More Vermilion Postcards

I really like living in Vermilion. It's been my home since 2018 and I've grown quite fond of the place. As I've told my friends, living in a Lake Erie tourist town is like being on vacation all year 'round. (That is, except during the winter when they roll up the sidewalks and everything seems to be closed, tightly shuttered against the brutal winter gusts coming off the lake.)

Anyway, I'm still in a real summertime mood, so here are some vintage summer postcards of my Vacationland haven. I've done this before with a four-part series back in 2019. But this is a new collection, freshly poached (hmmm, why am I suddenly hungry?) from eBay.

Postcards of Lakeland Lodges usually seem to date from the 1950s and 60s. Here's one from a slightly earlier era, reminding us that it's been there a long time. 

Linwood Beach is still very popular. There are many vintage postcards of the quaint vacation community, but here a few that I hadn't seen. The beach postcard has a postmark of 1964.

For you boaters out there, here are two views of the mouth of the Vermilion River with very similar composition. The top postcard is postmarked 1956.

Here's another river view.

And here's a sailboat coming into the harbor on a postcard that was cancelled (referring to the original meaning of the word) in 1959.

Snider's Shore Acres was a little west of Vermilion. I featured it on its own post back here. But here are a few new views. The back of the color postcard reads, "SNIDER'S SHORE ACRES - Mel and Elvera Paul (Owner-Manager). Modern 15 Unit Motel located on U. S. 6, one mile West of Vermilion, Ohio. 700 feet private sandy beach. Complete facilities for family vacation." The black and white postcard of the cottages is postmarked 1954.

And here's something I didn't have when I did my comprehensive two-part series (here's Part 1 and Part 2) on Cask Villa: a color postcard of the place. It's from 1936.

It had a beach too, of course.

Miniature Golf Makes Local Comeback – July 1935

Summer's going by quickly, so be sure to make time for all those warm weather fun activities that you waited all winter for.

One of them might be miniature golf, which each successive generation continues to embrace as a pastime. In Vermilion, Romp's Putter Port Mini Golf seems to be busy every time I pass it on a sunny day. 

But there was a time when the popularity of miniature golf really did seem to have faded for good – before making a local comeback. And that's the subject of today's post. 

Above is the front page of the July 10, 1935 Lorain Journal with the story. 

The Depression was in full swing and the miniature golf craze that had started in the 1920s (with courses popping up everywhere) was over, possibly a victim of the bad economic times. But yet the unique sport of sorts was making a comeback in two of the Vacationland resorts. 

Here's the story (below), transcribed for your reading enjoyment. Unfortunately, some parts of the story are illegible ; however, I was able to identify and fix some typographical errors, where lines of type were mixed up. You can tell by the tone of the story that the writer had a pretty low regard for the subject of his article!

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Ghost of Past Returns to Life at Beach Spots
Tiny Golf; Once Dead as Dodo Bird, Craze Finds New Vogue at Shore Resorts

A ghost of the past has come to life at two lake shore beach resorts west of Lorain.

It dates back to the heavy antiquity of at least three years ago. Its heyday is within the memory of almost the youngest resident, yet it was considered almost as extinct as the well-known dodo bird.

The “ghost” is a place where normally sane people, holding sticks, trail an infinitesimal pellet around idiotic little lanes and then do some arithmetic on a piece of cardboard which is supplied for that purpose.

There are little hills and valleys and rocks and wooden barriers and three to five-inch holes at the end of each lane.

Signs at the end of each lane bear the inscription, “Par 3,” “Par 4,” “Par3.”

Relics of Forgotten ‘Age’
Three years ago there were thousands of these places scattered all over the country. Some of them were tremendous elaborate affairs, costing small fortunes.

Far, far into the night people [illegible] and [illegible] poked over the little pellets and lanes. It was one of the greatest crazes in American history.

But that, Egbert, was three years ago. They dropped right out of sight. The grass grew up around once well-kept barriers and rapidly grew up into tall weeds.

The dodo bird stage had arrived.

So far as is known the two little places along the lake shore at Crystal Beach and Ruggles Beach are the last surviving relics of the age of miniature golf in northern Ohio.

