Monday, May 19, 2025

Baumhart Dairy Farm

As a follow-up to Friday's post...

Having only lived in Vermilion since 2018, I'm still learning about the history of the city. I've written a few posts (mainly about Colonel Henry Brown) that included some history about the Baumhart family that had a farm where the Ford Motor Company plant was built in the late 1950s.

But I had no idea that there was a Baumhart farm, specifically a dairy farm, that was located west of Vermilion.

Rich Tarrant's great Vermilion Views website has some mentions of the "very productive dairy farm on the west side of the village" and the Baumhart family members connected with it. But I still wasn't sure where it was located.

Fortunately, I was able to located the Baumhart name on a few vintage township maps. Here's a portion of the 1974 map. The Baumhart name is listed under the (29).

And here's the same area, circa 1896.

And here's the same area today, courtesy of Google Maps.
When I overlay the last two maps, it looks like the Baumhart dairy farm property was located roughly where you see a rail line splitting off from the more northerly line, connecting it to the other rail line. 
This is approximately near Dayton Court (by the Wayside Inn), east of Coen Road. This is all a rough guess on my part.
Anyway, the only mention of the Baumhart Dairy Farm that I could locate in the Lorain Journal online archives was a small article saying that it had been sold. Here's the blurb that ran in the paper on March 7, 1927.
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 19, 2025 at 8:42 AM

    That little news blip of the farm being sold is a sad reminder that progress doesn't stop for anything. A once prominent and surely very important dairy farm reduced to a 20 word news article never to be heard of again. That is, until Dan dug it up 100 years later and educated us. Now, when someone mentions the Baumhart farm, you can say which one?

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  2. Don HiltonMay 19, 2025 at 10:45 AM

    And... We're all a little smarter, thanks to Dan!

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  3. AnonymousMay 19, 2025 at 11:44 AM

    And now that Ford is gone from Lorain was it worth it for the Baumharts to have even sold out to them on the eastern part of town?As both the western and eastern Baumhart spots (Ford Motor included) are completely erased from history.

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  4. Col. Matt NahornMay 21, 2025 at 1:25 PM

    Very interesting - thanks for this post and your research on this topic. I was looking at the Erie County Auditor’s map, and it looks like you found the correct location. I’m trying to use the permanent parcel number (looks like it was in the eastern part of Original Lot 29). I’m not sure how to find that on the Erie County Auditor website, as I’m not as familiar with it as I am Lorain County’s. This might be something good to check though - the Permanent Parcel number today should have “29” somewhere in it, which would help to confirm your research.

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