As my blog post from a few days ago noted, Yogi Bear was popular enough in the early 1960s (thanks to his TV show) to be a featured performer at the 1961 Ohio State Fair.
Well when the fair ended, the smarter-than-the-average bear was apparently hard at work coming up with a scheme to launch his own campground empire later in the 1960s – Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park Camp - Resort.
Since I have enjoyed camping at many of the different Jellystone Parks over the years, I devoted a post to the early years of the campground empire back here in 2017. The post featured a variety of vintage postcards and brochures. as well as a few ads.
This post noted how the Journal occasionally ran a small ad in the early 1970s designed to attract potential franchisees. I also pointed out how my present home city of Vermilion was slated to have its own Jellystone Park campground/resort.
Anyway, a few years ago I did a little research as to how the Yogi Bear Jellystone Park Camp - Resort chain launch played out in the newspapers. I collected a lot of articles and ads aimed at both campers and investors, and present them here in chronological order. It's interesting to see how the park's advertising evolved during its early years.
The very first Jellystone Park opened in Door County in Wisconsin. A few teaser ads ran before the official opening in July 1969, and the opening itself was covered by the media.
A few of the renderings of Yogi are downright unbearable.
Capital Times, May 12, 1969
Capital Times, May 19, 1969
Post Crescent, May 19, 1969
Manitowoc Herald-Times, July 3, 1969
The Sheboygan Press, July 17, 1969
Green Bay Press Gazette, July 17, 1969
Green Bay Press Gazette, July 22, 1969
Rapid City Journal, October 26, 1969
Los Angeles Times, Dec. 7, 1969
By 1970, feature articles were being written about the unique campground chain.
Green Bay Press Gazette, June 7, 1970
Star Tribune, Aug. 30, 1970
Progress Bulletin, Dec. 12, 1970
The year 1971 featured a variety of ads – some aimed at campers, some at investors.
Orlando Sentinel, April 9, 1971
Minneapolis Star, July 5, 1971
Star Tribune, July 29, 1971
Atlanta Constitution, Oct. 24, 1971
Atlanta Constitution, Nov. 2, 1971
Philadelphia Enquirer, Nov. 7, 1971
More ads and articles ran in 1972.
Journal Times, Feb. 29, 1972
Indianapolis Star Sun, April 16, 1972
Redlands Daily Facts, June 12, 1972
Los Angeles Times, July 20, 1972
The year 1973 saw publicity for the proposed Vermilion, Ohio Jellystone Park. And Western movie and TV actor Andy Devine was featured in ads for Jellystone Park with a different approach: selling the actual campground sites.
Lorain Journal, Aug. 20, 1973
The Daily Mail, Aug. 24, 1973
Baltimore Sun, Oct. 6, 1973
The year 1974 saw another plug for the Vermilion Jellystone Park, as well as ads showing proposed park layouts.
The Times, March 23, 1974
Baltimore Sun, April 5, 1974
Lorain Journal, July 1, 1974
Kokomo Tribune, Sept. 20, 1974
Finally, here are some later 1970s ads and articles. The park system was still attempting to get people to purchase campsites, but that idea was eventually dropped.
The Orlando Sentinel, May 25, 1975
The Pittsburgh Press, Aug. 8, 1975
Baltimore Sun, August 14, 1976
Here's a much later ad for the original Jellystone Park in Door County, Wisconsin. It's still there today!
Fond Du Lac Commonwealth Reporter, Aug. 29, 1996
By the 2000s, the chain was well-established and still growing. This article (below) about the award-winning Niagara Falls campground provides a nice capsule history. I'm sentimental about this specific park, because it was the first place I camped at as an adult after not having camped for decades.
National Post, May 2, 2003
Here is the link to the Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park Camp - Resort website.
Here's a snapshot of seventy years ago this week of what was going on in Lorain County, including the movies, the night spots and various happenings, with a few generic ads thrown in. Above is the page from the Lorain Journal of July 28, 1954 depicting these items.
Dominating the page is the huge ad for Gulf gasoline and its Summer Formula No-Nox.
It's funny thinking how on just about every major corner in Lorain County there used to be a national brand service station, including Sunoco, Shell, Sohio, Gulf, Sinclair, etc. Back then, people really cared about what they put in their gas tanks. Now, many of the major brands have abandoned the smaller markets. We still have a fair number of the major brands in the Lorain area, but we also have a lot of the lesser known goofy ones (such as Raceway).
