Since this blog began back in 2009, there’s been more than 2,800 individual posts. But only one of those posts has more than forty comments left by readers.
Can you guess which post continues to attract readers more than nine years after it first appeared?
No, it’s not one featuring Reddy Kilowatt or Old Dutch Beer; it’s a post I did back in February 2011 entitled, “Remember Ontario Dept. Store?”
Apparently a lot of people still do, because the comments section for that post has become an online gathering place for former managers and employees of Ontario stores in other cities to correspond and reminisce. Their family members comment as well, and there’s even one from one of the founder’s children.
All of them have pleasant memories of a company that more than one of them believe could have given Walmart a run for its money.
So to keep the party going, here’s an Ontario ad with a ‘Fishing Headquarters” theme that ran in the Lorain Journal fifty years ago this month on March 26, 1970.
It’s fun examining the ad and checking out the various lures and other products, as well as the brand names such as Heddon®. And I like the ‘Huck Finn’ cartoon kid with his homemade fishing pole, and the cat waiting patiently for his share of the catch.
As I mentioned back on this post, my father enjoyed fishing. Unfortunately, he failed to lure my brothers and me to the hobby.
Maybe in retirement I’ll get myself a new Zebco and a loaf of Wonder Bread (for dough balls) and see if I can relive those Saturday afternoons in the 1960s.
Ontario Store remains one of the all-time most popular topics on this blog, with many comments left on one 2011 post by former employees, as well as shoppers who remember it with nostalgia. I also wrote about the store’s 1954 merger with Cook United here.
Well, here’s an article about how the popular store had already had to expand to meet demand in its early days at its location between Lorain and Elyria. The article ran in the Journal on April 15, 1967.
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Ontario Store Expansion Completed
The Ontario Store, well-known Greater Lorain-Elyria shopping complex, has made more changes inside than meets the eye.
A recently completed $100,000 expansion project at Rt. 254 and Elyria Avenue completed the theme of a long common front with Pick ’n Pay Supermarket. Both firms are owned by the Cook Coffee Company, headed by the late Max Friedman.
ACCORDING to Manager John Dimacchia, an eight-year veteran of the Ontario firm, “We originally offered price-competitive products only. We have now elevated quality to give our customers a wider range and price selection of the same items.”
He said although no new departments were added, “every department got a boost in individual items.”
One of the nicest things you’ll like about The Ontario Store is that you can tell clerks, cashiers and service personnel from a distance. Each wears a distinctive blue smock.
THE ONCE small parking lot has been expanded to where 350 cars now have parking spaces. Twelve checkout counters are operating on the SR 254 side and two on the Elyria Avenue entrance-exit.
The older original store has been completely remodeled.
Dimacchia said adding another 10,000 square feet “now brings the total shopping area to more than 50,000 square feet – chock-full of items high on customer priority lists.”
One example (and you’re probably too late) was brand-name golf balls at three for 88 cents.
“They’re going like hotcakes,” said the clerk as she stacked the last of them. “My goodness."
One of the neat things about doing this blog is the opportunity to examine the various statistics that are generated and made available to me through blogger.com. I can tell where my blog traffic comes from (mainly Google and Facebook); the countries my audience lives in (the United States, followed by Russia, then Germany, the Ukraine, etc.); and most importantly, what individual posts are the most read.
One of my posts on Cedar Point 1966 is still the most read (with more than 3700 visits to date), and the one on Avon Lake’s Close Quarters Pub was second with more than 2,000 hits. But the post entitled “Remember Ontario Dept. Store?” is almost always in the top five or six, and it alone probably has the most comments of any post I’ve ever done (31 so far).
I’ve wondered why my single post on Ontario Discount Stores is so popular. I think it’s because there really isn’t any other place on the whole internet where so many of Ontarios’s ex-employees and customers (as well as those of Uncle Bill’s) have congregated and shared reminisces and memories.
Anyway, that interest in the store is why I’m posting the article below, which appeared on the front page of the Journal on September 22, 1964. Ontario had just been purchased by Cook Coffee.
The article, written by Jack LaVriha, also provides a capsule history of the chain. I had no idea that the chain had its beginning in Lorain in April 1958 at 1922 Broadway before moving to its well-remembered location on what was then State Route 254 (North Ridge Road).
Ontario Merges With Cook Firm By JACK LAVRIHA
Ontario Discount Stores, with 12 corporations in Ohio and Missouri, have been purchased by Cook Coffee Co. Cleveland, in an exchange-of-stock transaction estimated at more than $5 million, it was learned today.