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As usual, there are plenty of other items of interest on the front page, including: bad flooding in New York and Pennsylvania; President Roosevelt trying to push his New Deal programs through Congress; a "Ship-To-Shore" broadcast highlighting a Lorain exposition; the desire of the Lorain County Humane Officer to electrocute dogs in the pound rather than shoot them; and a 'trained' bear rushing a group of children in Perryville, Arkansas.

Joe Ule's Windmill – July 1955

 

November 2023 view courtesy of Lorain County Auditor website

A recent view

Another local landmark that was highlighted in the Lorain Journal back in July 1953 was Joe Ule's windmill on Kolbe Road. It was featured in an interesting article written by James Howard that ran in the newspaper on July 20th. At that point, the windmill was still under construction.

The article is a great profile of Joe Ule and reveals his philosophy of being self-sufficient through organic farming. As for his windmill, the article notes, "When the windmill is completed, an electric generator will be activated by the wind power and will in turn operate a giant mill for grinding the specially grown grains. Another unusual feature will be a small sawmill also to be powered by the windmill."

The Journal checked in with Ule two years later, as reported in this article that ran in the December 26, 1957 edition.

At that time, Ule was working on a 50-foot log to serve as the main shaft of the windmill. The article notes that Ule "has been working on the windmill for the past seven years. He estimated that the sweep will be put in operation in about three to four years. And the entire windfall mechanism should be finished in eight to nine years, he added."

A day later, the Journal ran the photo below showing Ule and helper Joseph Rodriguez using his giant lathe to work on the 50-foot log.

It appears that Ule was considering the development of some sort of park on his property involving the windmill. A short article in the March 31, 1961 Journal noted that Black River Township trustees weren't exactly sure what sort of zoning was needed for what was referred to by the City Building Inspector as a "Disneyland type development."

But it was not to be. Ule and his family moved to Florida about two years later, and he passed away there in 1969.

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Joe Ule and his windmill, as well as his "storybook house," have been the subject of several blog posts.

Amherst's Old Spring in the News – July 20, 1955

For the second time this week, Amherst is in the spotlight on this blog – how about that?

This time, the focus is on the beloved Amherst landmark: Ye Old Spring. Seventy years ago this week, the  big news was that the public drinking fountain was closed after bacteria was discovered in the water. Above is the article that appeared in the Lorain Journal on July 20, 1955.

It was determined that the cause of the contamination was a broken tile, which caused surface water to seep in. The village council voted immediately to take action to rectify the problem.

Was the problem fixed?

Although I was unable to locate a follow-up report in the subsequent weeks, the issue apparently was resolved. That is, until a little more than a year later, when this article appeared in the Lorain Journal on October 10, 1956.

This article provides a nice little history of the spring and its role in Amherst's history, as well as summarizing the steps that the village had taken up to that point to try and make the spring water safe.

Nevertheless, as the article points out, "Some of the residents insisted they were still drinking it and were experiencing no ill effects. Others went to the trouble of boiling the water because they would not drink "city water."

A brief mention of the spring appeared in the December 19, 1956 edition of the paper, noting that the village council "ordered a sign painted on the rocks of the Old Spring saying,"Drink at Your Own Risk." The water has periodically been found to be impure by the county health department but residents are still using it."

Despite the warnings, Amherst residents are apparently a loyal lot, judging by the two photos below.

June 15, 1964

May 20, 1970

Early 1960s Lorain County Property Tax Bills

Well, Lorain County property taxes for the second half were due a few days ago. (I hope nobody forgot to pay theirs!) 

Although I'm glad I don't have a mortgage to worry about any more, I miss the days where my property taxes (and insurance, for that matter) were part of that monthly payment – instead of coming in the mail as an unwelcome surprise twice a year.

Above you see two of my parents' Lorain County property tax bills – for the first halves of 1960 and 1961 – for the house they built at 1604 W. 30th Street in Lorain. The bills were part of a large box of old documents that I was recently taking to the Lorain County Collection Center on Abbe Rd. in Elyria to be shredded. I salvaged the two documents to examine them more closely.

What was interesting to me was seeing "W. J. Neuman Sub 2" on the bill, identifying where the property was located. W. J. Neuman (the subject of several of my blog posts) of course was the well-known dairy farmer whose acreage bordering Oberlin Avenue and Meister Road became a large westside housing subdivision that included the house my parents built. 

