When I-90 Was Being Built

Most of us from the Lorain area that commute to Cleveland probably rely on I-90 to get us there quickly and safely. After years of driving I-90, we now take it for granted.

That’s why it’s strange to think back to the days when I-90 was slowly being built. Like many interstates, I-90 was built in stages; a section here, a section there. It took years to get it finished. I still remember when it ended at SR Route 83 if you were heading east.

Did you know that when it was still a work in progress, the plan was for it to stretch across western Ohio separate from the Ohio Turnpike (which now bears the I-90 designation)? The divided highway that we now know only as State Route 2 was at one point going to be designated as I-90.

Read all about it in this interesting story (below) that ran in the Lorain Journal on Wednesday, August 10, 1966. It provides a nice progress report on the construction of the highway through Lorain County in the summer of 1966, pointing out that the highway (now known as Route 2) was still being built between Routes 58 and 57.

The officials interviewed in the Journal article were amazingly prophetic about the commercial and residential development that would eventually take place along I-90.

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What Interstate 90 Means to Northern Ohio
Expect Highway to Attract New Industry and Business
By Charles Gray
Staff Writer

The $100 million, 77-mile “Main Street of northern Ohio connecting Sandusky and everything in between with downtown Cleveland will be completed in three years – or almost.

State highway planners say this beautiful highway will not take anything away from the Ohio Turnpike. In fact, they expect it to absorb much of the highway’s overflow traffic.

THE ROAD goes by many names now – Port Clinton By-pass, US 6, Sandusky By-pass, Jackie Mayer Highway, SR 2, Interstate 90 and the Northwest Freeway, the Lakeland Freeway and I-90-SR 2. But eventually, state highway planners expect it to be Interstate 90, which stretches from Boston to Seattle.

The new four-lane, high-speed freeway is now open to traffic from the western edge of Port Clinton to Huron, via the new Sandusky Bay Bridge, the Sandusky By-pass and the Jackie Mayer Highway.

A four-mile stretch through Amherst from Baumhart Road to SR 58 is to open to traffic this fall.

Work is progressing on the six-mile run from SR 58 to SR 57 and eastward from SR 57 to SR 254. Both of these will be open in the fall of 1968, and the route east from SR 254 to SR 611 may open the same time since highway officials hope to let that contract this fall.

The portion from SR 611 to the Cuyahoga County line will be awarded to a successful bidder in the late summer of 1967 and opened to traffic in the fall of 1969.

HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT officials said this week that it is hoped that the scheduling of the projects in Cleveland and the opening dates there will correspond with the timetable for Lorain County.

They complained that the Seven County Transportation Land Use Study has held the route up in greater Cleveland, but the road will be open to traffic downtown Cleveland by late 1969 or early 1970.

The 18-1/2 mile stretch from Baumhart Road to Huron hopefully will gain a high priority to maintain the continuity of the system. These plans are now in detailed design and there is no financing problem.

All municipalities along the route expect a burgeoning of industrial, commercial and residential growth.

Sandusky and the Lake Erie Island area expect a greater number of people, from Toledo on the west to Cleveland on the east to make use of the recreational facilities there.

Bill Evans, publicity director at Cedar Point, hailed the imminent opening of the new route as another fast access to that amusement park and hotel resort on Lake Erie. “And it looks like we’ll have 2 1/4 million visitors at the park this year, compared to 2 million last year,” Evans declared, adding that the Breakers Hotel is averaging 1,750 guests a day.

COMMUNITIES LIKE Huron, Vermilion and Amherst, which lie along the route, are looking forward to growth, particularly commercial, developing in all directions from the limited-access highway’s interchange roads.

Amherst Township, an almost sure bet to be gobbled up by annexation, sees the new route as hastening its demise.

And because of the route, Midway Mall has brought Cleveland shopping facilities within easy reach of Lorain Countians with stores which expect to attract shoppers from Sandusky to Cleveland.