Cook Coffee owns Pick-N-Pay Super Markets and Uncle Bill’s Discount Stores in numerous cities and the giant Whitehall Discount City in Columbus.
Pick-N-Pay has area stores at 2418 W. 21st St., O’Neil - Sheffield Center and Ridgeview Shopping Center.
The consummation of the deal reportedly took place yesterday between Cook Coffee and Walter Nacey of Elyria, principal stockholder of Ontario stores, effective by mid-October.
The Ontario stores reportedly will not lose their identity as the result of the transaction and will continue to operate under the same name with no change in personnel.
A minor stockholder of Ontario stores was Ernest Ostreicher, owner of the former Striker’s Jewelry store in Central Lorain.
Ontario stores had its beginning in Lorain at 1922 Broadway in April, 1958. This store was moved to its present building on SR 254, west of Elyria Ave. in October, 1959.
Nacey then expanded his operations to Columbus, Springfield, Dayton, Toledo, Cincinnati, and Hamilton and St. Louis, Mo.
The Lorain, Columbus and Springfield operations represented the parent stores with the others being subsidiaries, according to a reliable source.
In addition to hard goods, the Columbus and Dayton stores also featured discount foods.
A new 20,000 square-foot addition costing an estimated $500,000 for building, land acquisition and fixtures, was erected at the Ontario Store on SR 254 late in 1962.
During the last few months, I've received several emails from readers suggesting that I do a blog entry on the old Ontario department store. Well, I can't ignore a coincidence like that - so here goes!
I'm sure most Lorain Baby Boomers remember this store. It was located at the intersection of Elyria Avenue and North Ridge Road.
September 1962 ad from Lorain Journal
Researching the store and finding out when it opened has proved rather difficult. Since the store really wasn't in Lorain, it was not to be found in the Lorain phone book listings. Like the Dog 'n Suds nearby (which I've seen described variously as being in Sheffield Township, Elyria Township, Lorain, and Elyria), Ontario was kind of in a no-man's land. The best way to describe its location was just past O' Neil's on the way to Midway Mall.
Ontario was one of several department stores back then that my mother might take my siblings and I to on a Saturday afternoon. Another store would be Hillsout in South Lorain. (Sorry, but since a trip to Hills might be capped off with a frozen Coke, I am much more sentimental about that store than Ontario!)
Each of these stores had a different personality, based on their line of goods, their location and clientele. For instance, my mother bought a lot of clothes for us at Hills, but never Ontario. In our house at least, Ontario was more for hardware and sporting goods.
Although Ontario didn't show up in the Lorain City Directory until 1968, I know for certain that it was in existence as early as 1962. Here's a full page ad from the Lorain Journal from March 2, 1962. (Give it a click so you can peruse all the great deals!)
Here's what the company logo looked like by 1969.
Note that under the logo it says 'a division of Cook United'. According to this entry on the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History website, Cook United also owned the Uncle Bill's Discount Department Store chain.
Here's an Uncle Bill's commercial that also has Ontario branding at the end.
Strangely enough, I interviewed at Cook United back in the early 1980's. If they had hired me, I might have worked on some Ontario advertisements and got real used to those squiggly-line borders!
Anyway, I dug through the city directories and noticed that Ontario was no longer listed beginning in 1982. If I ever come up with some concrete dates for the store's grand opening and ultimate closing, I'll post them here.
Today, the old Ontario store complex is home to Lorain County Department of Job and Family Services(shown below). It was a great use of the old building, and one of the projects that former Lorain County Commissioner Betty Blair rightfully considered one of her proudest accomplishments that she voted for while a member of the board.
Ontario seems to have been quickly forgotten. I don't think I've ever seen a newspaper article about the conversion of the store complex to the Lorain County Department of Job and Family Services that ever mentions the former tenant of the building by name.
At least the store lives on in our memories. Raleigh, one of the readers of this blog remembers:
"I remember my brother and I used to get our allowance on Fridays, and once we entered the doors of Ontario's, we would make a bee-line to the model car rack. If you can believe it, that was back in the day when the boxes were sealed with two small pieces of scotch tape on either side of the box... and the paint rack.... people had "tested" the color in the can by redecorating the rack with the prospective color."
Thanks for the story suggestion, the help with the Uncle Bill's research and the personal recollection, Raleigh! And if anyone has a specific memory of shopping at Ontario, be sure to post it here in the comments section! Since there is almost nothing at all on the internet about Ontario, this blog post may be all the attention that this fondly remembered store ever gets!
