Autumn Foliage 2017

It’s been a tradition here on the blog over the years to post shots of colorful autumn foliage around Lorain County. So I made an effort over the weekend to try and capture some with my camera.

The color has recently become quite dazzling in a lot of places. It may end up being one of the best falls in a long time.

I’d recently been admiring the forest colors in James Day Park from Colorado Avenue, so I headed down there on Saturday afternoon. The sun didn’t last long, but it was enough for me to get some shots (below).

By George some of these look reminiscent of the vintage Ideals shots I posted a few days ago.

There’s color all over the county and surrounding areas, so be sure and head out soon and enjoy it if you can. Even on gloomy Sunday afternoon, the autumn display was still enjoyable.

A Mill Hollow parking lot

Shady Lake Drive in Vermilion

The view from Route 83 in Avon

Muntz TV Ad – November 18, 1957

Although my parents’ first television set was a Philco (which I wrote about here), another popular choice at the time was a Muntz TV. That’s the brand being touted in the above ad for Lorain TV Stores, which ran on the back page of the Lorain Journal (in with the TV listings, naturally) on November 18, 1957 – 60 years ago this month.

I’d seen these ads with the kooky advertising mascot wearing a Napoleon hat and long johns many times while looking at old Journal microfilm. The mascot was a caricature of Earl “Madman” Muntz. The American businessman and entrepreneur was initially known as a Southern California used car dealer who employed a variety of flamboyant promotional efforts in his pioneering television commercials. His fame grew as he produced and sold the Muntz TV, an early affordable television, as well as the Muntz Jet, one of the first American sports cars. He later branched into even more consumer electronics, including the Muntz Stereo-Pak, a four-track car stereo.

You can read more about “Madman” Muntz here.

But getting back to Lorain.

Ads for Muntz TV first appeared in the Lorain telephone book in 1955, when the local sales and service center was located at 1550 Broadway. Here's that first ad (below).

By the time of the 1956 book, Muntz TV Sales and Service was listed at 1125 North Ridge Road East (which is where Ted’s Floors is today).

In the 1957 directory, the Muntz TV store advertised as “Lorain County’s only factory-authorized sales and service center" was at 1320 Broadway.

Here's the 1960 Lorain Telephone directory ad. It was quite big and took up half the page.

Muntz TV remained at 1320 Broadway until the early 1960s, when a move was made to 1352 Broadway. The store then jumped around some more, including moves to 433 Broadway in the late 1960s, 37010 Detroit in Avon in the early 70s, and finally to 824 E. Erie in Lorain. The listing faded to black as of the 1975 edition.

Autumn Foliage Circa 1961

It’s been a somewhat disappointing fall when it comes to colorful foliage around Lorain County, although it has improved somewhat of late. Unfortunately, the unusually warm weather has conspired to delay or dilute the usual showcase of color.

Despite heading out every Sunday with my camera to capture some colorful vistas, I’ve found that very few of my shots are blog-worthy. I’ll keep trying.

But in the meantime, we can still enjoy some autumn color here on the blog – from the the pages of my dogeared copy of the September 1961 edition of Ideals magazine.

Each Ideals magazine contained a variety of seasonal poems, stories, articles, illustrations and short items designed to trigger feelings of nostalgia and simpler times. The September 1961 issue featured the thought-provoking page below.

To visit a whole Pinterest page devoted to Ideals magazine, click here.

Kansas Avenue A&P Ad – Nov. 4, 1957

I’ve written a few times about Lorain’s A&P stores on this blog, including the opening of the one at the Shoreway Shopping Center in 1959, and the one in the Lorain Plaza that arrived in 1960.

Well, here’s an ad for the store that predated both of them, the Kansas Avenue store. The ad – which ran in the Lorain Journal on November 4, 1957 – thanked the community for its support of the new store.

There’s plenty of goodies offered as prizes as part of the big celebration, including a Schwinn bike, a Bell & Howell movie camera and projector, a mink stole, an Emerson TV console and an Edsel Pacer.

I love the illustrations of the smartly-dressed female shoppers at the top of the ad. I suppose a similar ad today would depict mostly men, since we have regained our role as hunter/gatherers and seemingly do most of the shopping.

