Vermilion Landmark on the Move – July 1964

Regular readers of this blog know that houses being jacked up and moved to a new location has been a favorite topic on this blog. 

I've featured many of them over the years. Almost always there's a great photo of the house or building on a truck, slowly lumbering its way through various neighborhoods on the way to its new home. 

Some of these moves include a house moved in July 1953 for the new Turnpike; a house in Elyria in 1956; a house in Amherst in 1960; the moving of the Monroe House in Oberlin in 1960; a house in Lorain in June 1960; a house in Lorain in Feb. 1964; a house in Avon in 1964; and an Avon Lake house in 1971.

The icing on the cake is seeing the house-on-the-move in its new location. Decades later, you wonder: are the current occupants or next-door neighbors even aware that the house had gone for a ride?

While all of these past blog posts involved houses, I've had one in my files for years involving a landmark store in Vermilion that was moved with the intention of converting it to apartments. 

Below is the story, which appeared in the Journal on July 9, 1964.

As the article notes, "When a landmark has to be moved, Jim Parsons is the man to do it.

"In less than two hours yesterday afternoon, Parsons and his able crew moved the Zelinski store building from its site at E. Liberty, and the Highbridge Rd., to Howard Dr., off the E. River Rd.

"Although the two points are less than a mile apart, the 30-ton structure, measuring 25 by 60 feet, was hauled some seven miles by a circuitous route, east on E. Liberty, south on Sunnyside Rd., then west on the Brownhelm Station Rd., then north on the E. River Rd.

"Obstructions such as tree limbs and roadside signs at turns had to be removed, telephone and electric lines lifted by Frank Knott, Wakeman, who rode the top of the moving structure. The trip was accomplished without a serious hitch.

"The building, slated to be converted into apartment dwellings, was erected in 1924 by the late Otto M. Zelinski, father of August, who still resides on Highbridge Rd.

"It was operated as a grocery and meat market by Mr. Zelinksi for 30 years and then sold to the late Walter Yantz, who operated it for several years and then sold the business to the Yarman brothers. The building has been idle for the past several years."

Here's the route that the movers had to take, starting on Route 6 and heading east to Sunnyside, where they turned south.

So why did I delay this story for so long? I just couldn't figure out where the building was on Howard Drive! I had 'driven' up and down the street via Google Maps several times and just couldn't recognize the house – so I abandoned the idea of doing a post on it.

But a blog is a hungry beast that demands to be fed. 

So several years after originally trying to use the article as a blog post, I decided to use it anyway – hoping that someone in the know could tell me if the building had ever become apartments as planned.

However, I decided to take one last look at the homes on Howard Drive. After all, the former store was pretty long, and unique. Surely I could pick it out.

As it turns out, there are a lot of somewhat unusual homes on Howard Drive. But I had a hunch it was this one, with all those windows.

I also had a hunch that well-known local historian Rich Tarrant might have covered this story on his "Vermilion Views" website. Sure enough he did, and I was able to confirm that indeed the house was the former Zelinski store. Rich even had some photos of the former store while it was being renovated. As you can see, a second floor was added.

Photo courtesy of Rich Tarrant

You can read the whole story here after you scroll down a bit. As Rich notes, the owners of the house were so pleased with the transformation that they decided to live there themselves and scrap the apartment plan.

Rich also points out that the reason that the movers had to take the former store on a seven mile road trip is because the wooden bridge on Highbridge Road couldn't withstand the weight or size of the load.

Special thanks to Rich Tarrant for his assistance on this topic.