Wellington Man Strikes Gold – October 1949 Part 2

So how did the media report the tale of R. A. Cordray’s discovered of $30,000 in gold certificates hidden in a brick wall in his Wellington home?

Thanks to the online resources of newspapers.com, it’s evident that the story appeared all over the country. Here’s how it was reported in the Santa Cruz Sentinel on October 19, 1949. (The same U.P. story was also found in the Detroit Free Press and the Pittsburg Press.)

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Finds $30,000 in Gold Notes In Basement

Wellington, O., Oct. 19 (U.P.) Richard A. Cordray, 60-year-old sanitary engineer for Wellington Village, has found more than $30,000 in gold notes in the basement of his home, he said yesterday. 

Cordray said he stumbled onto the money which was hidden in a cast iron box encased in a brick wall. He did not say how he first discovered the hiding place of the money, but he said he "picked up an eight-pound sledge and hit the wall an awful whack. My hand hurt for five days.” 

When the dust cleared the box was in full view. Cordray said it held between $30,000 and $35,000 and that since rumors of the find started half a dozen persons have laid claim to it. 

I hope they find the owner," he said, "but if it's mine I'll take what the government leaves me and do good with it. Coffins don't have safety deposit boxes.” 

Cordray has owned the three-story mansion-like house where he found the money since 1934. It was built in the 1890's by G. H. (Deacon) Palmer, a lumber company executive and owner of the Wellington Bending Works.

Palmer died in the house after a few years and it was bought by Charles Ross, described by the villagers as an ''eccentric and a plunger." Ross reportedly is dead now and his wife is believed still living in the Cleveland area.

A series of renters occupied the place until 1933 and it was vacant until Cordray bought it.

Charles Ford Sr., chairman of the board of the Wellington First National bank, said, “It is impossible that Palmer hid the money. I knew both of the former owners and knew all of Palmer's financial dealings. Charlie Ross was erratic and eccentric and if anyone hid the money there, he did.”

Internal revenue officers in Cleveland said the government probably would claim about half the money in income taxes.

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By the way, a “plunger” is defined as "a person who gambles or spends money recklessly.”

Closer to home, here is the story as it appeared in the Lorain Journal (below). The treasure-hunter hijinks that took place after the discovery are fairly amusing.

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Wellington Man Strikes Gold
Begins to Feel Sorry He Found $30,000

By Staff Correspondent
WELLINGTON – Richard Cordray’s troubles may have just begun, if he has to follow his intention to hire an attorney to determine his legal rights to about $30,000 in gold certificates he found in his basement wall.

Cordray stumbled upon the cache in the basement of his 50-year-old home at 250 Prospect-st, while tearing out a partition to make room for a gas furnace. While hitting the brick wall with a sledge hammer he brought to light an iron box containing the gold notes.

Cordray, who is sanitary engineer of the village, swore an assistant Rollin West, a welder to secrecy when the find occurred about a week ago. But the secret leaked out and soon the whole town was buzzing with rumors.

Several Lay Claim to Hoard
Already several persons including a neighbor and a client of the Wellington First National bank, have laid claim to the hoard. Cordray claims he will not think of spending it until he is sure he is owner of the amount. Even then about half of it would be needed to pay the federal tax.

The house, a 16-room brick mansion, was built in 1894 by G. H. Palmer. Cordray purchased the home in 1934 from Charles Ross, who was described as “an eccentric and a plunger.” Both Palmer and Ross are now dead, altho Ross is supposed to have a son who operated a poultry farm for several years, near Elyria.

Village fathers have been unable to find a trace of the younger Ross. Palmer has two sons, one of St. Petersburg, Fla., and the other in Long Beach, Calif.

Several persons have attempted to gain entrance to Cordray’s basement by posing as furnace inspectors and estate agents, to continue the search for more of the cached notes.

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Well, I checked the Journal for a follow-up story but apparently it took a while to play out in the courts as there were no articles in the following weeks. However, Ernie Henes revealed the outcome in his story about the gold certificates in Looking Back on Lorain County.

