Lorain Journal Front Page – March 11, 1925

 

One hundred years ago today, this was the front page of the Lorain Journal on March 11, 1925. 

There was a lot of news crammed onto that page – much of it bad, or downright nightmarish. But before I get to the most upsetting stuff, I'll start with the big news that a terrific gale had hit the city and done a lot of damage.

"Howling in from the northwest after a few warning roars of thunder and flashes of lightning, a 60-mile gale accompanied by an early spring thunderstorm, hit the city last night, threw Lorainites into a panic and caused thousands of dollars worth of damage," noted the report.

"The wind, driving solid sheets of rain before it and stinging faces of unprepared pedestrians and autoists, bowled over trees, blew in windows in downtown stores and in residences in the outlying districts and drove frightened people into the streets to escape, they believed, another tornado."

Remember, it was only a year earlier that the infamous Lorain Tornado of 1924 had devastated the city – so it's not surprising that the residents were on edge. Speaking of the tornado, a relief bill for Lorain was still working its way through the State House in Columbus, as reported by William E. Ashbolt.  

Elsewhere on the front page are some pretty disturbing articles.  A two car accident at the intersection of Globe Ave. and 30th Street left one man dead (with his head crushed) as well as three others injured. I guess it was common back then to present the news in the most gruesome way possible.

Two other small items were a parent's worst nightmare: a baby girl in Columbus dying by falling on scissors, and a Cleveland baby suffocating while sleeping between her parents.

But there was an uplifting article. Frederick Atwood, supreme prelate of the Lodge of Knights of Pythias, addressed a crowd at Lorain High School with a speech about ways to attain happiness. Atwood apparently accomplished that feat despite being blind.

And oddly enough, right in the middle of a page filled with tragedy and unhappiness, is a funny cartoon. It shows two citizens, flattened by a steam roller labeled '1925 Income Tax Payment,' but smiling because they felt that the income tax was lighter this year.

Kelly's Hamburgers Becomes Casey's – March 1965

Casey's Drive-in, the defunct Northeast Ohio hamburger chain that had restaurants in Lorain, Vermilion, Elyria, Rocky River and North Royalton has been a favorite topic on this blog. As I've noted before, there's not much on the internet about this chain that had hoped to mimic McDonald's success. 

There's not much about the short-lived chain that preceded Casey's – namely, the Dania, Florida-based Kelly's Hamburgers – either. I did a post about the 1962 Grand Opening of the Kelly's restaurant on North Ridge Road across from the O'Neil - Sheffield Center back here.

Is that a McD-like arch as part of the sign?

Well, here’s another piece of the puzzle. The defunct-brands.fandom.com website notes, “Kelly's Hamburgers (going under the corporate name of Kelly's Jet System) was established in 1958 with the opening of a restaurant location in Hallandale Beach, Florida. It was a division of Continental Franchises, Inc., a company which (as the name suggests) specializes in franchises and leasing. Said company planned to open around 50 restaurants under the Kelly's name throughout the United States.

"By the early 1960's, Kelly's operated several hamburger stands throughout the states of Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Wisconsin. 

"In 1964, Kelly's merged with competitor chain Mr. Moe Drive In. This caused a small number of Kelly's locations to close and re-open as Mr. Moe a year later. Despite this however, Kelly's continued to operate under their own name throughout the following years.

"Not much is known about the Kelly's chain, with it being assumed that most of the chain disappeared in 1974, with the chain’s final locations closing sometime in 1976." 

Apparently, the merger with Mr. Moe must have muddied the waters for the sole Kelly's restaurant in Lorain County, and the owners decided to switch their affiliation to a brand new chain: Casey's Drive-in. This article from the March 6, 1965 Lorain Journal tells the story.

In that same edition of the Journal, an ad on the restaurant page sought to reassure existing customers that only the name was being changed – not the staff, food or service.

It's interesting that the mustachioed Casey baseball mascot hadn't been created yet by the ad agency, or it wasn't provided to the Journal for use in the ad.

The people behind Casey's wasted no time expanding. Within a few months, construction began on the Vermilion restaurant, as noted in this Journal article from the May 12, 1965 outlet.

