Happy Birthday, Lorain – Part 3

Here’s another page of the Jubilee edition of the Lorain Journal celebrating the city’s 50th birthday back in 1924.

One of the more interesting articles is a series of reminisces by Rachel M. Studley, a teacher whose ancestors figured prominently in Lorain’s history. I’ve transcribed it below for easy reading.

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EARLY GROWTH OF LORAIN
TOLD BY FORMER TEACHER
Joys and Struggles of Settlers Dwelt Upon by Woman
Whose Antecedents Lived Here

EDITOR’S NOTE: – The writer of the following article, Rachel M. Studley, was once a school teacher in Lorain and also served on the editorial staff of the Lorain Journal. Her family recollections of the city go far beyond the half century period and are especially interesting to the pioneer residents. Her home is on Erie-av and she has been spending the winter in Florida.

By RACHEL M. STUDLEY

GREETINGS AND CONGRATULATIONS TO THE CITY OF LORAIN UPON HER 50TH ANNIVERSARY, altho in my mind Lorain existed many years before 1874 as it was in 1860 or thereabouts that my grandfather, Dr. Philo Tilden of Cleveland, built his iron furnace at the foot of 9th-st.

The building in which the Lorain Lumber Co. is now has always been pointed out to me as the old office and general store. It was here that McKinley’s father held sway over the selling of food, clothing and tobacco to the employee, besides looking after the furnace whenever the iron was ready to pour.

Mr. McKinley’s talk was mainly of his son, William, then a country youth attending college by the aid of S. O. Edison, a son-in-law of my grandfather, and associated with him in business. For the first year of their marriage, my aunt and Mr. Edison lived in the Ed Gillmore place facing Washington park. Thru his brother being in Lorain, Ford Edison became a lifelong resident.

Furnace at Vermilion
Grandfather also had a furnace at Vermilion. Those were the days of charcoal steel and to obtain the charcoal, large tracts of land were bought. The main site of the steel plant is on land formerly belonging to my grandfather and purchased from his children by Tom L. Johnson.

Another big problem of steelmaking in those days was the crushing of the ore. My mother used often to relate what a sensation was caused when grandfather brought the first ore crusher from the east over the Allegeny mountains. Twelve teams of horses were necessary to pull it over the mountains.

The furnaces were finally burned down and were not rebuilt as Lorain seemed too far away from Cleveland for the carrying on of a business in one place and living in another.

Had Cottage on River
However, by the time my mother had married and we children had arrived, Lorain was near enough so our summers were spent four miles up the river where my mother had built a cottage on land originally bought for charcoal. The actual site was just west of the present dam and was a beautiful spot in those days. The view from the top of the hill, going down into Globeville Hollow, was as fine as any on the Rhine, so one of our frequent guests often remarked. The cottage now stands in the steel plant yards and is used for a freight office, I believe.

It seems a great pity that the beauty of the river can not be preserved and made an accessible recreation ground to the people of Lorain.

River Still Beautiful
The upper stretches are not yet spoiled and the harbor mouth is very attractive. I always point the latter out to visitors as being the prettiest harbor on the lakes and it could be made even more beautiful.

Lorain needs a layer of beauty over her industrialism. Let’s give her all we can so that she will become the Queen City of the Lakes as was visioned by the early pioneers whose faith and works made the foundation upon which Lorain rests.

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While preparing this post, I found an ad in the Ohio Motorist magazine of August 1921 for Loch Haddin Inn at Stop 96, Lake Road in Lorain, operated by Rachel M. Studley and Mrs. Grace Roden.

According to the Lake Shore Rail Maps website, Stop 96 was between the Lorain Overlook and Euclid Avenue.

Is the Loch Haddin Inn still there on East Erie?

The November 1920 issue of The Smith Alumnae Quarterly lists Rachel M. Studley as living at 2745 E. Erie Avenue. The 1922 Cleveland Blue Book social directory has her at the same address.

Many of the numerical addresses in that area of East Erie were changed when the Lorain Overlook Apartments were built in the mid-1920s, so there is a very good chance that the Inn is still there. I’ll update this post when I know for sure.

UPDATE (April 8, 2020)
Thanks to information provided to me by Drew Penfield (of the Lake Shore Rail Maps website) and longtime contributor and researcher Dennis Thompson, I am sure that the former Loch Haddin Inn still stands today at 2905 E. Erie Avenue. Apparently while the Overlook Apartments were being built, numerical addresses along that stretch of East Erie heading east were assigned new addresses, perhaps in an attempt to make them more consistent.

A review of the 1926 city directory (when the Overlook was first listed) includes ‘old’ and ’new’ addresses for some homes. For example, 2519 became 2757, 2711 became 2861, and 2797 became 2911. Drew and Dennis discovered that Rachel Studley’s address of 2745 E. Erie became 2905 E. Erie. Dennis even found a 1928 ad for the Loch Haddin Inn with that address (below).

September 1, 1928 ad from the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram

Thanks for your help, guys!

And when you see this house on East Erie just a little east of the Lorain Overlook Apartments, you might just get a ghostly whiff of those Good Old Southern Style Waffles.

(Courtesy Lorain County Auditor)

Next: More pages and stories from the Jubilee edition of the Lorain Journal