroh's Candy line which will be located on 5th Street in Lorain.

"Tom Faroh is Spectrum's consultant to ensure that the integrity of the chocolate making stays true to the original recipes. With the new collaboration between Faroh and Spectrum, it is expected that the Faroh's brand will not only remain available, it will be relaunched for nationwide sales.”