For a while there were only three restaurants: the one on North Ridge, the one in Vermilion, and one on Center Ridge in Rocky River.

Oct. 28, 1966 Journal ad

The restaurant on W. 21st Street in Lorain held its Grand Opening on December 14, 1968.

Unfortunately, the Casey's Drive-ins in Lorain and Elyria seemed to be a favorite for stickup artists. Here's a news item about the restaurant on North Ridge Road being robbed, from the May 14, 1970 Journal.

The Casey's restaurant on North Ridge was vacant by the time of the 1970 city directories, but the one in Lorain stepped up to the plate to keep the chain alive during that decade. In time, the mascot was dropped, in favor of making room in the ads for more food specials and promotions.

Sept. 24, 1970

Aug. 28, 1975

The Casey's restaurant on W. 21st Street remained open up until the latter half of the 1980s, when Pine Garden Restaurant replaced it at that location.

March 17, 1988

Pine Garden was a hit with the Journal, who gave it a hearty thumbs up in its restaurant review columns.

Pine Garden is still in business at the W. 21st Street location. Sadly, the former Kelly's/Casey's North Ridge Road location remains boarded up after a series of subsequent eateries tried to make a go of it there.

The view from yesterday

The days of the small, regional burger chains designed to challenge the big boys (both literally and figuratively) are apparently over. Nevertheless, the 1960s remain a fascinating time for fast food, during which many of the now-biggest names experienced massive growth, and the little ones like Kelly's and Casey's struck out.

Smith & Gerhart Ad – March 3, 1955

Seventy years ago, the well-remembered Smith & Gerhart department store in Lorain was offering this handsome 16-piece dinner set for merely $2.98 (about $35 bucks in today's inflated greenbacks, according to one of those online inflation calculators).

The "Wayne County" name of the attractive dinner set caught my eye. There's a set of dishes on eBay right now.

What company produced this uniquely Ohio pattern?

It turns out it was the Royal China Company, headquartered right in Sebring, Ohio.

According to the Sebring Ohio Historical Society website, "The Royal China Company was formerly The Oliver China Company, then the E. H. Sebring China Company. It was located on South 15th Street in Sebring, Ohio. The original founders were Beatrice L. Miller, William H. Habenstreit and John Bert Briggs. 

"Miss Miller and Mr. Habenstreit had been employed at National Publicity Bureau as 'middlemen' buying dinnerware from the potteries for resale as advertising premiums for Quaker Oats and Proctor and Gamble in Omaha, Nebraska. The three began the company with $500, six months free rent and employees working without pay.  Miss Miller went to the bank with the proposal to purchase the building, but was turned away, as a woman in manufacturing was practically unheard of at that time.  Mr. Habenstreit went to the same bank with the same proposal and had a warm reception.  They hired John 'Bert' Briggs who had a knowledge of pottery manufacture and lived in Sebring where he worked as a potter.  

"They offered employment to anyone who was willing to work without pay until their pottery got on its feet.  As most of the potters in Sebring were out of work anyway, they had nothing to lose. Six months later, they had 125 people on their payroll.  During the first year of operation, Royal China produced 7,800,000 pieces of pottery. 

"In 1948, Kennith Doyle, a former printer, invented an under glaze stamping machine that revolutionized the pottery industry. They were, after many years of research, able to apply under-glaze colors in intricate decorations, automatically and directly onto the unglazed ware rather than on paper transfers.  It was put to use in 1948 on the centuries old Blue Willow Pattern. Royal China became the world's largest manufacturer in Willow Ware. 

 

"By 1965, Royal was the largest in the U.S., among union plants, and had $6,000,000 in sales.  

"On February 15, 1970, a fire completely destroyed the buildings. Rebuilt, and at its peak in the 1970's, it employed over 700 people, with the most modern equipment and buildings available. They had sales of around $16 million and had two different lines with a total of 81 semi-vitreous dinnerware patterns. They were able to produce 30,000,000 pieces, making it the largest dinnerware plant in Sebring, as well as the third largest in the United States.  

"Operations ceased in 1986.

 

"In 2010, the remaining structure burned, and the buildings were demolished."

