Amherst Sparkle Market Opens – January 1969

From a 1957 ad

Here's a nice reminder of the days when Sparkle Markets had a strong presence in Northeast Ohio, and all of our mothers shopped there at some time or another. It’s the ad announcing the opening of the Amherst Sparkle Market, located near the intersection of Leavitt Road and Middle Ridge Road.

The ad ran in the Lorain Journal on January 15, 1969.

Note the ad even features good old Sparky, the grocery chain’s freckle-faced mascot. Sparky’s been featured on this blog many times.

In the Amherst ad, he looks like he’s finally grown up and become a “suit," (as opposed to his boyish appearance at right, whereas he looks more like a lowly stock boy).

Anyway, the Amherst store (according to an online source) lasted until the mid-1990s. It’s too bad that the chain is gone from Lorain County, as we could always use more choices when it comes to grocery shopping. (The Grafton Sparkle Market is not part of the official Sparkle chain.)

Today, however, the Sparkle chain survives. It continues to operate 19 Sparkle Markets across Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Sparky’s still around as well on the Sparkle website, promoting Sparky’s e-Deals.

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Longtime blog contributor and researcher extraordinaire Dennis Thompson sent me this photo (below) of the Amherst Sparkle Market as it looked in 1963 when it was still part of the Food Fair chain. That's Leavitt Road in the foreground, with Middle Ridge on the left (coming from the east).

Dennis has contributed immensely to the VintageAerial website by identifying and posting the information for a countless number of previously unidentified Lorain County photos.

And since we now know what the Sparkle looked like before it was Sparkle, here's a Google Maps shot of the former grocery building in its most recent use as the home of On the Edge Honda.

Gary Brothers Article – January 19, 1969

Back when the Journal was still a Lorain-based newspaper, the publication often featured articles that profiled the movers and shakers whose investment in the city contributed to its growth, success and quality of life.

Here's one of those articles, written by Journal Staff Writer Bob Cotleur. It profiles the three Gary Brothers and their various businesses. (I’ve posted so many of ads for Si Gary Dodge and Gary Motors Sales on this blog that it seems appropriate that I highlight the men behind the companies.)

The article is presented as it appeared in the Sunday Journal of January 19, 1969.

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The Gary Brothers Found Opportunity in Lorain 
By BOB COTLEUR
Staff Writer

THERE IS A LORAIN not everyone knows. It is a Lorain of opportunity, a city where anyone can live, flourish, excel.

Three brothers found it a land untouched by rigid cliques and power groups, a land “where everybody’s a minority group,” a land where hard work and long hours paid off in success with an ancient wish:

“From rags to riches.”

The three are the Gary brothers, Dave, 63, Simon, 60, and Frank, 58.

You can see their business signs along the main drag on Broadway. Si Gary Dodge. And Gary Motors, Inc. (Frank). And Shiff-Gary, Inc. (Dave).

Many area people bought cars from a Gary, rented or leased a Gary-built building. Some 250 people bought Gary-built homes from a corporation called Land Development, Inc.

Other Gary owned corporations include Wedgewood Estates, South Shore Development Company, Fransi Corp., and the Advance Tool & Die Company in Columbus. 

WHAT FEW PEOPLE in town realize is that the Gary brothers have helped “hundreds of people to own homes they otherwise couldn’t afford.” The brothers always had a tremendous desire to help people down on their luck, but they tried to help those they thought honestly needed help and were worthy of it.

One typical family went to Dave Gary. He bought the mortgage, got it re-financed and kept the family going until they got back on their feet. Some time later the woman of the home came to see Dave and told her child to repeat his evening prayers aloud.

“The child ended with, ‘And God Bless Mr. Gary’.”

The corporations are off-shoots of Gary Enterprises Inc. which the brothers say has accounted for $10 million worth of construction “mostly in Lorain” during the 30 years they’ve been here.

You’ve been in a Gary-built building at one time or another. Among them are the present Driscol Music Co., Internal Revenue Service building, AAMCO, Midas Muffler, Lake Terrace Apartments, Dalton of America. 

When Dave Gary first arrived in Lorain in 1931 he says “I had to borrow lunch money to eat.”

Dave is the pathfinder, the head of the clan. As a youth he found a way to get in the movies by selling five newspapers at a penny profit each. They were the only newspapers he ever sold.

At 13, he went into the coal mines. “It only lasted until mother found out two months later. She got me out of there,” he said.

At 18 Dave left the family home in Philipsburg, Pa., and came to Cleveland for the bigger job opportunities. His brothers followed in a few years and eventually the whole family, three boys, four girls and parents, made Cleveland their home.

DAVE GARY WAS managing a chain of shoe stores when the Depression hit and the chain went under. His first job in Lorain shortly after, was managing the Factory Shoe Store on Broadway.

He took the job with just 75 cents to his name.

A year later he’d saved $150 and used it to begin Advance Motor Sales, a used car lot.

But he knew more about shoes.

“A customer came back one day complaining about noisy tappers,” Dave remembered. “I was so dumb I told him it wasn’t tappets making the noise, it was just a noisy rod bearing.”

