Fifty years ago this month, Clarkins held its Grand Opening on April 4, 1973. The store was located on the former Long's Airport property.
Just as it did with the opening of the Elyria store in 1971, the Journal dedicated a full page highlighting the various departments of the Lorain store. It appeared in the paper on Tuesday, April 3 – the eve of the opening.
Maybe someone didn't get the memo, but another animal known for hopping had appeared in the full-page ad that ran in the Journal a few days earlier on April 1. The critter looks like he'd be at home hanging out with Winnie the Pooh.
"First in line were Mr. and Mrs. Paul Kish of 3226 Oakdale Ave., Lorain, hunting for grass seed, shampoo and other specials. They arrived, Kish said, about 8:45 a.m. Next in line were four women from Vermilion, "Aunt" Faye Davis of 4693 Mapleview Drive, her twin sister, Dolly, with Janice White and Linda Frueh, all neighbors from Vermilion. Aunt Faye wanted tropical fish and her companions said she couldn't take more than 100 home with her or they'd be under water.
"By 9:45 a.m., the south parking lot was filled with cars and the north lot was filling quickly in steady bumper-to-bumper traffic which persisted even as the store opened.
"By 10:15 a.m., every department in the wide-open store was filled with shoppers.
"E. E. (Hoppy) Hopkins, president of Clarkins Inc. of Akron, a division of Unishops Inc., owners of the new store, was on hand for the grand opening. The store is giving away $5,000 in prizes, including a 1973 Chevrolet Vega."
4 comments:
That Chevrolet Vega that they were giving away was produced at GMs Lordstown Assembly Plant.GM wanted to produce 100 vehicles per hour and they did achieve that later on.This was the fastest rate in the world.The workers had about 30 some odd seconds to perform their job on each vehicle that rolled down the line.Talk about earning your money!GM even teamed up with Southern Pacific Railroad and invented a revolutionary railcar that the Vega's were loaded into vertically,with the nose down and the tail end up.It was a sight to see and if you told someone about it,they wouldn't believe you unless they saw it for their own eyes.This era of American manufacturing will never be seen again.
I had a buddy owned a bright yellow Vega. A sharp-looking car. He paid around $14,000 for it, in today's money.
The engine blew, big sheets of paint peeled off the hood, and the floorboards, top of the front fenders, around the windshield, and roof(!) rusted through in a couple years. He also lost the suspension in the driver's rear in the first year. Shouldn't forget about that. Maybe they shoulda slowed things down a bit and produced a better car.
Return to those "good old days" of automobiles? No. No, thank you very much.
Though, those train cars *were* pretty cool, that's for sure. I remember seeing them roll by.
For those interested, look up "vert-a-pac trains" in your favorite search engine.
When I was about 4 or 5, my Mom had a white Vega that I cheerfully painted with a can of gold spray paint that I found in the garage. She was not very impressed.
I used to love going to stores like Clarkins. I would head straight to the pet department and watch all the animals while Mom did her shopping. I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed that Meijer's has a little pet section with fish. I hadn't seen actual pets in department stores in ages.
The actual worker on the line can't be blamed for any of the problems that the Vega had.It was all GM management.They were the ones who wanted such a high assembly line rate.They were the ones who figured out who should do what and in how much time the worker had to do it.And the fact that the Vega was rushed into production and GM didn't properly test pre production vehicles before putting it in production adversely affected quality.It turned out that the actual buyer of a Vega was the "vehicle tester".The workers cried foul and actually had a strike over the working conditions,but to no avail.This was also the start of the UAW corruption years leading up to present day,where the UAW International started letting the companies do whatever they wanted and the actual line worker had to do it.This little Vega is what started the downfall of General Motors as the biggest auto manufacturer in the world.Personally,I never did like tiny compact cars from anyone.
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