Arkansas Ave. House Demolition – March 11, 1970

The demolition of old buildings and structures has been a reoccurring topic on this blog for many years. I’ve written about demolitions that took place long ago, as well as many that are quite recent (no shortage of those).

I’ve featured historic houses (such as the Foote House, the Judge Henry Brown House, the Captain Aaron Root House) and not-so-well known houses (such as the Dembek farmhouse on Leavitt Road and the house at Kolbe and Jaeger, and some old farm houses on Colorado Avenue near Miller Road). Other structures include the City Bank Building in South Lorain, and buildings in Central Lorain that had to go to make way for senior housing.

There’s just too many demolitions to mention.

In recent years, the roll call of pulverized structures have included the original Lorain Yacht Club clubhouse, the old Oberlin Inn, a lakefront mansion in Avon Lake, Garwell’s Bait & Tackle, and even the Avon Lake water tower.

Too often the trend (in Lorain, at least) tends to be to tear down an old building that has been declared an eyesore, and then leave the lot vacant.

But apparently that idea is nothing new. Today’s post concerns the demolition of a house that was located at 112 1/2 Arkansas Avenue in Lorain. The article below appeared in the Journal fifty years ago today on March 11, 1970.

Despite the photo caption, I assumed the house wasn’t really 200 years old since it would pre-date the founding of the city by many decades.

So how old was it?

It’s hard to tell from the city directories. An address of 112 Arkansas Avenue was in the listings for many years before the 112 1/2 address joined it in the directory in 1950. I suspect they were both for the same house. 

Both addresses were vacant in the 1969 edition, and both disappeared in the 1970 book. Looking at the Historic Aerials website, only one house was torn down in that block during that time period – bolstering the argument that the home was originally just 112 Arkansas Avenue.

Nevertheless, the house next door – which you can catch a glimpse of in the photo – is still there on the street, at 116 Arkansas Avenue. In 1940, it was known as Pierce’s Convalescent Home, operated by Mrs. Pearl Pierce.

Anyway, today the location of the demolished home is largely empty, except for possibly a small addition to the neighboring commercial building that is currently for lease.