New Lorain - 1978

Here's something I found recently at the Lorain Public Library. It's called New Lorain Report No. 4, and was produced by the Lorain County Regional Planning Commission back in August 1978.

The report focused on Washington Park and the nearby Broadway shopping district, and it proposed various ideas on how it could be redeveloped. It was part of a series of five reports that together provided a blueprint for a New Lorain.

The study was pretty interesting and had a lot of great ideas that unfortunately never came to fruition. What was especially interesting to me, though, were the photos used to accompany the text. They provided a look back at the Lorain of the 1970's.

Here are a few of them. Click on each for that you-are-there feeling!

Palace Theater before restoration

Right above Faroh's Candies was Alex Visci's Music Instrument Repair Shop

The Fish House

1950's Lorain Dairy Queen Ads

I've remarked in this blog a few times how my family never went to Dairy Queen or any of the soft serve ice cream type places while I was growing up in the 1960's. For my parents, ice cream had to be real ice cream – frozen ice milk need not apply.

I was never really crazy about Dennis the Menace either, so the mischievous moppet's appearances in Dairy Queen advertising did nothing to make me want to patronize the place.

But my wife, who grew up with Dairy Queen, still likes to go there to get one of their signature creations. So Dairy Queen is in rotation along with our other soft serve ice cream choices, such as Avon Dairy Isle and Terry's Dairy. (For real ice cream, though, it's gotta be Toft's in Sandusky!)

Here's a couple of newspaper ads from the 1950's that show the present Terry's Dairy's original identity, as Lorain's Dairy Queen.

The ad at left is from April 16, 1958. It's a real attention-getter with a nice, clean easy-to-read layout and great illustration.

The next ad (below) is more of a curiosity. It's still branded with the Lorain Dairy Queen's 903 East Erie Avenue address, but the ad really isn't directed to the ice-cream loving public. It's more of a corporate ad touting DQ's success and promoting the concept of free enterprise.

If this ad doesn't make you want your own DQ franchise, nothing will!

It's an interesting ad, copy-wise. It even boldly describes the Dairy Queen product not as ice cream but as... er... "dairy-food" that comes out of a spigot. (It reminds me of the similarly-named Kraft "cheese food".)

The ad goes on to say how healthy DQ is for you, since it's loaded with milk.

We had Dairy Queen on Friday night (we went to the newly renovated Amherst one). Somehow I don't think my Chocolate Xtreme Blizzard – full of brownies, cocoa fudge, and chocolate bits (not to mention 660 calories!) – was all that healthy!

But it sure was good! (Small wonder that I've ordered the same thing the last four times we've gone to Dairy Queen!)

The Admiral's Birthplace Gets Its Due

This Plain Dealer article from April 12, 1942 features Admiral King's birthplace

It was great to read last week in the Morning Journal (here) that Admiral Ernest J. King's birthplace on Hamilton Street will finally get some sort of official recognition, thanks to the tireless efforts of the Charleston Village Society Inc. (CVSI) and the Black River Historical Society.

Photo from King's autobiography

You might remember the newspaper editorial from 1966 (which I reprinted here) in which his house was referred to as "an insignificant old frame dwelling".

Happily, times – and opinions – have changed.

It is finally apparent that while buildings named for Admiral Ernest J. King may come and go, the building that he was born in is special – and worth recognizing.

But the process of trying to get landmark status for the house as King's birthplace has resulted in a 'birther' controversy!

According to Loraine Ritchey of the CVSI, there was not enough positive, documented proof that King was actually born there for the house to have landmark status. Local researchers even found a copy of his birth certificate, but the Hamilton Street address was not on it.

May 27, 1949 clipping

However, King's own autobiography confirmed the house as his birthplace, and the sentimental old salt continued to visit it almost every time he came to Lorain. A short article (at left) from the Lorain Journal of May 27, 1949 shows that even during a brief visit to his hometown, he found time to stop by the old homestead.

Nevertheless, it is a great solution to create a park opposite the house with a memorial honoring King, and the Charleston Village Society and the Black River Historical Society are launching a campaign to raise money for it.

For more information, call the Charleston Village Society at (440) 246-6046. Or, to simply make a tax-deductible donation, make out a check (earmarked with "Admiral King Tribute") to Charleston Village Society, 1127 W. Fourth Street, Lorain, Ohio 44052.

Oakwood Park Easter Basket 1958

Sometimes it seems that Lorain's Lakeview Park Easter Basket gets all the attention – and the Oakwood Park Easter Basket gets ignored.

