Thursday, September 21, 2017

Thistle Building Update Part 2

Rick Kurish was finally able to determine the organization behind the Thistle Building’s construction, as well as a Scottish connection. 

In an early September email, he wrote, "Under the heading “Lorain News” in the Elyria Reporter of September 27, 1905 I found the brief article that describes what I am almost positive is the announcement of the drawing of plans for the Thistle Building (see article below). 


"The article fits both the building location and the interior design of the building. If the plans were being drawn up at the end of September 1905, construction probably didn’t start until Spring of 1906.

"Even more interesting is the fact that the Fleming & Miller Company mentioned in the article as the company erecting the building, would seem to have ties to Scotland. I still don’t have all of this sorted out, but the Fleming & Miller business was listed in the 1905 Lorain City Directory as “Saloons.” The principals in the business were John Fleming and James Miller. According to the 1910 census John Fleming was a bricklayer, who was born in Scotland, and while I could not find with certainty James Miller in the 1910 census, the 1905 Lorain City Directory listed him as an agent for the Hoster Brewing Company of Columbus Ohio, which according to the industry magazine “Ice and Refrigeration Illustrated” dated July to December 1905, had just established a plant for distribution in Lorain, Ohio. Interestingly, the February 1910 Sanborn Map for the building shows one of the ground floor stores as a Tea Shop and the other as a Saloon.
"In the 1910 census John Fleming was boarding with the extended family of Jean Miller, who was born in Scotland and immigrated to the United States in 1899. So the Fleming partner in the business was born in Scotland, and I suspect that the Miller partner was Scotch also. So perhaps, and I think most likely, the Thistle Building was named after the builder’s Scottish heritage, and not after the Thistle Lodge — although I like the Lodge theory better. 
"Perhaps some day you will turn up an article on the completion of the building in the Lorain Newspapers that will definitively answer the question.
I took Rick’s advice and scoured the microfilm beginning around the time of his late Sept. 27 article about the building. I did find a similar mention of the proposed building in the Sept. 26, 1905 edition of the Lorain Daily News.

A few days later, Rick weighed in again on the company that sponsored the building’s construction. "While watching the Indians beat up on the Detroit Tigers this afternoon, I picked up my laptop and started looking at the Fleming & Miller Company that was apparently associated with the Thistle Building. I had never heard of the company before finding the article about the drafting of building plans the other day. Mainly, I was trying to establish a hard link between the company and possible Scottish ancestry of the principals in the company. I didn’t accomplish that, but I did find an article in the Elyria Reporter of September 25,1905 containing an interesting interview with Jane Miller, wife of James Miller. 
"While a portion of the article is a little hard to read, apparently Jane Miller, a business owner in her own right, if the article is to be believed, is the person who was the driving force in moving the company into Lorain. It appears that they had big plans for business in Lorain. I’m not sure if they all came to fruition, but I did find a mention of one of their saloons in Lorain in 1907.”

So what does all this mean? Rick summed it all up.

"Perhaps the origin of the name “Thistle" attached to the building erected by the Fleming - Miller Company is destined to be an enduring mystery.

"Whatever the plan, the building located on the southwest corner of 7th Street, which was most likely built in 1906, was named the Thistle Building. We can postulate that the building was named “Thistle” by the principals of the Fleming & Miller Company, due to the apparent Scottish ancestry of several of the principals, or that the Lorain Thistle Lodge of Lorain, founded in 1905, was somehow involved in the naming of the building. That may be as close as we come to an answer to the question. I tend to believe the first option relating to Scottish ancestry — at least until a third option appears!

Hilariously, I think I might have found that third option while preparing this post. I had Googled the word “Thistle” and discovered that the flowering plant is the floral emblem of both Scotland and – Loraine, France!

In the meantime, I will continue my search for some sort of newspaper article announcing the completion of the building.

Thanks once again to Rick Kurish for sharing his research.

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