Hoy-Lo-Mae Shopping Center

Since I grew up on the West side of Lorain, the east side always seemed a little exotic. My family had no reason to go over there (no relatives to visit, no stores that we shopped at), so that part of Lorain was kind of a mystery to me for many years.

Eventually, around high school days, I began to broaden my knowledge of Lorain by doing a lot of bike riding, and that finally took me over to the East side. I remember a buddy needed something from Wheel and Reel Center, so we rode our bikes over there. I was surprised to see that the store was in a little brick shopping strip right in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

And that’s the subject of today’s post: the Hoy-Lo-Mae Shopping Center, which was located on Garfield Boulevard near its intersection with Missouri Avenue. Above is the ad promoting the new shopping center, which appeared in the Lorain Journal back on June 25, 1951.

As you can see, the main focus of the ad is ‘Bill’ Musselman’s Barber Shop. The ad notes, “For convenience, comfort, service and modern design, “Bill” Musselman’s Barber Shop stands second to none. Completely modern in design and appointments, kept immaculately clean at all times, and operated by one of Lorain’s most widely known barbers, the shop is planned to offer every service men want – in the manner they like best.

The ad also provides a roll call of other businesses in the shopping center at that time, including Artistic Beauty Salon, Gilbert’s Delicatessen, Gilbert’s Food Fair, Johnson’s Hardware Co., and O. A. Hafely, Inc. 

Today the shopping center is long gone. Since 2019, the shopping center’s former location has been home to Lorain’s Fire Station 4.

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Be sure to revisit this 2011 blog post, featuring the charming reminisces of well-known local realtor (and all-around nice guy) Bill Latrany, about shopping at Gilbert’s Food Fair with his grandfather.

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I’ve written a few times about O. A. Hafely, who built a lot of homes on Lorain's east side, including one I owned on Nebraska Avenue back in the 1990s. This link tells the story behind the Hoy-Lo-Mae name.

When we lived on Nebraska, we used to get great pizzas from Sorrento’s, which was located in the shopping center on Garfield at that time. It was kind of nice, and old-timey, to be able to walk over there and pick it up.

Hoy-Lo-Mae Allotment – 1941

I lived on the East Side of Lorain for almost ten years during the 1990s.

401 Nebraska Avenue
in the early 1990s

While going through the process of buying the house at 401 Nebraska Avenue,  I remember looking over the paperwork and seeing the words, “Hoy-Lo-Mae” on a layout drawing of the street.

"Gee, our subdivision has a cool Indian name!” I remember thinking. (More on that later in this post.)

Shortly after moving in, I was told by a neighbor that the house was probably built by O. A. Hafely. I later discovered it was.

That’s why the small item below, which appeared in the June 28, 1941 Lorain Journal caught my interest. It reported that a new allotment, to be known as the Hoy-Lo-Mae allotment, was announced by O. A. Hafely, Lorain contractor and real estate dealer.

It describes the allotment as being west of the Euclid allotment, and south of E. Erie Avenue, with 162 sites available for home building. All lots were 50 feet frontage with trees to be planted in front of each.

It also noted that “outlet to E. Erie-av will be thru Euclid-av to the east and Nebraska-av on the west.”

On the same day as the article, this ad (below) appeared in the Journal as well.

Anyway, it turns out that the Hoy-Lo-Mae allotment did not owe its name to an Indian tribe that roamed the East Side of Lorain before the White Man came and cut down all the trees. The explanation for the unique name appeared in the "Log of Lorain" column in that same Lorain Journal on June 28, 1941.

O. A. Hafely Ad – August 23, 1930

Here's an ad for O. A. Hafely Home Building & Financing that ran in the newspaper on August 23, 1930. The ad announces a new office that was opening at 1815 Oberlin Avenue.

I was a little surprised to see this ad, since I mainly associate Hafely built homes on the east side of Lorain. I lived in one myself back in the late 1980s on Nebraska Avenue.

I've blogged about O. A. Hafely before, including posting this 1969 article that included an interview with the man himself.

So is the little building shown in the ad still there on Oberlin Avenue? Sure, it is!

I wonder if the people living in it are aware of its connection with a company that helped transform Lorain?

O. A. Hafely Wrap-up

Here's a few final nuggets to wrap up my brief look at O. A. Hafely, the builder who developed so much of the east side of Lorain.