Writing about the treasure house, Henes wrote, “Its owners and renters who occupied it laid claim to the loot but their claims proved unfounded and Cordray was able to redeem the certificates and keep the money."

The house today
(Courtesy Lorain County Auditor)

Wellington Man Strikes Gold – October 1949 Part 1

The “treasure house” at 250 Prospect Street in Wellington
as it looked in October 1949 (Courtesy www.wellington.lib.oh.us)

While reading Looking Back on Lorain County by Ernie Henes recently, I found an interesting tale of hidden treasure in Wellington dating from October 1949.

As described by Mr. Henes, “Announcement of the discovery of a hidden cache of $30,000 in gold certificates in a brick wall of his Prospect Street residence in October 1949 by Wellington Sanitary Engineer R. A. Cordray brought instantaneous publicity to him and the community. Throngs of reporters and cameramen arrived and within 24 hours, the story of the unusual find had made its way across the country.”

1882 Gold Certificate
(Courtesy WikiMedia)

According to Wikipedia, gold certificates were used from 1863 to 1933 as a form of paper currency. The certificates represented actual gold coinage.

How did Cordray discover the gold certificates?

As Henes related, “The certificates were found when Cordray and his helper, Rollie Smith were installing a gas heater in the basement. They tore away part of an old wall and found a metal box containing the gold certificates – certificates that had been recalled in the early 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.”

Cordray’s home had an interesting past. Henes stated, “The 16-room house was built in 1895 by B. G. Palmer, a Wellington industrialist. It had changed hands several times.”

(Other online sources state that the name of the Wellington businessman was G. H. Palmer.)

Tomorrow we’ll examine the October 1949 media coverage, and find out if Cordray was able to keep his loot.

1976 Admiral King vs Elyria Football Program

Well, it’s Friday, so that means it’s time for high school football – and also a good time to post the cover of an old Admiral King vs Elyria Football program that I saved from my senior year.

It’s from October 8, 1976 – 40 years ago! Hard to believe it’s been that long.

The art on these programs (which were undoubtedly used by many high schools) is quite nice. This painting is signed by Rick MacDonald, yet another unsung artist who probably churned these out regularly.

Inside the program are the usual typeset ads for local companies, but also some distinctive artwork and logos of many businesses and organizations that you might remember.

Here’s an ample sample of these ads.

Today this printing business is known as SCP Printer Center
and has been run by Alan and Debbie McCartney since 2001

Type in ‘Kucirek’ in my blog’s search box and it will bring up
quite a few posts about the Kucirek family’s businesses.

It’s our old pal Forest City Max again, a reccurring topic on this blog!

I took this bus to work in Cleveland a few times when I lived
at the Lorain Overlook. It went right by the apartment on Route 6.

My family never really bought into the name "Kenny King’s."
It was always, “How about some Colonel Sanders tonight?"

I always think of a circus when I see this logo.

My parents bought a lot of Cutlasses from Milad’s.

As you can see, Edwards has one of those repurposed Canada Dry signs that I wrote about here.

Dr. B. W. Donaldson’s Lake Breeze Memories – Part 4

The front view of Lake Breeze House during its heyday of the 1880s

In his Thoughts on Lorain, Ohio, Dr. B. W. Donaldson included some firsthand reminisces about spending summer on the grounds of the former Lake Breeze House. The old hotel and cottages were located on the property that Mr. D. D. Lewis purchased, and served as accommodations for the Lewis family and some of their summer guests – including the Donaldson family.

As he explained, “Prior to 1900, Mr. D. D. Lewis, a superintendent of the Johnson Steel Company had purchased a strip of land one mile east of Lorain city limits. It was called Lake Breeze, and was on the lakefront. It had a hotel, dance hall, barn and three or four cottages. A group of families from Elyria leased the property for a few years consecutively.”

Rear view of Lake Breeze House

Dr. Donaldson has pleasant memories of staying at Lake Breeze during the summer. He wrote, “We had much fun at Lake Breeze.

“Four or five of the men and boys played either mandolins or guitars, so we frequently had concerts or jam sessions. I have never forgotten a parody that I learned on “Down On The Farm” and others as well.

