Admiral Ernest J. King Bust 1975

From the pages of my 1975 Trident, here's a photo of most of the Senior Class Officers posing in front of the bust of Admiral Ernest J. King. From left to right, there is President Vic Rosen, Treasurer Elaine Baron, and Vice President Guy Richards.

I sure hope that bust of Admiral King was 'anchored' to that shelf! It seemed to be used as a photo backdrop in the Trident many times during the early 1970's.

Admiral Ernest J. King Bust Unveiling

Here's a neat photo from the archives of the Black River Historical Society. The photo had no caption, but depicts some Navy officials at the apparent unveiling of a bust of Admiral Ernest J. King. The BRHS file also had photos from the dedication of the high school.

The bust shown above was on display at Admiral King High School and I'm sure is well-remembered by school alumni.

Remember This Admiral Ernest J. King Portrait?

This great portrait of Admiral Ernest J. King should look familiar to anyone who attended Admiral King High School (like me). I believe it hung on the wall near the entrance to the auditorium, if my memory is correct. Either that or it was in that same hallway.

For me, this painting WAS Admiral Ernest J. King. Seeing it everyday (along with the sculptured bust of him) created an awareness of the man, and his importance, that was impossible to forget.

Well, over at the Buster's House website, Lisa is asking for help in identifying the mystery artist. The painting is apparently headed over to the new Admiral King elementary school, which opens later this year.

The painting appears to be based on this photo.

While the painting is very well done, I suspect that it was done by a student because of its simple, unpretentious style – plus it would have been the ideal opportunity for an Admiral King High School art student.

My only other guess is that it might have been done by the late local artist and big band saxophonist Frank Katrick, who did countless portraits for local sports figures for the Lorain Sports Hall of Fame as well as other civic figures. Frank's style was similar to this, although I'm not sure if he worked much in paint.

Whoever the artist is, he or she should be very proud for creating something that students could be (and will be) inspired by everyday. Plus I like the painting much more than the reference photo!

Hopefully we'll have the artist's name sooner or later!

1967 Castle on the Lake Ad

Check out this April 7, 1967 newspaper ad for Lorain's iconic Castle on the Lake restaurant! I saw it recently while spooling through rolls of microfilm at the Lorain Public Library, in search of something else as usual.

The ad is interesting to me because of its 60's flair. Gone is the formal 1950's 'supper club' theme (that you saw on this blog back here.)

Instead, you have kind of a mod look, with a stylish, uniformed 'castle wench' dominating the ad.

It looks like it was a cool place back then... kind of like Lorain's version of the Playboy Club! I wonder what kind of act Eddie and Frankie did – anybody remember?

Admiral King Tribute Site Flag Raising

On Saturday morning, I stopped down at the new Admiral King Tribute site to watch the flag being raised on the 55th anniversary of Admiral Ernest J. King's passing.

It was a little overcast and windy, but thankfully it didn't rain. My shot (above) of the flagpole and Admiral King's birthplace is from a little later in the day, when the sun came out.

It was a nice flag-raising ceremony, and you couldn't help being choked up a little bit seeing Lorain once again honor its number-one son (especially after the school board stripped his name from the high school last year).

The Morning Journal website has video from the ceremony here.

Here's a few of my shots from the actual flag-raising.

Be sure to read Loraine Ritchey's blog for the story behind the Tribute site, with profiles of the people involved in the creation of it (including Loraine, who I finally got to meet on Saturday!)

Kipton's Civil War Monument

Kipton's Civil War Statue

Since I've spent the whole week featuring news stories about the big G.A.R. encampment held in Lorain back in 1911, it seems fitting to close out the week with another item related to local Civil War veterans.

I've been doing research for months now about the old Civil War statue that used to be in the park across from Lorain City Hall. (I've featured it on this blog before many times, but I've been working on a detailed history of it.)

During my research, I found a great book, Zinc Sculpture in America: 1850-1950 by Carol A. Grissom, and it provides a great history of the use of zinc in statues – including Civil War statues. It turns out that Lorain's long-gone statue was made of zinc, as well as the statue on State Route 511 in Kipton.

Zinc was popular for these kind of statues, according to the book, because it was inexpensive, and it was easy to work with. The various parts of a statue were cast separately and then soldered together. Thus, zinc statues are hollow.

I drove out to Kipton a couple of Sundays ago to see how Kipton's statue was doing. I'm sorry that I don't have any historical information as to how long the monument has been there, but nevertheless it appears to be in great shape (although the statue is leaning back quite a bit).

I was actually pretty impressed that Kipton's monument looked so good, and that the park was so well maintained.

Kipton's monument is mentioned on a great website created by the Cincinnati Historical Society Library that features information on Ohio Civil War monuments. In the section entitled 'Monument Builders' it says:

Two firms built many of the soldier monuments in Ohio. The Monumental Bronze Co. of Bridgeport, CT. specialized in a zinc or white bronze monument. Because the material could be stamped, bases could contain elaborate decorations and inscriptions. The monument at Kipton in Lorain County is a good example. The front of the monument includes the Grand Army of the Republic emblem, a profile of Abraham Lincoln, a list of soldiers, "Lincoln" in large letters and a verse from the poem, "Coat of Blue." The other three sides are similarly embellished. The same zinc soldier can be found in Cardington, Defiance, Grafton, New California, Wauseon, and Windsor.


Here are a few shots of the base of the monument. Click on each so you can see the craftsmanship that went into its construction.

June 19, 1911 Headlines

To close out this look at the goings-on in Lorain one hundred years ago this week, here's one last full page of The Lorain Times Herald, from June 19, 1911.  Originally, I was only going to clip and post the G.A.R. article (about the number of surviving Ohio Civil War veterans) from this page, but some of the other stuff was so interesting that I decided to include the whole page here. (Give it a click so you can read it.)

Mixed in with the genteel wedding announcements and social events are a bizarre mixture of murder, suicide, attempted suicide, a runaway and several buggy accidents. Just another day in 1911 Lorain, I guess.