Lorain County Auditor Joseph J. Mitock said the road will increase property value all along its route. “Some acreage considered agricultural has risen in land value from $200 to $800 per acre already and key acreages along the route are selling for as high as $8,000 per acre.”

“THE ROUTE will attract industries,” said Jacob O. Kamm, economist and head of the Cleveland Quarries at South Amherst. “Lorain County is already one of the fastest growing counties in Ohio and the road will make it grow even faster.

“Industries like to locate near freeways where they can get rapid delivery for their products and fast access for their employees.

“There will be less and less agriculture in the county and more and more homes and industries. There’s no doubt it will increase land values,” he added.

In Avon, Mayor Nicholas T. Mitock said “there is going to be a tremendous change for us here. This route will cut the driving time down between here and Cleveland from 45 minutes to 15 minutes. They’ll be looking here for homesites.”

MITOCK SAID Avon is on the throres of “literally exploding,” and that he is receiving daily inquiries from industries following the announcement of Norfolk and Western Railroad of plans to lease land there for an industrial park.

“We’re going to commit ourselves for sewers and water for the whole city,” he added.

The various political subdivisions along the route are now in the process of creating Motor Service Districts to control commercial growth at the road’s intersections.

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A smaller article accompanied the article above on that same front page of August 10, 1966. This article tackled the issues associated with the designation of the highway as I-90.

What’s the Real Name?

WHAT’S THE name of the new freeway system which is being developed in separate stretches from Sandusky to Cleveland?

Some present designations of the route:

The Port Clinton By-pass, U.S. 6, Sandusky By-pass, Jackie Mayer Highway, SR 254, Relocated SR 2, Interstate 90 and the Northwest Freeway, the Lakeland Freeway and I-90 SR 2.

Within 10 years the route will be designated as I-90, highway officials predicted last week.

C. F. Crissinger, assistant division engineer for the Ohio Department of Highways at Ashland, told The Journal that the designation of the route as I-90 is a predictable eventuality, and that after the road is completed, a public hearing will be held to formally designate it.

Interstate 90 presently comes into Ohio from the west on the Ohio Turnpike and runs to SR 57 at Lorain and Elyria. From there it is designated already for the new freeway, so far uncompleted into Cleveland.

Crissinger added that the I-90 designation will not be made until the bonds are paid off on the Ohio Turnpike.

Officials of that road said today that although the maximum maturity date of the $326 million worth of bonds issued in 1942 for construction of that super road is 1992, that if present rate of usage continues uninterrupted, the bonds may be paid off by 1979 or 1980.

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As we know now, the western segments of the highway that were mentioned above – the Port Clinton By-pass, U.S. 6, Sandusky By-pass, Jackie Mayer Highway – are not part of I-90 today. Now, as then, I-90 comes into our area from the west as part of the Ohio Turnpike, and only joins up with Route 2 east of the Route 57 interchange.

Elyria Bypass Opens – November 23, 1960

Sixty years ago last month, the Elyria Bypass officially opened.

As the article below (which ran in the Journal on November 23, 1960) notes, “The Northeast Bypass, connecting Rt. 57 to Cleveland St. (Rt. 20) and skirting the business sector, was officially opened at 11:30 a.m. today.”

I didn’t know it was called the Northeast Bypass. Maybe the name just didn’t stick (just as nobody thinks of State Route 2 though our area as the Northwest Freeway, one of the proposed names for it).

Anyway, the Journal article written by Ray Flack humorously relates how he and a friend got a sneak preview of the Bypass on the day before, sneaking on at the Gulf Road intersection and going for a joy ride. It’s a fun read.

(I wrote about the July 1963 completion of the extension of the bypass from Rt. 20 down to Rt. 10 back here.)

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And for those of you (like Alan) that are interested in UFOs, there’s a story on the page above about “a white glow in eastern skies over much of the Midwest.” The short article says that it was identified by the Detroit Weather Bureau as "a shower of tin foil dropped by planes in a test of radar reception.”

Uh-huh. 

Route 254: Where Will It End?