Remember the story that Hafely told (back here) about he got into trouble with the state building inspector when he added a second story to Ford Thompson's funeral home? Well, here's a 1931 city directory ad for the J. Ford Thompson Funeral Directors, showing the building in question.

When I saw this ad, I thought to myself,"Oh, I know where that is!" And I proceeded to drive over there and discover that the building is long gone. So much for my memory.

The building would have been somewhere between the Lorain National Bank drive-through on 6th Street and the church parking lot just west of it. Oh well.

And speaking of long-gone buildings (well, maybe not that long-gone), the Hafely Building itself at the corner of Garfield and Missouri was lost sometime in the last ten years or so. I seem to recall it was a fire that destroyed much if not all of it. (I knew I should have clipped that article!) Anybody out there remember?

Here's what the site, right next to the railroad tracks, looks like today. It makes a nice parking area for city vehicles and the odd truck.

It's a real shame it was lost. The Hafely Building held a lot of memories for many people. For east-siders, it was a nice little commercial strip in a mostly residential area. For years, it was the home of a beauty salon, a barber shop, an Eagle Super Market, and the one I remember most, Wheel & Reel Center. I remember riding my bike over from the west side in the 1970's to visit this store.

Also, when my wife and I lived on Nebraska Avenue in the 1990's, there was a great pizza shop in the Hafely Building: Sorrento's. The pizza was really good, and I liked the idea of a pizza parlor close enough that I could walk to, even though I don't remember ever doing that. The pizza might get cold!

How O. A. Hafely Helped Build Lorain Part 2

Here is the rest of the article on O.A. Hafely from the Saturday, March 1, 1969 Journal, as written by Staff Writer Bob Cotleur.

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How O.A. Hafely Helped Build Lorain (Part 2)

BY BOB COTLEUR

Staff Writer

GOING STRONG: O. A. Hafely keeps busy today
after a lifetime of helping to build Lorain

O. A. Hafely, the "O" stands for Otis, matched Teddy Roosevelt in other ways. Both were physical culture conscious but Hafely rides an electric exerciser instead of a cavalry horse.

"It goes this way and that," he described with his hands. He wouldn't pose for a picture on it, he said, because it's kept in a bedroom. "My wife and I both use it 'bout every day."

He's talking about the former Josephine Roepka of Alliance. He married her in 1918 and they have three children, Hoyle, 44, now in Albuquerque, Mrs. Lola Buchanan, 42 and Mrs. Twila Whitmore, 32, both of Lorain.

Although he doesn't stand in awe of his wife's golfing, he proudly relates she's a former champion of "the old Lorain Country Club, the one that used to be where the underpass (SR 611 and US 2 [sic]) is today."

Both still play together today, as they did in the days when O. A.'s clubs had wooden shafts "that used to get crooked and you'd have to throw'em out." Now he uses a new set of Haig Ultras and the shafts may rust but they never warp.

Once he shot in the low 80's to low 90's. "Now it keeps me busy just to stay under 100."

Does that mean his wife beat him occasionally?

"Well, I don't let her beat me. But for a woman – she's good."

O. A. complained that his eyes were both bothering him lately, causing a squint unless he wore dark glasses. But he also talked about a Florida trip meant to include plenty of golf.

Hafely had a tough break as a child. His dad died when he was just six months old and he speaks about his step-father in dark undercurrents.

"My step-father used to argue he went to work as a kid and if it was good enough for him, it was good enough for me. Especially me," said the man who knew what it meant to be a step-son. He has four half-brothers and a half-sister, all named Sprague.

Hafely finally won the education he needed by taking drafting and math in night school. To this day, he's proud of his drafting board in a back room at his office on Garfield Blvd. in the Hafely Block.

O. A. built his first home, for himself, in 1919. The following year he began to build more. At one time his Garfield Blvd. offices were large and occupied the entire eastern end of the building.

But he built his last home on G Street in 1959, cancelled his builder's license and semi-retired to the role of realtor and landlord.

Today he has 27 Hafely built homes and the Hafely commercial building which he rents. Many of the homes are right behind his office and if you looked at the layout from a great height, it would appear as a life-size Monopoly set.

Honors came to Hafely. One beautifully inscribed plaque hangs on the wall in his office.

He was named Lorain's first "Realtor of the Year" back in 1957.