To help rectify this situation, here's a great photo that appeared on the front page of the Monday, April 7, 1958, Lorain Journal. It show's Lorain's "other" Easter Basket and some of the Lorainites who made their holiday pilgrimage to it on Easter Sunday 1958.

Gee, they get to climb all over their basket out in South Lorain! At Lakeview Park, a moat keeps you from violating the basket's perimeter!

When I was a kid, the only times that I ever saw the Oakwood Park Easter Basket were when when my family went out to South Lorain to go to Hills Department Store. Besides the basket, my siblings and I would also watch for the train in the park.

Happy Easter!

Here's an unusual item that I found recently in the Lorain Public Library's Special Collections files. It's a large format postcard featuring Lorain's iconic Lakeview Park Easter Basket.

It's unusual, because it's not the usual ubiquitous Lorain Easter Basket postcard (which I posted waaaay back here) that is so easy to find on Ebay. It's a slightly different angle, and looks like it was photographed in the off-season, so to speak. No eggs!

Anyway, here's wishing you a Happy Easter! See you at Lakeview Park on Sunday! (Better bring an umbrella!)

David Shukait: Creator of Lorain's Easter Baskets

David Shukait And His Colorful, Enduring Easter Basket

To close out this week's Easter Parade of ads and articles, I thought I'd post this great article about David Shukait and how he created Lorain's iconic Easter Baskets. The article is part of the Lorain Public Library's Special Collections file. It was written by Frank Dobisky, Staff Writer for the Lorain Journal, and it appeared along with the above photo and caption in that newspaper's pages on Thursday, April 7, 1966.

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But, He Built An Easter Basket
It Just Couldn't Be Done, Shukait Told His Boss

BY FRANK DOBISKY
Staff Writer

"It couldn't be done, I kept telling him," recalled David Shukait, now 73 and retired from the Lorain Park Department.

He referred to the constant urging in 1937 of the late George Crehore, then parks superintendent, for Shukait to construct a large cement Easter basket for Lakeview Park.

"He kept after me for six months," Shukait said during an interview, "but I couldn't figure out how it could be done."

THEN ONE night Shukait came home from work exhausted and sat down to relax. While unwinding from the day's labors he began thinking about the idea again – and suddenly a solution came to him.

"I told Crehore the next morning I knew how to do it. He told me to drop everything and get on it," said Shukait, who was a mechanic in the park department.

It took Shukait and an assistant a month to construct the reinforced concrete basket that now stands at the entrance to Lakeview Park off W. Erie Avenue.

SHUKAIT PATENTED his idea, but he never marketed the colorful and sturdy baskets. He built another basket in 1939 that stands in Oakwood Park.

He also built one for a priest in Pennsylvania – a smaller version of the Lakeview and Oakwood models. Then, he constructed miniature versions of the big baskets for display in the yards at his home and at the homes of his sons – Andrew, Louis and Edmond – who live in Lorain. Andrew Shukait is the Third-Ward's councilman.

The first basket was built in the park department garage and pulled on skids by a truck and grader through city streets to the park. It cost $50 for material, plus the salaries of two men for a month to build that first basket.

Shukait estimated a similar basket built today would cost $800.

THE BASKETS in the park draw large crowds when the weather is pleasant on Easter Sundays. The city adds an Easter touch to the baskets annually by putting large, concrete eggs in them.

Shukait, who retired from the park department in 1958, suffered a slight stroke last June and gets around now with the use of a cane. He spends his leisure time reading newspapers and conversing with old friends at the clubrooms of the Polish Legion of American Veterans.

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I forgot to mention that the above article contains an incorrect date that seems to forever plague most articles about the Easter Basket (with the exception of those written by Rona Proudfoot!) As pointed out back here, the Lakeview Park Easter Basket (the first of David Shukait's baskets) was installed in April 1941.

1950 Gilbert's Self Serve Food Store Easter Ad

Back in January, I did a post about Gilbert's Food Fair (the small grocery store located in the Hafely Building on Lorain's East Side) that featured some reminisces by Bill Latrany.

Well, here's an April 6, 1950  Easter-themed ad for Gilbert's, apparently before it had any tie-in with Food Fair. I love the cartoon rabbit chef illustration; he looks positively gleeful to be carving up whatever it is on that plate! (I've tried to figure out what it is.... anybody know for sure? Click on it for a closer look at this mystery meat.)

Hopefully the rabbit isn't serving up one of his own kind (unlike many well-known cannibalistic food mascots such as Hamlet, the Sugardale pig!)