Here's the link to the Royal China Company page on the Sebring Ohio Historical Society's website.

 
 

Home Dairy Lenten Ad – March 1955

Home Dairy in Lorain has been a favorite topic on this blog. The owner of the dairy was a good friend of my father, and in fact was his best man at my parent's wedding. So we had Home Dairy milk delivered to our house for years, right into the 1970s. Our house on W. 30th Street even had the little milk box in the garage wall.

Here's my older brother Ken at the table, circa January 1960, with a bottle of Home Dairy milk in the foreground.

Note it has the "Morning - Noon - Night" graphic on it, as shown in the illustration at the top of this post.

Seventy years ago this month, Home Dairy ran the ad below in the Lorain Journal on March 15, 1955. It has a Lenten theme, suggesting to those who might be on a restricted diet due to their religion to eat more dairy products.

March 15, 1955

Home Dairy ran a lot of ads in the Journal in the early 1960s with great illustrations, encouraging people to drink more milk. Maybe it was because the west side of Lorain was exploding with new homes and new kids (future Baby Boomers). Here's an ample sample.

Sept. 20, 1960

October 18, 1960

Feb. 20, 1962

Aug. 7, 1962

Sept. 25, 1962

July 21, 1964

Aug. 11, 1964

The Home Dairy ads must have worked, since my siblings and I drank milk at breakfast and lunch, as well as a glass before bedtime with our snack.

I haven't been over to the former Home Dairy building to see if it is still there, but here's a view from 2019.

New Harry Christiansen LSE Book – March 1965

As I've noted before, I don't write too much on this blog about the Lake Shore Electric (LSE), the interurban system that ran between Cleveland, Toledo and Detroit. It's a specialized area of interest that I leave to the experts: Drew Penfield and his Lake Shore Rail Maps website, and archivist and historian Dennis Lamont. If it wasn't for their hard work documenting the history of the LSE on Drew's website, much of its story would be lost to time. Sadly, there just aren't a lot of people these days who remember the LSE from utilizing it to travel.

But that wasn't the case in 1965. The LSE system had only ceased operations in 1938, so it was less than thirty years earlier. Memories were still fresh, and there was enough interest in the LSE and interurbans that Cleveland transit expert Harry Christiansen wrote several books about it.

Back on this post, I wrote about the release of his first book, The Lake Shore Electric, which came out in the spring of 1964. Well, in March 1965, Mr. Christiansen issued his second book, with the rather cumbersome name Northern Ohio's Interurbans and Rapid Transit Railways – Trolley Trains Too!! (That's the cover at the top of this blog post.)

The Lorain Journal featured a nice article about the book by Ralph Neumeyer, which was published in the paper on March 4, 1965.

The photo in the Journal article is of the Beach Park pavilion, located where Avon Lake's now demolished power plant was formerly situated.

Since the Journal photo of the pavilion is a little dark, here's a better photo of it from Drew's Lake Shore Rail Maps website. 

It's exciting to contemplate how the site will revert back to its pre-power plant days. The first step was the demolition, which took place back on December 19, 2024.

Here's a series of screen grabs of the demo. If I was still living in Sheffield Lake, I would have wandered over there to see it in person.

By the way, the Harry Christiansen book is on eBay right now (several copies in fact) and is pretty cheap.

Old Dutch Bock Beer Ad – March 4, 1965

Sixty years ago today, Old Dutch Beer fans in Lorain were celebrating the announcement that Old Dutch draft bock beer was now available in bottles. As the ad above from the March 4, 1965 Journal noted, "Now you can get that glorious dark brown brew in all its hearty flavor – draft beer all the way – either in bottles, or on tap in your favorite tavern."

Speaking of taverns, Old Dutch Tavern, 2219 E. Perkins out in Perkins Township near Sandusky reopened in early January with new owners. The tavern, which originally opened in 1956, had been shuttered and for sale for some time according to a story in the Sandusky Register. Extensive renovations and improvements were completed, but the original comfortable atmosphere has been preserved. Longtime regulars are ecstatic that their hometown bar is back, and especially pleased that the Thursday burger night special has been revived.