Hafely's proud of his life, his membership on the Zoning Board, his still active membership with the Lorain Kiwanis Club, a directorship on the Greater Lorain Chamber of Commerce. He's particularly proud of his current directorship on the board of Lorain National Bank.

He lived his life by his own creed.

"Everything that's worthwhile starts with a plan."

How O. A. Hafely Helped Build Lorain Part 1

If you ever lived on the east side of Lorain in an older home (like me), then there's a good chance that your house was built by O. A. Hafely. My 1940's colonial on Nebraska Avenue was a Hafely-built home, and appropriately enough, Hafely Drive was only a few blocks away.

I found this article on Mr. Hafely on microfilm at the Lorain Public Library. It's from the Saturday, March 1, 1969 Journal. It was written by Staff Writer Bob Cotleur and is a nice history of this unique gentleman. With the kind permission of the Morning Journal, here is the article. (I've broken it in two parts as it is fairly long.)

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How O.A. Hafely Helped Build Lorain
BY BOB COTLEUR
Staff Writer

When O. A. Hafely was born, about the time Teddy Roosevelt was charging up San Juan's Kettle Hill, someone slipped the spirit of the times into his mental makeup.

True enough, Hafely today confines his charges to the pursuit of golf balls. Once, though, the Hafely charge was new house after new house, street after street.

Hafely built more new homes in Lorain than anyone else. Before or since, and he could also say, back in 1940, "there ain't hardly a street in town I didn't build at least one house on."

Latecomers will remember what he did with the Randall, Wallace and Faragher farms on Lorain's east side, starting in 1940.

You can see it there today as the homes from Eastlawn to Cleveland Blvd., from the Euclid allotment to Longfellow Park. One of the streets, fortunately for posterity, is called Hafely Drive.

Hafely's breed of man is a dying breed. The world is poorer for it.

Ask him about his homes and he answers with pride, "never had a lien or a lawsuit and always paid my bills on time."

Not a word about style or architecture.

Even his language is hardy. He talks about the time "Ford Thompson's funeral parlor was blown down by the tornado in '24. We had the new second floor up already when the state (building) inspector came along, said the city had no right to give us a two-story permit and closed (the job) down."

That incident led to Lorain's first local building code, the zoning board, board of appeals and member number 1 – O. A. Hafely himself.

He tells it like this.

"I got up at five in the morning and drove to Columbus in the first closed car I ever owned, Ford Thompson and I, and went right to the state engineers. They didn't want to see me, but I remember that saying about getting your foot in the door. That's what I did.

"I stuck my foot in the door and wouldn't leave.

"We had quite an argument. Argued all afternoon. But we got the funeral parlor OK'd. You see, Ford Thompson was going to live on that second floor and they didn't know that.

"But while I was there one of the engineers said 'if you didn't live in a hick town you wouldn't have the state on your back'.

"Hick town! That got me mad. That was my home town he was talking about. I decided to do something about it."

What he did was work long hours at night and on weekends to get the city a building code and a building inspector. But when he was ready, city council turned it down because they said they the money to pay the inspector's salary.

"So we got the builders together and raised the building permit fees to pay his salary. Council said that was fine and voted it in. But right away we found it wouldn't work unless we had a zoning board."

He went to work on it, formed a board which included himself. The city of Lorain wasn't a "hick town" any longer.

O. A. doesn't remember or can't recall some of the salient features of his building career, such as how many homes he built, but he does remember his zoning board battles.

He fought people who wanted to tack store fronts "from their porch to the sidewalk in front of their homes, just so's they could open a grocery store or somethin'."

His answer was a loud, firm "no".

"I think the zoning board did a lot for the city," he said in what has to be the understatement of the past four decades.

But he wasn't happy about his membership on the Zoning Board of Appeals when he felt the time came for him to resign. The board wanted him to stay and wouldn't hear of a resignation.

"Well, then I told them I wan't going to any more meetings."

They accepted his resignation.

Next: Part Two

1945 O. A. Hafely ad

Okay, enough with the local motels (for a while at least) in this blog... it's time to think about home.

For those of you reading this blog who are from Lorain, there's a good chance that your home might have been built by the gentleman whose name graces the 1945 city directory ad shown above: O. A. Hafely.

And if you've never heard of him, now is a good time to meet him. So please come back here tomorrow for a two-part series: How O. A. Hafely Helped Build Lorain.