"One night after the ladies had prepared a lunch, some of the single men found the cake and hid it on the roof of one of the cottages.

“Later on, to get even, the women nailed the men’s shoes to the floor of the tent.” The women used the excuse that a storm was coming and they were just making sure that the shoes didn’t blow away.

The cottages at Lake Breeze House

The dance hall at Lake Breeze House was also the subject of one of the stories. Dr. Donaldson wrote, “Several times dances were held in the old dance hall after we had spent days sweeping and cleaning out the hall. It was full of spider’s webs and dead lake flies.

“We decorated it with streamers and Japanese lanterns. Guests came from both Elyria and Lorain.”

How did the summer vacationers staying in the cottages get water to bathe? Dr. Donaldson explained their unique solution. "Among the inconveniences was a dearth of water for cleaning purposes. The men planned a system whereby we would not have to carry pails of water from the lake.

“Over some weekends we all helped to make a square crib, which we towed out and filled with large rocks that were rafted to it. A drum was placed on the bank, and spiked in the ground. A cable was put underwater from the drum to the crib. We could then attach a bucket to the cable and by means of a handle on the drum, we could let the bucket down into the lake.

“When it filled we could draw it up. There was a standing tank piped to the hotel, but no running water in the cottages. It was all rather crude, but we had a wonderful time.”

The gang sometimes ventured out into the surrounding area for entertainment. As Dr. Donaldson noted, “There were occasional trips to the lakefront at the river’s mouth. Picnics were held at Glenn’s Beach or the island in back of the steel plant, which was reached by launch, and provided swimming and dancing.

“We did not have a fine park on the lakefront except at Randall’s on the east side, which was privately owned and it also had a few cottages.”

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If you're interested, you can read an in-depth history of Lake Breeze House courtesy of Dr. Charles E. "Eddie" Herdendorf and the Sheffield Village Historical Society. Click here for a downloadable edition of the Summer/Fall 2013 issue of the Village Pioneer. It's also chock full of fantastic photos and information about the history of Lake Breeze Road that you won't find anywhere else.

There's also a good history of Lake Breeze House on Drew Penfield's Lake Shore Rail Maps website, including a history of Sheffield Lake as it relates to the Lake Shore Electric Railway.

All photos on this post are reproduced courtesy of the Lorain Historical Society. 

Dr. B. W. Donaldson’s Lake Breeze Memories – Part 3

I went back to Dr. B. W. Donaldson’s book of Lorain reminisces to see if I overlooked anything in his Lake Breeze memories that might be of interest.

One thing I did find was an explanation of how a group of steel mill executives could spend the summer in Sheffield Lake enjoying the cool lake breezes when they were still working at the mill in South Lorain. Wouldn’t that be rather inconvenient for them to get to work?

Donaldson points out how it actually was a fairly short commute to work for the men, since the steel mill was just across the Black River.

Donaldson and other boys used to drive the steel men to work in a wagon. He wrote, “Each weekday one of the boys would drive up Lake Breeze Road, open gates and drive through fields to the river, to be met there by a man from the steel works who rowed the officials across to the steel works.

“He took them across the river to the back yards of the mill. We also met them about four thirty in the afternoon for the return trip.”

On at least one of these trips, there was a bit of excitement.

Donaldson wrote, “One morning on our way to the river with the men going to the mill, the horse shied. We saw ahead of us across the lane the largest snake that I have ever seen, outside of a snake pit in the zoo. It stretched clear across the roadway.

“We all jumped out of the wagon and hunted clubs, but by the time we found some stones and sticks, the big snake had disappeared.”

Snakes were apparently common in the early days of the mill.

“When the tube mills were being constructed,” wrote Donaldson, “a den of snakes was unearthed near the river, while blasting was going on. The men who saw them claimed that beside a score killed, snakes ran in every direction.

“The whole district around South Lorain was swampy and ideal for snakes, but they disappeared as the town grew and the mill was built."

Dr. B. W. Donaldson’s Lake Breeze Memories – Part 2

I got a little excited when I read Dr. Donaldson’s recollections of Lake Breeze and his description of where his family, along with several other steel company executives, spent the summer months.