Strangely enough, the story makes no reference to Old Dutch Beer, the likely source of the tavern's name. I guess the beer really is fading in the public consciousness, despite my never-ending blog posts about it.

But getting back to Old Dutch Bock Beer.

Here's a look at the label on the bottle in the 1965 ad. 

It's not that different than the regular Old Dutch Beer label at that time. 

I kind of like this earlier version of the Bock Beer label (below) better – with a photo-bombing billy goat. (The word "bock" means "goat" in German.) I like the way the couple spread out to make room for billy at the table. What, no Old Dutch Beer can for him to munch on?

I've never been much of a bock beer fan myself. I'll just keep enjoying my Hamm's from the Vermilion Farm Market, and the annual Guinness on St. Patrick's Day – which is coming up fast.

Meet Erica Melchior and Her Marionettes

Professional entertainers are a rare breed, earning a living while doing something they love – all while bringing pleasure to others through their talents.

Many people start out with that goal in mind, only to find that it is a difficult path to success, fraught with obstacles. Others achieve the goal, even if that really wasn't what they set out to do.

Erica Melchior of Lorain seems to have been one of the latter. What started out as a hobby – performing a marionette show to entertain her daughter – blossomed into a career that took her all over the world with the Melchior Marionettes.

And it all started on Lorain's east side at her home on Hafely Drive. 

This article below from the May 11, 1953 Lorain Journal by Mary Lee Tucker covers one of Erica's first major gigs: bringing joy to the children of Gates Crippled Children Hospital in Elyria. Marionette characters included a witch on a broomstick, a frog prince and an octopus, Jojo the monkey and Happy the Clown.

The Lorain Journal seemed to be filled with small blurbs about each local performance, such as one for the Lorain Camera Club. The article appeared on June 10, 1953.

Halle's auditorium in Cleveland was the next stop, as noted in this item from the August 18, 1953 edition.

This article below, from the October 29, 1953 Lorain Journal, provides a nice detailed background of how Erica got started, as a hobby to entertain her four-year-old daughter Peggy. The article notes that originally the marionette troupe included Mrs. Robert L. Johnson and Mrs. Robert Hibbard. The performance at Gates Crippled Children Hospital was actually a test to see how the act would play in front of a live audience. The positive reception spurred Erica on to even greater creative heights.

At Christmas time 1953, the Melchior Marionettes put on a special performance at Lorain Surplus Center.

The year 1954 was a busy year, including performances locally at the County Workshop Theater, the Wellington Fun Festival, and the Mary Lee Tucker Christmas Benefit Show.

March 30, 1954

October 6, 1954

Dec. 4, 1954

Television finally beckoned in 1955, with a live performance on the Alice Weston Cooking Show on Channel 8.

The 1950s newspapers were filled with publicity for the Melchior Marionettes performances. Here's an article from December 19, 1956 reporting on a show for  a Christmas party sponsored by the Lorain Kiwanis Club.

Even though the Melchior Marionettes were often on the road, they were still bringing joy to local audiences. Here's a blurb about an appearance at a PTA meeting that ran in the Journal on April 18, 1958.

This photo from the May 22, 1958 Journal includes Seedy-Beady, the "pop-eyed" rabbit.

And this article from May 23, 1958 notes that Erica now had approximately 100 puppets and marionettes. "She performs with them in schools, night clubs and on TV," it notes.

This account from April 30, 1960 reveals that Erica "has entertained throughout the midwestern United States and has played many night spots in Europe." Pretty impressive for someone who originally just wanted to entertain her daughter!

Erica and Seedy-Beady are shown in ths photo from July 10, 1962. They were performing during the second day of Frontier Week in Amherst.

A performance at the Lorain County Fair was a highlight in 1964.

This 1960s photo (courtesy of Steven Hart) shows Erica and daughter Peggy backstage at a performance.

And by 1969, the torch was being passed to a new generation. Erica's daughter Peggy was now assisting, as noted in this article from Feb. 17, 1969.

Erica passed away in 1977, but her marionettes live on. Today, Peggy, Peggy's daughter Heidi, and Heidi's daughter Nevi continue to please audiences with the Melchior Marionette Theatre in Indiana. Here is the link to its website and Facebook page.