North Ridgeville Historical Article – May 1963

The City of North Ridgeville doesn't get too much attention on this blog, so here's a historical article (above) related to that city. It's from the May 2, 1963 Journal and tells a little bit of the history of the Gilder family's business, and how it evolved from a blacksmith shop to a modern Shell service station (that at that time was located on the northeast corner of Center Ridge Road and today's State Route 83).

It notes, "Gilder's Shell Service, one of the oldest surviving businesses in North Ridgevlle, has undergone several changes since the turn of the century.

"Charles Gilder, after an apprenticeship with his brother at Field's Corners, started his own blacksmith business in 1900 when he bought the property across from the present high school.

"He shod horses and repaired wagons and carriages for residents and travelers on the Cleveland road."

The article points out that the coming of the 'horseless carriage' meant the transition of the blacksmith shop to a garage. Over the years the Gilder family kept the business going, and the 1963 version of it was the aforementioned Shell station.

What's interesting is that the house shown in the photo – referred to as the Humphrey House, the first brick house built in North Ridgeville – was razed to make way for the Shell station.

Here's a photo (looking east) showing the Humphrey House as it looked in 1905 at its location on Center Ridge Road, courtesy of the North Ridgeville Historical Society's Facebook page. It's the house on the far right.

The caption accompanying the photo notes that it was a stagecoach hotel and tavern known as the Farmers Inn, built by Joseph Humphrey in 1830. It was torn down in 1962.

The former Shell station as it looked in Sept. 2021

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Click here to read about the "Gilder Anvil" from the family's blacksmith business on the North Ridgeville Historical Society website.

Journal Front Page – May 1, 1963

It was nice over the weekend, but it was only a week or so ago that a little snow fell in Northeast Ohio. 

While the concept of the weather being completely nuts seems like a relatively new trend, it's something that's been happening for a while. Case in point: check out the front page of the Lorain Journal from May 1, 1963 shown above, to revisit kooky weather from sixty years ago this month.

"Howling winds and snow squalls blasted Lorain County Tuesday night jarring spring with subfreezing temperatures and whitening the ground," noted the article. "Ohio Edison officials said today service was interrupted in Lorain and Sheffield Lake when winds gusting to 40 miles an hour played havoc with the electric wires.

"A mass of cold air moving across the Buckeye state late Tuesday sent readings below freezing in all except the extreme southeast counties.

"Snow was seen this morning on the roofs of many Lorain cars and houses.

"Hot wires popped and sizzled for about two hours shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday at Lake Rd. and Irving Park, Sheffield Lake.

"Sheffield Lake police reported large plate glass windows were blown out at Brownie's Market, 5260 E. Lake Rd., and at the Lawson store at 4282 E. Lake Rd."

Well, at least Brownie's is still around.

Elsewhere on the front page: a woman flies her small plane from California to Hawaii alone, making history; Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro visits Soviet Premier Khrushchev on May Day and watches the annual parade on Red Square; two Cleveland labor unions picket in front of Jay's Sparkle Market at 3817 Oberlin Avenue in an effort to organize the store's 22 employees; and the Employees' Transit Lines, Inc. celebrated its 25th anniversary of providing bus service to the community.

Polansky's Market Article – May 6, 1973

Lorain County is lucky to have so many great meat markets.

No, not that kind of meat market. I mean the type where you can get beautiful steaks, chuck or (if you'll pardon the expression) rump roasts, pork shoulders, etc. – all custom cut and wrapped for you with care by people who want you to be satisfied with your purchase.

Fligner's, Polansky's, Vermilion Farm Market, McConnell Meats... the list goes on and on. I'm sure everyone has their favorites.

Speaking of Polansky's (a favorite topic on this blog since I shop there occasionally), here's a nice article from the May 6, 1973 Lorain Journal that profiles the couple that started the business: Steve and Sophie Polansky. 

It notes that they first "took charge of an anemic meat market at Long Avenue and 14th Street in the 1930's." From that one store they built a small empire consisting of three stores. But in the late 1950s they decided to consolidate their efforts at the Dewey Road location, where the store continues on to this day.

In the article, it is noted that "They buy only local beef, lamb and veal, and purchase as much local pork as the market allows."

Veal is one meat that never crosses my mind when I'm planning my meals for the week. It should, because Mom made a few veal dishes as Sunday dinners when I was a kid. Veal birds and city chicken are the ones that come to mind. (I always used to get them mixed up because of the 'bird/chicken" thing.)

Good thing I have my trusty Better Homes & Gardens Meat Cook Book, which has color photos of each.

Veal Birds

City Chicken

In the mid-1970s, Mom used to buy big boxes of frozen veal cutlets. (I think it was somehow related to her taking a cooking class from a gentleman named Otto, who was the chef who ran the executive lunchroom at U. S. Steel. We ate a lot of those veal cutlets when I was in high school.

And it's probably been forty years since I ate any veal at all.

