Today I’m wrapping up my series on Vermilion as seen though postcards found mainly on Ebay. We'll start with Vermilion’s lighthouse, which was a popular postcard topic.
(I’m fairly ignorant about Vermilion history, and was surprised to read on a
Wiki page that the lighthouse shown in the above postcards was taken down in 1929 and sent to Buffalo (where it was originally built) to be renovated. Although today it is privately owned, it’s still in use in New York as the
East Charity Shoal Light.)
The
Vermilion-On-The-Lake clubhouse was also a popular postcard subject. I wrote about this iconic building a few times, including
here.
I’ve done a couple posts about
Crystal Beach. Lately there have been many vintage postcards for sale on Ebay for this iconic Vermilion attraction. Some of the postcards seem like they should be for one of the other same-named amusement parks, but the backs of them and postmarks confirm that they are indeed Crystal Beach in Vermilion.
 |
| (Postmarked 1910) |
 |
| (Postmarked 1914) |
 |
| (Postmarked 1927) |
 |
| (Postmarked 1943) |
It’s a little harder to find postcards of
Cask Villa (soon to get its own post on this blog).
But I was happy to find a vintage postcard of one Vermilion subject that I’ve written about, namely
Motel Plaza. It was part of my series about Rusine’s (
here). And it’s still doing business out there on U.S. Route 6 with the same name.
3 comments:
Nice series, Dan - I much enjoyed it.
My grandmother used to go to the V.O.L. clubhouse back in the early 1930's. My dad said she'd drive her and her older sister out there from Lorain in their dad's Model A Ford. She was only 14, but I guess they didn't require driver's liscenses back then? She said they had dance cards for the different songs. I guess men would ask for different dances and pre-book them.
They were doing construction out there in 2012 right before she died at age 96 and we asked if maybe she could come in and look around and they said sure. Brought back a lot of nice memories for her. She said she remembered the big fireplace, and that she was only allowed in there at that young age because her older brothers were there. Nice series.
That Sea Plane ride looks a little flimsy. I think someone took an oil derrick and added those lightweight arms at the top.
Post a Comment