I noticed that the tax bills allow you to send a self-addressed stamped envelope so that you could receive a receipt. Mom did exactly that, obviously. A quick review of my current bill revealed that you can still do that in 2025 if you wish.

It's also neat seeing the old school technology used to generate the bills.

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The names of subdivisions are always interesting. I remember the first house I bought as an adult was on Lorain's east side on Nebraska Avenue, part of the Hoy Lo Mae allotment. At first I thought it was some kind of Indian name; later I found out that "Hoy Lo Mae" was derived from the first names of the developer's children.

Northview Allotment Open House Ad – July 15, 1955

Amherst doesn't get represented on this blog very often, although it purports to be about Lorain County. So it's always nice to post something about Lorain's New England-like neighbor to the south.

When I think of Amherst, I tend to think of it only in terms of its historic downtown area, forgetting that – like every other city in the area – it has modern subdivisions and various housing developments that sprouted during the past decades.

And below is a full-page Open House advertisement for a model home in the Northview Allotment, located on the corner of Sipple Avenue and North Main St. It appeared in the Lorain Journal back on July 15, 1955 – seventy years ago today.

It's interesting what an important role newspapers played back then in promoting a new housing development, with ads like this listing the various amenities. While today we can take an online tour of a house before we even go to see it, back then the homebuyer had to be enticed with all the features listed as bullets (or in this case, stars).

The model home in the ad still looks great, even stately, with it shade tree. Main Street is a pretty busy street, and I had to drive by it a few times to get my 'now' shot.

The view on Monday night

Many of the homes on Sipple Ave. follow the basic template of the model home, with just enough variations to keep the overall look of the area interesting. Like many other neighborhoods in the past few years, home values have exploded, with the few homes that I reviewed on the Auditor website increasing in value more than a hundred and fifty percent in the past few years.

Hole-in-the-Wall in the News 1932 –1987

The "No Parking" sign near the traditional "entrance"
to Hole-in-the-Wall beach

Hole-in-the-Wall.

For many of us that grew up in Lorain in the 60s and 70s, those words meant a secluded beach on private property just a little west of Oak Point Road. To get there, you had to pull your car off West Erie Ave. (US 6) and park in the grass, and climb up over the railroad tracks. We had no idea how the beach got its name, or that originally there had been another 'hole in the wall' nearby on the Claus farm. (I wrote about the history of the two hole-on-the-walls  here and here in a 2-part series). 

All we knew was that going to hole-in-the-wall beach at night was a forbidden thrill, with a very real element of danger, since it was a haven for all sorts of crime. I was only there with my high school buddies once or twice, and was nervous the whole time, either that I would get beat up, or that my car might be gone when it was time to go home.

But it wasn't always that way.

The beach started out as part of a respectable resort complex, and thus was the setting for many social events. The Lorain Journal printed small mentions of many of these outings over the years and it paints a fascinating picture of a quaint time. 

Here's an ample sample of these articles, including the very first mention that I could find in the Journal – in 1932.

Sept. 1, 1932

Aug. 24, 1936

July 19, 1938

July 1, 1940

Aug. 2, 1940

July 1, 1943

Aug. 11, 1950

July 22, 1951

Beginning in the early 1950s, mentions of the Hole-on-the-Beach in the Journal took a tragic turn. Stories of drownings, capsized boats, accidents and various crimes replaced the articles about church outings and social gatherings. (I've excluded those articles involving loss of life in this collection.)

Sept. 2, 1953

July 23, 1954

July 6, 1959

July 13, 1959

July 18, 1960

June 11, 1963

For a while in the 1960s, serious consideration was given to the possibility of acquiring Hole-in-the-Wall and making it a city beach.

July 2, 1963

Feb. 5, 1965

Sept. 15, 1969

July 3, 1970

Aug. 5, 1970

This account (below) of a West Erie Ave. police chase that started by the hole-in-the-wall is interesting, because of the mention of the Lorain Police Department's antique wooden camera used to take booking photos. 

Nov. 8, 1971

Aug. 14, 1972

Sept. 19, 1977

July 17, 1979

July 26, 1987