A few weeks ago, there was local news coverage (here) about an effort to extend Route 254 from where it currently ends at Route 57 all the way west to Route 58. The reason behind the proposal is that it would eliminate some of the confusion created by the various names of the currently unnumbered highway as it passes through two townships on its way west to Amherst.

Strangely, no one interviewed for the newspaper article mentioned that for decades, that 4.4 mile stretch of road was Route 254, before its terminus was later pushed east to Route 57. I’m sure many readers were scratching their head over that.

When did the state highway officials move the terminus to Route 57? I’m guessing that the change occurred in the 1990s, although I don’t have the maps to prove it. I can’t remember the reasoning either; I think the state was trying to save money and pass along the road’s maintenance to the county. Either that, or resistance to widening the road (it’s pretty narrow west of South Broadway) made it rather deficient as a major state highway.

Here’s an early 1960s Arrow City Map (dating from before Route 2 was built) clearly showing Route 254 extending to Leavitt Road (Route 58).

And here's a wider view of the map. These vintage maps are always fun to look at!

Interestingly, when the current limited access highway Route 2 was under construction, for a while no one knew what it was going to be called. I posted a 1966 article about this confusion here.

One of the possible designations for the highway mentioned in the article – in addition to the rather cool-sounding "Northwest Freeway” – was none other than Route 254.

It probably would have been better if it had been designated Route 254. Calling it Route 2 destroyed the old, comfortable “6 & 2” name for the local lakefront road.

Misleading S. R. 2 Markers – March 24, 1969

When the new, limited access State Route 2 was being built just south of Lorain in the 1960s, there was a lot of confusion.

I’ve done a few posts in which it was noted that the highway's numbering hadn’t been resolved yet. Would it be I-90? State Route 2? State Route 254? For a while it appeared that the highway was going to be named the Northwest Freeway.

Then there was the issue of the fact that the new highway – whatever it was going to be called – was being built in stages. (This post dealt with when the highway finally extended past Baumhart Road to State Route 61 in Berlin Heights in 1975.)

And then there was the question of signage. Today’s blog post deals with the observation that in the early days of the highway, signs were sometimes more optimistic than accurate.

The photo and caption below appeared in the Lorain Journal on March 24, 1969.

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Speaking of signs, as I commute to work each day on Route 2 to Cleveland, I’m always a little amused when I see the large sign for “Lorain Ferry” when I approach the Route 611 exit. Besides the fact that you are well past Lorain when you reach that exit, what ferry is the sign referring to? 

I'm assuming that the sign is promoting the occasional special excursion Jet Express trips from Lorain to a Cleveland Browns game.  But if I was a tourist and saw that sign, I’d think it meant a ferry to the Islands, with regularly scheduled trips like those out of Port Clinton.

Late 1960s Champion Map of W. Lorain County

Yesterday I mentioned how for many years, the new Route 2 freeway ended at Baumhart Road. Here's a page from a Champion Map Atlas map showing that area and much of the northwest portion of Lorain County.

It's a lot of fun to get lost in these old maps. This one includes some of my favorite areas, including Route 6 west of the undercut.

Unfortunately, the map has no copyright date. However, you can still kind of get a rough idea of the time period in which it was printed.

It has a zip code listing in the back, so that puts it after 1963. The map also has the Penn Central Railroad tracks on it, so that puts it at least around 1968, since that is when the New York Central and the Pennsylvania Railroads merged. Strangely, it still includes Black River Township, which ceased to exist as of August 1964 after its remaining portion was annexed to Lorain.

Nevertheless it looks like a late 1960s map, even if some out-of-date elements were retained from earlier versions. (By the way, I had to scan the map in sections, so there's a bit of a seam in the middle of it.)

The map shows why Cooper-Foster Park Road jogs around the way it does today. Another interesting element of the map include the old bypassed stretch of Lake Road shown winding its way through the Beaver Park area. The old roadbed is still there today (most of it, anyway) but you can't drive it. (Several years ago, I tried to drive down into Beaver Park on the old Lake Road alignment, but a nearby resident – anticipating my intentions – quickly cut me off on foot.)