The Passing Scene – May 1968

I wasn’t quite done cleaning up these The Passing Scene comics in Photoshop® when I wrote about the Ahoy Lorain feature earlier in the week. But they’re ready now, so here they are: all four Passing Scene strips that ran in the Lorain Journal back in May 1968 – 50 years ago.

There’s no earth-shattering local news being parodied in the May 4, 1968 edition, but there’s a few innocent gags that would be considered mildly sexist today.

The May 11, 1968 strip includes a caricature of Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes (who looks a bit strange without his signature thick glasses) and a reference to Lorain passing a school bond issue at long last.

The “bridge to nowhere” over State Route 2 makes an appearance in the May 18, 1968 comic. (Hey, my brother mentioned this very comic in a comment he left on that past blog post about the bridge.)

Lorain City Schools and the Ford Plant are the subject of gags in the May 25, 1968 edition. The school gag is pretty appropriate today.

Elyria Sandy’s Opens – May 1962

Fifty-six years ago this month, the first area Sandy’s held its Grand Opening in Elyria the weekend of May 19 and 20, 1962. The ad above ran in the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram on May 18, 1962. (Lorain’s West Side wouldn’t get its own Sandy’s until late June 1965.)

Anyway, the article below from the same edition of the Chronicle-Telegram of May 18, 1962 tells the story of the Elyria store.

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Thrift and Swift will open Sunday

The new Thrift and Swift Drive-In restaurant will have its official grand opening Sunday.

The new business, located at 443 Cleveland, is operated by the Thrift and Swift chain, which has 47 other drive-ins in the country.

“Miss Sandy,” a beauty queen, will be in charge of the affair which will feature the Oberlin College Scotch Bagpipers.

“Miss Sandy” is the chain Trademark. The company’s headquarters are in Kewanee, Ill.

The modernistic building is constructed on a lot just east of Olive St. on the south side of Cleveland St. with a frontage of 165 feet. Maximum depth of the lot is 250 feet.

The restaurant’s chief attraction will be its 15-cent hamburger, manager Phil Lunt says. There are three self-serving windows and the drive-in will be open from 11 a. m. to midnight weekdays and until 1 a. m. Fridays and Saturdays.

There is room for 60 cars on the large, asphalt parking lot. The restaurant will employ between 20 and 25 persons.

Ceramic tiling decorates the exterior with Douglas fir pylons supporting the roof. Cooking equipment is all modern.

Andrew Allan, Jr., 807 Washington Ave., was the general contractor for the building.

The chain is operated by the Northeast Ohio Co. of which Robert Meeder, Mansfield, is president. Richard Fowler is secretary-treasurer. Lou Wenger, Mansfield; Henry Huber, Mansfield; Dr. John Dawe, Wooster; Dr.Charles McAlister, Wooster, and Robert Weaver, Mansfield, are board members.

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Contractors for the Sandy’s drive-in included Lorain Glass Co. Inc. (all glass & blazing); Swart Signs (pylon sign, all building signs, all neon borders); Walt Kokoski Masonry; Ternes Plastering (waterproof stucco); Nate & Co. (all painting); Don Leuszler Roofing; Herman Ostergaard Plumbing; Novak Electric; W. G. Walker Co. (ceramic tile); Nelson Paving Co.

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Today, a CVS pharmacy occupies the former Sandy’s location in Elyria.

(Courtesy Google Maps)

Bob Evans to Enter Restaurant Biz – May 1968

The sign in front of the Amherst, Ohio restaurant

Fifty years ago this month, Bob Evans Farms, Inc. finalized its plans to enter the restaurant business. Here’s the story as it appeared in the business pages of the Lorain Journal on Thursday, May 30, 1968.

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Popular Ohio Sausage Maker Plans Restaurant Chain

Plans for the entry of Bob Evans Farms, Inc., into the fast-food restaurant business have now been made final and according to Robert Evans, president, the first unit will be built in Chillicothe, with anticipated opening on Sept. 1. A second unit, planned for opening in Columbus in early 1969, is now in the formative stage.