The Lorain Sunday News – May 1950

The Lorain Public Library has several different limited-run Lorain newspapers on microfilm that, unlike the Journal, haven't been put online. One of them is the Lorain Sunday News.

The Lorain Sunday News was a weekly. It was an odd little newspaper. It usually covered a few local stories on the front page, but much of the rest of the paper was an eclectic collection of ads and filler. Its main selling point was that it was the only paper published on Sunday.

Here's the front page of the May 14, 1950 edition of the Lorain Sunday News. 

There was a Buyers' Guide edition that came out on Thursday each week. Here's the front page of the Buyers' Guide for Thursday, May 4, 1950 – exactly 73 years ago today.

That's one prim and proper mother in that ad.

Here's another page from that same edition. 

As you can see, there's not much content, and what's there is mostly filler. The sports column is about quail hunting in Florida (not exactly pertinent to Lorainites), and there's a fun little quiz. The best feature on the page is the meager TV schedule, which featured a lot of puppet shows for the kiddies: Judy Splinters, Howdy Doody and Kukla, Fran and Ollie. 

Buffalo Bob Smith and Howdy Doody

Kukla, Fran Allison and Ollie, with puppeteer Burr Tilstrom

There's also Cleveland TV icons Dorothy Fuldheim and Linn Sheldon (who we know as Barmaby), as well as a show from Chicago hosted by a buckaroo (below) named Cactus Jim (Clarence Hartzell) .

And here's a page from the Lorain Sunday News of May 7, 1950. Once again, the page has a little bit of everything: two columns of filler, a Hollywood cheesecake photo, several ads and and local fishing news (although it's all about frogs, possible descendants of the inhabitants of the filled-in East Side frog pond).

For me, the best thing about the Lorain Sunday News is that it featured a lot of ads for the public utilities, including Ohio Edison. That meant – you guessed it – lots of Reddy Kilowatt ads!

Here's one from the May 14, 1950 edition.

That's a great rendering of our favorite electrical sprite posing in front of his transmission lines. But he seems to be dressed for war. We were still more than a month or so away from entering the Korean conflict. Maybe Reddy was preparing to do battle against his arch enemy, Speedy, of the Ohio Fuel Gas Company.

Sandy's Becomes Hardees – May 1973

Sandy's Hamburgers has been a favorite topic on this blog since its beginning.

Why? Because it was very likely the first fast food my family ever had, since it was only a few minutes away on Oberlin Avenue. The burgers tasted very much like McDonald's, which isn't surprising since the chain was founded by some ex-McDonald's executives.

But all good things come to an end. Seemingly after only a few years in Lorain, Sandy's was taken over by Hardee's – and it just wasn't the same. 

Maybe it was the loss of Sandy's cute Scottish lassie with the tam o'shanter, which lent a friendly face to the proceedings. Or perhaps it was the name change. "Sandy's" sounds much more friendly and personal than the nondescript "Hardee's."

Nevertheless, the change happened – and here's how the company notified the customers in the Lorain area. The ad below appeared in the Journal on May 3, 1973.

It's a clever ad. But charco-broiled or not, the burgers didn't taste the same – or as good, at least to me.

But it really didn't matter that much to my family, since we weren't eating there anyway. For years, Dad grilled out hamburgers almost every Saturday night, so we didn't eat fast food burgers very often. The only exception were the occasional Whoppers from Burger King on Leavitt Road.

The Hardee's on Meister Road lasted until the end of the 1980s. Today, the closest Hardee's is down on State Route 83 near beautiful downtown Burbank, Ohio.

Anyway, you know you're getting old when you talk about something like Sandy's that almost nobody else remembers.

Lorain Times-Herald Front Page – May 11, 1901

We'll spend another day in Lorain circa 1901, via this edition of the Lorain Times-Herald from May 10, 1901. Like yesterday's post, there's a lot to see on this front page if you're willing to squint at the fine print. As you'll see, everything wasn't just ducky in Lorain.

In the previous edition of the paper, Mr. Fesler 'fessed up' to shooting a duck that he said was already wounded, and basically criticized the game warden for arresting him. Well, in this paper, the game wardens took some potshots of their own in a Letter to the Editor. 

The letter reads, "The piece put in THE HERALD yesterday, May 10th in regard to August Fesler shooting a wild duck on the Black River was very much exaggerated. Now the fact of the case is, Mr. Whitford and Mr. D. Sutton, both Deputy State Game Wardens, saw the duck lite in the river and a young man came along in a boat, whistled and pointed to the duck. He did not attempt to pick up the duck as was represented in the paper, neither was the duck wounded until Fesler wounded it. He shot twice at the bird, first time wounding it. The second time he shot he killed it.