Tappets are easily and inexpensively adjusted. Rod bearings are deep in the heart of an engine and if one makes a lot of noise it means the engine is ready to blow up.

Dave retired from the auto business three years ago, couldn’t stand the inactivity and came back into the real estate and mortgage loan field.

Today he is quiet, conservative, a pipe-smoker who thinks while he puffs.

SI IS SHORT for Simon. He came to Lorain in 1936 already in debt. “If I was just broke, I’d have been in good shape,” he said.

He started working for Dave. In time he got into new car sales and had the incredible bad luck of choosing one loser after another.

“First I sold Kaiser-Frazers. They went out of business. Then it was Hudsons. They went under. Things looked better when I took on Ford’s Edsel, and you know what happened.”

But he was a huge success with Edsel. He sold “about 200 a year. I liked the car. It was a good, sound car. But they (Ford Motor Co.) didn’t need it. Why a good ’59 model today brings anywhere from $159 to $1,500. It’s a collector’s item.”

Despite Ford’s desires to get Si Gary into a Mercury franchise, he went with Dodge. With Dodge, Si’s luck is changing.

Frank the youngest brother, was married in 1930 in the lovely month of June. “I was fired from my job in July,” he said, “so I sold candied apples and ice cream bars for a year.”

He had a good thing going until one competitor suddenly swooped his business away. Frank learned why. “It was still prohibition and this guy had little bottles of booze tucked under his ice cream cart.”

Frank got to Lorain in 1939 and like Si, took a new car dealership while Dave went to work for Dave. But Frank and Si stayed with used cars.

THE BROTHERS prospered. They joined in community life. Today they belong to the Masonic Lodge, to the Agudath B’nai Israel Synagogue and its B’nai B’rith men’s group, and have actively participated in United Appeal or Community Chest work and fund raising for the American Red Cross.

Financially speaking the brothers are equal partners in everything. “We’ve been in business 30 years,” Si said, “and never had an argument. We’re a close knit partnership and never have, over all those years, even checked each others books.”

If one brother needs $10,000 he takes it, but the others don’t take out an equal share. Each knows the vital difference between need and desire.

“We’ve agreed,” Frank laughed, “but we married three different women and they might not agree. However they all know they can’t affect what the three brothers do.”

Potential financial projects are something else again. As Dave put it, it works like this:

“Si is the gambler. He’ll gamble on anything. Frank is the conservative. I put them together.”

“DAVE IS THE typical older brother,” the other two point out. “He loves to build. He’s the brother we look up to and go to for advice. His philosophy is homespun, but we agree with it.”

Frank is the trio’s intellectual. The others say he wanted to be a doctor, but there weren’t enough funds at the time.

Si is the magnet, the Pied Piper with children. “I suppose because he hasn’t any of his own,” Dave said. Dave, who married the former Ruth Levine of Cleveland, has two sons. Eugen, 38, with Ohio Motors, and Robert, 27, a prosecutor with the Justice Department in Washington.

Frank, who married the former Hilda Kess of Cleveland, has a daughter Ellen Jean, 35, now Mrs. Robert Bartick of Lorain, and James, 27, a stockholder in Cleveland.

SI MARRIED another Clevelander, the former Sadie Lieberman. He and his brother Frank are the Gary golfers and Si has fired three separate holes-in-one, which might lead some to believe he’s really Gary Player.

Dave prefers being “a homebody. I’ve been fairly active in civic and fund-raising affairs because I can still remember when I was poor.”

How would the three advise someone staring in business today in Lorain?

Si: “All it takes is plenty of hard work, long hours.”

Frank: “… but with some integrity.”

Dave: “… and try to put yourself in the other guy’s shoes.”

New Chamber of Commerce Building for Lorain – Jan. 1969

Here’s another one from the “What Might Have Been” Department.

Did you know that a multi-million dollar commercial and apartment building was planned for Downtown Lorain by the Greater Lorain Chamber of Commerce back in January 1969?

As noted in the article below, which ran on the front page of the Journal on January 24, 1969, the building would be home to a bank, stores, business offices and apartments for the elderly. The Greater Lorain Chamber of Commerce would retain ownership of the building.

There were three locations under consideration, including: on Broadway near the Cleveland Trust Building; on Broadway near the Post Office building; and near the proposed civic center on Broadway between Fourth Street and West Erie Avenue.

The Lorain Metropolitan Housing Authority was going to be a major tenant, with 200 units that would be rented to elderly tenants with moderate income. High rent apartments were also a consideration.

Here is the article (hey, the illustration is by our pal Gene Patrick).

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I’m not exactly sure what happened to this project. (I was only ten years old when it was proposed). Perhaps it somehow morphed into Lakeview Plaza, ditching the commercial end of the project and focusing on apartments only? 

The Intersection of Abbe Rd and Colorado Ave Revisited

I’ve written several times about the intersection of Abbe Road (State Route 301) and Colorado Avenue (State Route 611).

I did tons of posts on the Captain Aaron Root house that was on the southwest corner (later demolished to make way for the Dollar General store.)

I did a post on the gas station that used to be on the northeast corner for decades. It was a great old-time gas station too. It always seemed to have a group of friendly people inside, visiting and just hanging out like something out of The Andy Griffith Show. You could even get things notarized there (I did).

