Power Plant Demolition

Over the weekend I drove over to see how the demolition of FirstEnergy's Edgewater power plant was coming along and to snap a few photos. (FirstEnergy is the parent company of the old Ohio Edison.)

Click here to read the Morning Journal's article about the demolition and to view some video.

According to the Morning Journal article, the plant has been there since 1919. At left is a vintage photograph courtesy of the Black River Historical Society's website.

It's hard to believe that the plant is no longer being used. I used to feel pretty good knowing that right there at the end of Oberlin Avenue, we had our own local power plant. I had no idea it had even been decommissioned.

I guess the real winners are the people on Lake Place who will enjoy a terrific lake view. I'm happy for them.

Earlier this year I was out taking pictures and decided to grab a few of the power plant on a whim. Here's what it used to look like back in May. Remember how green our lawns were back then?

Here's a pre-demolition shot from that same day to match up with the one at the top of this blog post.

And here's one that I took from the Bascule Bridge on the same day. Soon this view will be just a memory.

Autumn in Lorain County

I hate to say it, but autumn around Lorain County has been disappointing this year. The storms of the past few weeks stripped many of the trees of their leaves before they even changed colors. The leaves that are still on the trees are mainly green, with some yellow here and there.

The right weather conditions just didn't happen to make those really spectacular fall colors. According to the U. S. Forest Service website (here), you need a warm, wet spring, favorable summer weather and warm, sunny fall days and cool nights. The warm period that we're in right now isn't helping anything either.

Nevertheless, I still went out with the camera this past weekend in search of color and have a few shots to post here. (Click on each of them for that 'you are there' effect.)

As usual, the area around Gore Orphanage Road didn't disappoint. Here's a view looking north at Sperry Road.

And here's a view looking south, with Gore Orphanage Road going into the valley on the left and Sperry Road on the right.

Another area that usually has some color is the French Creek Reservation. Here's a few pix from the main road through the park.

Here's one more of Gore Orphanage Road.

Fall puts me in a pensive mood. I'm not one for poetry very much, but I like this poem. It's from the September 1957 'Autumn' issue of ideals.

Country Lanes

by Ruth Fortney Maxwell

Country lanes are calling me

Now that autumn is here...

I know just how they all are garbed

Since grass is growing sear.

The sumac waves a crimson flag,

The oaks are russet hue;

The bittersweet has sunset tints

And wild grapes still are blue.

The goldenrod is faded gold,

The ivy leaves have turned

From apple-green to coral red

While weeds to brown are burned.

The milkweed seeds have blown away,

But still the thistledown

Is clinging to its withered stalks...

A hoary, fluffy crown.

A beauty feast is all prepared

For those whose eyes can see

The tints and shades, the tones and hues,

Those lanes are calling me.

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.

****

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.)

****


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.

Foster House Motel Then & Now

To wrap up this look at vintage Lorain County motels, here's a then-and-now look at the Foster House Motel at 3917 W. Lake Road. The above undated postcard shows the motel in its early days.

The earliest Lorain phone book that I could find that had a listing for the motel was 1953 with its location at Stop 109 W. Lake Road. Early ads advertised 18 "new and modern brick units" and baseboard heat in every room. "We cater to salesmen" was their motto.

The motel is unique in its appearance in that the brick gives the solid feeling of a real home (or more appropriately, a foster home I guess.)

Here's how the motel looks today as the Lake Motel.

More than fifty years after its opening, the motel now backs up to some good-sized trees. With the exception of a new paint scheme, the motel looks pretty much the same.

Together with its next door neighbor the Shoreway Motel, the Lake Motel continues to welcome US 6 travelers with a taste of 1950's hospitality.