But are there still Gulf stations around here? Using the online station locator, I discovered there's only one station within a fifty mile radius of Vermilion – on State Road in Cleveland.
Elsewhere in the page, we have a little slice of cheesecake in the form of the ad for the Miss Lorain County pageant, held at Lorain County El Rey Grotto park on State Route 568. That park sure hosted a lot of social events and picnics over the years.
Remember the huge sign on the fence facing the highway? It looked like this (below).
I kind of miss seeing that sign when I drive by there. Today the former El Rey Grotto park is home to Vaughn's Auto Repair and 24 Hour Towing.
At the Showboat in Downtown Lorain, famous Mercury recording stars The Crew Cuts were appearing, "direct from Cleveland's Skyway Lounge."
Here they are performing their big hit, "Sh-Boom." I had no idea they were a Canadian group.
According to this Wiki entry, the Crew Cuts' version of Sh-Boom was No. 1 on the Billboard charts for nine weeks during August and September 1954.
On movie screens, there was Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe in River of No Return at the Tivoli. At the Palace was the science fiction thriller Them!
(That's one movie that doesn't interest me; I've have giant ants in my kitchen since the spring, and no amount of spraying or traps seem to deter them. They even shrug off my apparently anemic blows.)
At the air conditioned Dreamland Theatre, MGM's Executive Suite was the main feature.
Of course, it pales in comparison to – what else? – Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall and the rest of the Bowery Boys in Paris Playboys at the Grove.
I was thinking the other day how it might be nice to go to the Ohio State Fair this year. It's been quite a while since I've been to one. Then I discovered that the Fair is already in progress, running from July 24 to August 4th. So the first weekend of it has already come and gone.
I'm still used to the Fair running much later in the summer. I was down at the 1976 Ohio State Fair for the entire run, first as a member of the All-Ohio State Fair Band, and then for a few additional days playing in the All-Ohio State Fair Stage Band. During that whole time I stayed with the other high school musicians in the barracks at the Rhodes Center (originally called the Youth Center).
Being in the All-Ohio State Fair Band was one of the most memorable and enjoyable experiences of my life. (I wrote about it back here and here.) So I'm a little sentimental about the Fair.
Anyway, back in 1961, the headliner at the Ohio State Fair was none other than comedian Cliff Arquette, better known as his alter-ego Charlie Weaver.
In later years, he was one of the stars of the TV game show Hollywood Squares. But in 1961, he was known for his regular appearances on the Tonight Show hosted by Jack Paar.
Also riding high in popularity in 1961 were Hanna-Barbera's cartoon stars Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear, who also appeared at the Ohio State Fair that year. Each was the star of his own TV show at that time. I'm curious as to what kind of show they put on. It was probably something like this appearance in April 1961 in Los Angeles.
(Gee, I would have thought Yogi was taller than Huck. He looks about as big as Boo Boo.)
The article (below) which appeared in the Journal on August 22, 1961, describes the upcoming Ohio State Fair.
What's nice that year is the Journal honored the area high school musicians that were heading down to the Fair for the All-Ohio Boys Band.
As you can see, the Band used to consist of all boys. The first year I applied (1975) was the first year that girls were in the Band – and I didn't make it that year. Thank goodness I did during my last year of eligibility.
As I noted in my two posts about my time as a member of the Band, it was the first time away from home for me and many of the other high school musicians. At first we were all a little homesick. But by the time of our last concert on the lawn of the Rhodes Center, kids were bawling that it was all over.
We'll finish up the week here on the blog back in Lorain County, in the city that I work: Oberlin.
Above is an article about the donation of the former Oberlin Frozen Food Center building at 80 S. Main Street by the Nord family, for use as the Oberlin Community Center. The article ran in the Journal on July 9, 1964.
The building was located immediately south of the Oberlin Post Office. You can see a little bit of it in this vintage postcard.
The building was pretty close to being ready at the time of the article below, which appeared in the Journal on October 14, 1964.
The completed building enjoyed decades of use, housing non-profit agencies until 1996.
Courtesy Oberlin Heritage Center
After the Oberlin Community Center was in a new home, its old building at 80 S. Main Street was demolished in January 1997. Here's the "now" shot showing the property today, which is owned by the Oberlin Heritage Center and is now a green space.