I also devoted a whole post to “Before Route 611 Was Widened,” in which I featured some photos I took just as the highway widening was underway in the early 1990s. But although I captured several images of the intersection and two-lane Colorado Avenue, I missed getting a photo of the gas station before it was demolished. 

Fortunately, Doug – one of my newer readers – captured with his camera what I had missed. He graciously shared his photo of the gas station, as well as what was there before it. 

Doug noted that before the gas station was there at the intersection of State Routes 301 & 611, a grocery store called “Friendly Corner Grocery” occupied the location.

Doug shared a few vintage photos of the grocery store, taken after it suffered some property damage. He identified the policeman in the photo as Steve Toth.

Doug believes that the grocery store was eventually moved further west on Colorado Avenue to make way for the gas station.

Speaking of the gas station, here’s Doug’s shot of the shuttered station in 1993.

And here’s the same view a year later.

Doug also had some other photographic goodies to share. Here’s a vintage shot (below) of the brick building opposite the gas station on the south side of Colorado. Doug observed, "The police car looks like a 1965 Ford.” He could also make out the words ‘Schmidt Beer’ above the Liquor sign.

Doug noted that the sign on the ground clearly reads Chris’ – which makes sense, since back on this post about the building, I wrote that Chris’ Restaurant (run by Frank and Chris Bishop) was there from about 1965 to 1970.

Here’s Doug’s photo of the building once the widening was underway.

Thanks to Doug for sharing his photos. Watch for another post soon featuring more images from his archives.

The Passing Scene – January 1969

Well, January is winding down pretty quickly – so I’d better post these The Passing Scene strips by Gene Patrick from January 1969.

Like I mentioned last month, the microfilm quality of the newspapers containing these strips wasn’t so hot – but I’ll present them here anyway. They look a little grubbier than usual, but the humor is still top-rate.

The January 4, 1969 strip has some good gags (although in 2019 you wouldn’t be doing a joke about sharing needles).

The next comic (from January 11th) is pretty topical, with some marijuana humor.

Getting Lorain voters to approve additional money for schools is always a timely topic, as seem in the January 18th strip.

The last strip for the month includes a mention of the Journal’s “Favorite Teacher” contest, which I’ll be covering on one of next month’s posts. I like the gag about Elyria Hospital’s lackluster reaction to the Sheffield Lake Welcome Wagon’s card-collecting efforts.

Apocalyptic Marketing – 1959 Style

Here’s a strange sales ad for Lorain Surplus Discount Center that ran in the Lorain Journal on January 5, 1959 – 60 years ago this month.

Lorain Surplus Center first appeared in the Lorain City Directory in the early 1950s. It was located at 515 Broadway, taking over a space previously occupied by Goodman’s Home Furnishers (a company with a longtime presence in Elyria). The names in the city directory that were associated with the business, which was described as sporting goods, were Arthur J. London and Sidney Gluck.

The sales ad was certainly designed to attract attention, with its apocalyptic ad copy describing “an avalanche of price destruction” sweeping down on folks that “no power on earth can halt.” Warnings of “BRACE YOURSELF” and “BE PREPARED” drive home the feeling of menace and jeopardy. And all of this was juxtaposed with a 1950s clip art illustration of an average man, beaming with delight.

Near the bottom of the ad, the sale is also described as a “seething tornado of price destruction,” which may not have been the best way to attract Lorainites to the sale (the 1924 tornado still being relatively fresh in many residents’ minds).

Anyway, Lorain Surplus Discount Center seemed to have been whisked away by its own seething sales cyclone. The company disappeared from the city directory in the 1959 edition, with the location listed as ‘vacant.’  It was replaced in the directory at the 515 Broadway address in the next edition by Trotter’s Office Supply.

Vermilion River Floods – Jan. 23, 1959

Many of us remember the terrible flooding that occurred in the Vermilion area during the notorious storm on July 4, 1969.

But did you know the Vermilion River flooded sixty years ago in January 1959 with similar disastrous results?

Here’s the front page of the Lorain Journal with the story from January 23, 1959.

As it notes, “The overflowing waters of the Vermilion River were subsiding today in the wake of a nightmarish flood which caused estimated damage of more than $1 million to property in the Vermilion area alone.

“An estimated 200 persons were evacuated or forced to leave homes and house trailers along both sides of the river south of Rt. 6 and 2.

“The main highway leading to Vermilion at that point was covered with as much as three feet of water from noon yesterday.

“Several long-time Vermilion residents said they could not recall another flood which caused so much property damage in the Vermilion area.

“At least 10 pleasure boats were torn from moorings at Cooper’s Boat Basin by the fast-moving river water which swept the boats north toward Lake Erie.”

Here are the continuations of the front page articles.

And here’s a full page of Journal photos by Don Shook, Bill Conley and Ed Nemecek of the disaster.

It would be interesting hearing from Vermilion area residents who lived through both disasters as to which (1959 or 1969) was worse.

But this photo of Routes 6 & 2 from the montage (in which you can see a Romp’s sign at left and the bridge off in the distance) really gives me the creeps.