Asphalt Ad – Nov. 4, 1957

I had to laugh when I saw this ad promoting the use of asphalt sponsored by the Ohio Road Improvement Company, a Columbus-based road resurfacing firm. The hilarious cartoon depicts an angry taxpayer chasing a sweating, unsavory government character (with greenbacks stuffed in his pockets) who apparently didn’t specify asphalt in a road contract. Somehow a road with poured concrete construction is seen as wasteful.

The ad ran in the Lorain Journal on November 4, 1957 – 60 years ago this week.

The cartoon is especially funny to me because it reminded me of my own anger with the City of Lorain over the time it has taken to resurface West Erie and East Erie Avenues with "black, velvety asphalt."

Woolworth’s Halloween Ad – Oct. 1963

Well, it’s Halloween – so here’s one last post dealing with vintage trick-or-treat costumes.

Above is what Woolworth’s was offering Lorainites in an ad that ran in the Lorain Journal on October 24, 1963. The ad has a nice layout featuring a prominent Frankenstein’s monster. (Like most kids, we always thought the monster itself was called Frankenstein).

There aren’t too many TV-related costumes in this ad, surprisingly.

There’s a George Jetson costume; I wonder how many little boys thought, “Gee, I think I’ll go as that much-abused, hapless button-pusher from the future who seems to get fired by Mr. Spacely in every episode?”

If you look closely at the George Jetson outfit, it looks like something Evel Kneivel would wear.

Next to George is a Ben Cooper skeleton costume featuring a Magic-Glo mask that glowed in the dark.

And here’s the ever-popular Cleopatra with a costume that also glowed in the dark. It’s on Ebay right now if you’re interested.

There’s also a Dick Tracy costume with a “Moving Mouth Mask.” That’s one gimmick that I don’t remember.

It’s kind of amusing when you realize that his mouth didn’t move too much in the low budget Dick Tracy Show made-for-TV cartoons (which we watched like everyone else). His mouth was deliberately hidden when he was talking on his two-way wristwatch radio – to save money animating it!

Anyway, Happy Halloween!

City Bank Halloween Ad – Oct. 28, 1967

You can tell that the hit TV show Bewitched had popularized the idea of an sexy witch, because that's what you get in this ad for City Bank, which would be considered somewhat sexist today. Even the headline suggests a connection with the TV series.

The ad ran in the Lorain Journal on October 28, 1967 – forty years ago.

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City Bank had an interesting history and an impressive group of founders. As noted in an article in the June 21, 1955 Lorain Journal, “When the City Bank Co. was organized in South Lorain on March 2, 1899, little did the citizens here realize that the names of the organizers would in later years read like a Blue Book roster and that many of the original founders would catapult into the national spotlight in various fields of endeavors.

“Among those responsible for organizing the City Bank were A. J. Moxham, president of the Johnson Steel Company which later became the National Tube Co., Lorain Division; Pierre S. DuPont, president of the Sheffield Land Co. and later head of the great E. I. DuPont De Nemours’ extensive interests; F. A. Smythe, who was associated with the Sheffield Land Co. and later was for many years head of the Thew Shovel Co.; Judge Elbert H. Gary, chairman of the board of U. S. Steel Corporation; H. C. Ryding, superintendent  of the rolling mills here who later became head of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railway Co.; Col. J. J. Sullivan, prominent banker and businessman in Cleveland; Tom L. Johnson, founder of the Johnson Steel Company, one of the nation’s leading steel railway men and famous mayor of Cleveland.

“The bank, first known as the South Lorain Savings Co., became the first financial institution in the steel plant area. It was not until Dec. 5, 1905 that the bank changed its name to the City Bank Co.

“The first banking office was opened in the Steel Plant Block across from the steel company general office on 10th Avenue, now East 28th. Every evening, after balancing, the cash would be carried across the street to the Johnson Co. cashier’s office for safekeeping overnight and then carried to the bank each morning.

“A branch bank was opened at the Homewood Shopping Center on March 25, 1954.”

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City Bank lasted until April 1984, when its shareholders voted to accept a proposed merger with Central Trust Company of Northern Ohio.

Robert Pelander, president of City Bank for nearly 40 years, passed away in November 2011.