Last week I posted a July 1928 newspaper article announcing that construction bids were soon to be accepted to replace the highway bridge over the Vermilion River.
Ten years after that article appeared in the Lorain Times-Herald, Vermilion’s main east-west highway through town (Liberty Avenue, U. S. Route 6) was in the news again. This time, the focus was eliminating the two crazy curves that the highway took at the western border of town.
The plan to eliminate these two turns, and create a straight route for Liberty Avenue through Vermilion, required purchasing the right-of-way of the defunct Lake Shore Electric.
As you can see on this page from the July 13, 1938 Lorain Times-Herald, it was pretty big news.
Elsewhere on that same page of the Lorain Times-Herald, the Lake Shore Electric was also in the news in Avon Lake. An article at the bottom of the page notes, “The stone waiting room at Stop 56 by the L. S. E. tracks was no sooner deserted by the commuters than its possibilities for a No. 1 clubhouse was realized by a group of boys who had just organized themselves into what the community now knows them by, the Doodtlebug [sic] club.
“Six boys who lacked an outlet for their ambitions now hold their meetings regularly in this exclusive clubhouse and have as their aim the spreading of happiness for some one else.”
Unfortunately, the Doodlebuggers couldn’t send any sunshine out to Vermilion to help expedite its road proposal.
As noted on this blog post, by 1940 the State of Ohio was still talking about and studying the highway plan. By March 1952, the two curves still hadn’t been eliminated and the Lorain Journal was calling it a deathtrap.
It wouldn’t be until November 1955 when the new 4-lane highway would finally open, providing a straight shot through town and ending the decades-old bottleneck.
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