"It is out of season to shoot ducks, and contrary to law and anyone that violates the State Law is not a good citizen. How can a man's good name be injured when he is a violator of the state law. Mr. Fesler is fishing in the Black River with nets, as has been reported to us. After he shot the duck Mr. Whitford and Mr. D. Sutton both wardens, approached him and told him they would have to put him under arrest. He refused to go without a warrant; so we went and swore out a warrant. There was no running or flying as was represented in the HERALD."

Disease seemed to be a big problem in Lorain at that time. Under "Local News" there were several items: "The small-pox situation is improving."; "Mrs. Conrad Krantz is very ill with an attack of grip" (which is an old-time name for the flu)."; "Three cases of scarlet fever were reported at the Henson home at 2004 Oakdale avenue this morning."; "The quarantine was raised from the Hurst home on Myrtle street this morning. Chickenpox was the contagion."

Speaking of ducks and disease, we learn that the East Side of Lorain had a pond that was home to some of the web-footed rascals. One news item notes, "The East Side duck pond should be drained at once before an epidemic of disease results therefrom. The pond is very large and deep and filled with dirty slime and refuse. Houses in the vicinity have platforms and railings around them to keep children from falling into it. The affair is not a trifling one and needs attention at once."

The city apparently agreed, because the first item under "Local News" notes, "The East Side frog pond is being filled today." Frog pond, duck pond... what's the difference?

For Lake Shore Electric fans, there was one news item of interest. Under the heading "Will Build a Bridge at Vermilion," there is a small article that reads, "On Thursday the commissioners of Erie County granted permission to the Lake Shore Electric Railway Company to build a bridge across the river at Vermilion and to tie the abuttments to the wagon bridge abutments. The bridge will be 180 feet long. The material for it is about completed and work on the abuttments will be started at once."

Lorain Times-Herald Front Page – May 10, 1901

The Lorain Times-Herald from 1901 are the oldest Lorain newspapers on microfilm at the Lorain Public Library. I thought it'd be kind of interesting to see what was going on in Lorain a hundred and twenty-two years ago this month – so here goes.

Here's the front page of the paper from May 10, 1901. (Click on it for a larger, hopefully readable version.)

There's some interesting stuff. The first item is about the shooting of... a duck.

Under the heading of FESLER'S STORY: "Mrs. August Fesler raised the money necessary to pay her husband's fine for violating the game laws and he was released today. While Fesler was technically guilty of a misdemeanor under the law and pled guilty, and while it is true the mayor could do nothing but impose the lowest fine named in the statute, which is $25 and costs, it is also true that Fesler's story seems to put a different phase on the case from that which appeared first. Fesler is an industrious man, although on account of sickness, he is not able to do hard work. He had made a living such as it was, by fishing and taking pleasure parties out in his sailboat. He says he shot the duck, but the bird was already wounded, and a man in a row boat was trying to pick it up. Finally the other man told Fesler to shoot it and he did so.

"Then came near being a tragedy when Game Warden Whitford first went to arrest Fesler. Fesler refused to go, and had a hammer. Whitford drew his revolver and Fesler got his shot gun. Mrs. Fesler got hold of the gun and Whitford skipped out. That is, he did not exactly skip; he just flew. This is Fesler's story for it, and he feels very badly to think he had to be locked up when he did not intend to do any wrong. He fears his good name has suffered as a result of the trouble."

Another interesting item concerns what I believe was a fraternal organization called the Red Men. Under the heading "Indian Village," the article states, "It is estimated that there will be at least 6,000 Indians in Lorain on the Fourth of next July. The Red Men have received notifications from tribes with a membership aggregating 2,000 and letters are being received from new ones every day, so that 5,000 is a low estimate of the number of Indians who will be here on that day. The Public Square will be turned over to them and the entire park will be covered with teepees. They will cook, eat and sleep in their tents for at least a couple of days and the fun they will have will fill a book. The Indians will come from all parts of the state.

One item of interest to me concerns the Lorain City Band, which appears under 'Local News.' It notes (no pun intended), "The members of the Lorain City Band, 26 in number, met at the band room last night and under the direction of J. W. Shirk, district representative of the American Federation of Labor, organized a branch of the American Federation of Musicians."

By George, Lorain was and still is a Union town. And I used to be a member of the American Federation of Musicians Local #146 for a time in the 1980s. (BTW, 'Shirk' is a terrible name for a labor executive.)

Also on the page are some pretty good examples of women getting the short end of the stick. Under the heading "Says His Wife is to Blame," a man named James Foley, in jail for being drunk, blamed his wife for the breaking up of his family and his children being turned over to the county. According to him, "She was stubborn and at times refused to listen to reason."

Another nugget guaranteed to offend appeared under "A Brilliant Idea." It reads, "A young man, who is employed in a bank in this city, who is very fond of dancing and loves a game of cards occasionally received an idea this morning. He drove a tack in it and it was found to be like this: "I believe that some of the ladies who devote most of their time to playing cards, etc., could do more good by holding afternoon parties and visiting the lawns of their friends. They could do much good by picking off the dandelions and weeds growing in the grass."