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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.
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| Sept. 1, 1932 |
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| Aug. 24, 1936 |
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| July 19, 1938 |
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| July 1, 1940 |
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| Aug. 2, 1940 |
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| July 1, 1943 |
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| Aug. 11, 1950 |
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| 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.)
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