That’s because this information may have solved a little mystery that I’ve been too busy to research.

You might recall in my post yesterday that Dr. Donaldson mentioned that Mr. Max Suppes, General Manager of the Johnson Company, built his summer home at Lake Breeze.

Donaldson also noted, “Just east of his cottage was a tract of land with an old hotel, four cottages and a dance hall on the lakeside of the dirt road leading to Cleveland.

“Mr. D. D. Lewis, a Superintendent of the Johnson Company, purchased this property."

We know from a November 1903 new item in the Elyria Reporter that the property that Mr. Lewis purchased was the old Lake Breeze House.

In his reminisces, Donaldson mentions how various executives, including one (Matthew Smith) that at one time was associated with A&P, spent their summers on the former Lake Breeze House property.

Well, reading about these executives enjoying their summers at Lake Breeze reminded me of something.

Remember my post about the former Jordan property in Sheffield Lake, and Gretchen, who was trying to research it?

Gretchen told me that the property consisted of a big house (below) with 17 rooms,  a water tower, a tennis court and stables.

She also told me that she had been told by someone who had once lived in the house decades ago that it had been "a summer vacation place for a soup company executives.”

Max Suppes

Could it be that instead of soup executives, it was an executive named Suppes?

The location of the house – if it was indeed the summer home of Suppes – seems to be correct. The “tract of land with an old hotel” was said to be just east of Suppes’ cottage – and the Lake Shore House was just east of the former Jordan property. Plus, if you zero up your odometer at Lake Breeze heading east, the Jordan property is exactly at 0.3 miles (with the Lake Breeze House said to have been located 0.4 miles from Lake Breeze Road).

So what does all this mean? I can’t draw any sort of concrete conclusion but there is a chance that the former Jordan house was once the summer home of Max Suppes. Hopefully as time goes on more research can be done to confirm this.

Wouldn’t that be souper?

Dr. B. W. Donaldson’s Lake Breeze Memories – Part 1

I recently found a great resource at the library that I hadn’t run across before, a book entitled Thoughts on Lorain, Ohio: The Dr. B. W. Donaldson Papers (1951). The book is a collection of Lorain reminisces of B. W. Donaldson, whose father was an executive with the Johnson Steel Company.

Dr. Donaldson devotes a chapter to Lake Breeze, which at one time was the name for a small, lakefront resort area of Sheffield Lake located at the northern terminus of the road with the same name. There was even a hotel, the Lake Breeze House, from the 1870s until the early 1900s.

What was interesting to me was Dr. Donaldson’s firsthand description of the resort area's connection to Lorain’s early steel plant executives.

He wrote, “On the east and by the lake shore of the lake and outside of the city limits was a small place known as Lake Breeze. It was so named because of a road by that name running south in Sheffield township.

“Mr. Max Suppes, General Manager of the Johnson Company, built his summer home there, while retaining his residence on East Bridge Street in Elyria.

“Just east of his cottage was a tract of land with an old hotel, four cottages and a dance hall on the lakeside of the dirt road leading to Cleveland. On the opposite side of the road were an old barn and some neglected fields with overgrown fence rows.

“Mr. D. D. Lewis, a Superintendent of the Johnson Company, purchased this property. Mr. Charles Ely, Mr. Suppes, Mr. Harry Davies, and their families, together with ours and all then living in Elyria, rented this place from Mr. Lewis for the summer months and each took a cottage, while the Lewis family lived in the hotel. Caretakers were hired to furnish the meals in the hotel and to care for the horses and grounds.

“The second year was two Cleveland families with us, the Schaeffers, who owned coal yards in Cleveland, and the Matthew Smiths, a tea merchant and later the head of a chain of stores, the Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company.

“Also several young men lived in the hotel or in a tent at different times. These included Mr. Fred Waterman, Chief Engineer and later President of National Tube, Mr. Lester Corthell, one of the first Johnson Company engineers, who married Miss Opfer and in time became head of Opfer and Company Dry Goods, and Mr. F. R. Buchanan, also one of the first engineers.”

Next: A mystery solved?