The Chillicothe operation will be the first fast-food restaurant featuring fresh (Farm Boy) and smoked (Smoky Boy) sausage sandwiches. The two-story building, combining Early American and Midwestern architecture, is designed by Coburn Morgan Business Interiors and is built by Don M. Sussey Co., both of Columbus. The parking area will accommodate approximately 50 cars.

Bob Evans Farm Foods, Inc., is a subsidiary of Bob Evans Farms, Inc., and other officers in addition to Robert Evans are: Robert J. Wood, executive vice president and general manager, and Larry Corbin, operations manager. Advertising for the operation, whose headquarters are at 3776 High St., Columbus, will be handled by Byer & Bowman Advertising Agency, Inc., Columbus. The new company will also manage the restaurant now located on the homestead farm in Rio Grande.

In response to numerous inquiries from interested parties regarding franchising, Evans says: “We are working with consultants, who are now making a survey of the potential franchising aspects of our new venture, and no decisions will be made until the report is completed and studied. Our basic objective in entering the fast-food business is to explained the pork sausage market in general.

“Inasmuch as the Bob Evans Farm Sausage is now one of the leading sellers in its marketing area, it seems a logical step to widen the appeal by making sausage sandwiches readily available to the public at conveniently located fast-food restaurants.

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It’s interesting that in its infancy, the Bob Evans restaurant chain saw itself as a fast-food business with the focus on selling sausage sandwiches. Today, it’s hard to think of the after-church brunch favorite as a restaurant selling fast food.

The Farm Boy® mentioned in the article is still on the menu, alongside non-sausage sandwich fare including chicken, ham, pot roast and turkey. But I always order sausage when I visit a Bob Evans Restaurant; just wouldn’t be right not to.

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Bob Evans Restaurants has had an outlet on Griswold Road in Elyria since about 1976. The present restaurant at that location is actually a newer version, having replaced the original one sometime in the 1990s.

Here’s the current version of the restaurant as it looked this past weekend. As you can see, the newer building appearance has been simplified from the original, ornate design.

I remember applying for a summer job as a bus boy there either in the summer of '76 or ’77. The person who interviewed me told me that I was going to have to get a haircut if they hired me, and that my hair could not extend below my collar.

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Click here to visit the history page on the Bob Evans website.

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UPDATE (May 22, 2018)
Longtime contributor Jeremy Reynolds emailed me recently about this post. He wrote,"Was just having dinner at Bob Evans in Amherst when I noticed your blog from earlier this week about the chain. 

"In case you want to add any more info to the post, the Amherst Bob Evans opened up in Sept 1987."

Jeremy even sent me the link to the article in the Amherst News-Times of September 30, 1987 announcing the opening (below).

Thanks, Jeremy!

Ahoy, Lorain!

As any regular reader of this blog knows, I’ve posted a lot of Gene Patrick’s Passing Scene comic strips from the Lorain Journal over the years. The weekly cartoon first appeared in the Journal in the mid-1960s, and continued right into the 1970s.

And back on this post, I wrote about a similar comic feature by Perry Carter highlighting local happenings that ran in the Elyria Reporter in the late 1890s.

Well, did you know that in the early 1950s, the Lorain Journal had a predecessor to the Passing Scene?

I didn’t either, until I ran across a few of them on vintage microfilm at the library. It was called “Ahoy Lorain” and appeared on the first page of the second section of the paper. I like the fact that the comic’s name plays up Lorain’s nautical heritage.

Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about the artist, who signed his name, ‘Krueger.’ I suspect that it was John C. Krueger, a reporter with the Journal at that time.

Here’s the “Ahoy Lorain” comic from Saturday, May 9, 1953. It includes a Bascule Bridge gag and a pretty good looking cartoon horse.

As you can see, "Ahoy Lorain” is a little offbeat in the humor department.

Some of it is completely baffling to me, such as the bit about the cigar hand-outs. I think it has something to do with 1953 being the Year of the Snake in the Chinese Zodiac. The engineer with a train for a head is bizarre as well; I guess he’s standing at attention while being inspected.

Here's another edition of the strip, from July 11, 1953.

Krueger was a very talented cartoonist; he conveyed a lot of emotions in his little characters. He's also a witty disciple of the 'pun' school of humor.

Lorain Creamery Ad – May 11, 1968

Although it was downright cold this weekend, it was pretty hot a few weeks ago. As a result, I’ve already paid one visit to K Cream Parlour on West Erie Avenue this season.

Well, another Lorain ice cream parlor is the subject of today's post: the Lorain Creamery’s. Its upcoming grand opening is mentioned in the ad above, which ran in the Lorain Journal on May 11, 1968.

A mid-70s phone book ad

“The Parlor” mentioned in the ad must have eventually become Old English Parlour, which didn’t show up in the city directories with its own listing until the mid-1970s.

Anyway, the ad also features a rendering of the Lorain Creamery building, as well as the cute farm boy and cow ad mascots for All Star Dairies. (I explained the connection between the All Star Dairy Association and Lorain Creamery here in a past post.)

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Lorain Creamery has been one of my most written-about topics on this blog.

The Story Behind the Buildings – Part 5

Believe it or not, I never intended to spend the whole week on the Honecker Building and its neighboring structures.  But I had no idea that longtime contributor Rick Kurish was working between the scenes to help make this series more historically accurate and complete.

In an email to me, Rick wrote, "Very interesting series of blogs on the Honecker Building. I thought I would see if I could find the actual construction date of the building, and managed to find the information in the August 1907 issue of The Ohio Architect and Builder trade magazine. 

"The brief notice (below) indicates that Isaac Honecker would be erecting a four story building at the corner of Broadway and Franklin Street (now 5th Street), with construction to start in the spring of 1908."

The building is also mentioned in the January 22, 1910 edition of the Engineering Record, Building Record and Sanitary Engineer. It notes, "Lorain, O. – H. E. Ford, of Lorain, it is stated, has about completed plans for the 3- story brick and stone building which is to be erected at 5th St. and B'way for Isaac Honecker at a cost of $25,000."

So who was Isaac Honecker? Rick has the answer.

"Isaac Honecker was William’s older brother. He was born in 1855 and was eight years older than William. He was a successful businessman in Lorain, and by 1903 he was President of the Lorain Lumber and Manufacturing Company and President of the Citizens Saving Bank of Lorain."

"He remained President of the Lorain Lumber Company until his death in July 1924. He was killed in an accident with a Nickel Plate train near Vermilion. A very brief notice (below) appeared in the Circleville Herald of July 8, 1924."

"Perhaps Isaac and William combined to finance the Honecker Building, but it appears that Isaac was the front man. Whatever the financial arrangement, the William Honecker Drug Store occupied a portion of the building for an extended period.

"I have also attached an overhead shot (below) taken August 1953, which shows the Honecker Building and the rather messy hodgepodge of other buildings with comprise the block. 

"Anyway, if you were walking down Broadway 110 years ago today, you would probably see the building under construction. Let’s hope that after the current scheduled renovation it will be good for another 110 years!”  

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So thanks to Rick we know that Isaac Honecker was the man behind the construction of the Honecker Building. 

It's great that the two brothers provided Lorain with a building that is still attractive and of use to the community decades after its original purpose had concluded.

The Story Behind the Buildings – Part 4

A plastic owl glares down from his perch on the Honecker Building

Knowing that 436-440 Broadway will soon be history, and that 444-448 Broadway was going to undergo big changes, I couldn’t resist poking around the premises with my camera.

Soon these addresses – once connected to well-known Lorain’s businesses – will be no more.

438 Broadway mailboxes

The 446 Broadway address may survive the renovation of the Honecker Building