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Uncategorized [edit this]Loraine Ritchey on 11 Mar 2007 10:17 pm
Do You Deja Vu? Seven
or THE BEST LAID PLANS………
[pic]Tudor Times
Plans, speculation, development all have made news in Lorain in the past few months. This past weekend more news on the plans and development in the county have again made news “through” from the Chronicle Telegram and then also in the Chronicle “County says Quarry Deal may not be dead” and from the Morning Journal “Lorain County’s Quarry awaits purpose”
This may be Lorain County this week but Lorain and Lorain County seem to have their share of “deals” and speculation over the years.
In 1815 you could buy an acre (including Lake Front) for $3.25 per acre but just 20 years later due to land speculation regarding the coming railroad, was going for $1,000.00 an acre.
The Elyria Republican (N.B. Gates) states that in 1836 State Engineer Dodge came in from Coshocton “As the engineers came down real estate went up …. All the Black River clerical force was again employed writing land contracts…. We all dabbled in city lots more or less, and nearly everybody in Black River and a good many in Elyria got rich - on paper- in a very short time. H.C Stevens claimed to be worth half a million- in fact we were all rich”
And then the bottom fell out
The Ohio Railroad scheme resulted in total failure for this community. Such was the shame attached to such speculation that the people wished to revert back to the name of Black River and to thereby blot from record and memory the event.
Major Hammond wrote in the Black River Commercial “It (Charleston) died without a struggle. Its hotels were practically closed, its merchants departed, its warehouse were almost given away to farmers for barns and fences, and even its corporate organization was abandoned; its name blotted out by common consent, and its memory placed in the category of western paper city failures”
Could this have been the reason of the Elyria/Lorain less than loving relationship? Elyria 10 years younger than the settlement on the Black River had already managed to gain the perks of being the County Seat 1823, although John S. Reid did manage to become one of the first three to hold a County Commissioners seat.
1. A good many in Elyria got burned when the “paper city failure” caused Charleston Village such shame.
“We all dabbled in city lots more or less, and nearly everybody in Black River and a good many in Elyria got rich - on paper- in a very short time
2. Next came the fact that although Charleston Village “died aborning” due to the railroad by passing the community - it went to Elyria and with it the wealth .
Unable to offer pecuniary inducements for a lake shore route Charleston saw in her adversity , only eight miles distant, Elyria with a railroad assured, wealth and many natural advantages starting off in a manner indicative of a prosperous future. History of Lorain County page 213
The settlement on the Black River continued to have the ups and downs. Elyria gained , then Lorain , Lorain lost, Elyria gained, a see saw effect through the decades and centuries to more recent accounts of Midway Mall shunned in Lorain turned to Elyria and caused the demise of a bustle downtown Lorain. The tale of two cities born out of a wilderness to meet the needs of a young country seemingly have a love /hate relationship. Have the disgruntled developers of the past had an effect on the thinking of today in these two communities.
Lorain’s first major industry not based on transportation was the Haydenville Brass Works from Haydenville Mass. which relocated in Lorain. The requirements for housing this immense industry consisted of two city blocks between present day Broadway and Elyria Avenue from 18th to 20th street..To house the advance guard of their employees, ten pretentious double brick houses were erected which are commonly known as Brick Row. Central Lorain became a mecca for real estate operators led by Mr. Hogan and Wm A Braman of ELYRIA…. JJ Meyer
According to Mr. Meyer the land speculation in the area caused Mr. Hogan and Barman to aggregate 550 lots etc.- on the parcel of land west 20 and 21st which was erected a large three story frame building designed for a sanitarium , whose water oozing from a nearby spring ( back to the underground waters again)was proclaimed a cure for what ails you.” This was another enterprise which “died a borning”.
In 1893 an “Industrial Depression” hit Lorain
• Brass Works employees work for over two months with no pay. The company is in financial difficulty.
• The Herald newspaper is skeptical about the walkout staged by Brass Works employees on June 30, 1893. The only reason the men gave for the strike was that they had had no pay for two months. The Herald thought that the walkout showed a lack of consideration by the men for their employer.
• The National Vapor Stove Works closes in August. (They are the 2nd victims of the Panic of 1893).
• The industrial depression hits Lorain with 400 unemployed at the closing of the Brass Works; public work is created at $1 a day for workers paving city streets.
• The Herald reports that the Lorain Street Railway Company horse car line filed a petition for receivership. (The company at that time owned four street cars and horses, a mile and a half of tracks).
And yet somehow this settlement on the Black River manages to dust itself off and those that care bring her back , sometimes it was due to the few that stayed, sometimes it was due to philanthropy of her wealthier citizens , fate a need for transport of food and commodities to go west- Lorain waterfront access saved her time and again. And on a least one occasion it was due to the Amherst Quarries, those same quarries that have been once again in our media this last few months.
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It was hoped that the new “development” at the site of the old quarries would once again bode well for Lorain County and Lorain -Deja Vu?
In 1871 there were but 400 people left in this settlement -times were hard but the City of Chicago in the fall of 1871 had a terrible fire and in Charleston (Lorain) the effects of that tragedy were seen and felt
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“Dense clouds of smoke hovered over this vicinity, completely obscuring the sun for several days following the fire, a fact fresh in the minds of some now living among us.”JJ Meyer 1926
It was the rehabbing of Chicago which stimulated the stone industry at Amherst Quarry and as a result created
“Additional demand for Lorain’s vessel tonnage. The success and volume of this enterprise rested on cheap transportation, which was provided by constructing a railroad from the quarries to Oak Point and a stone landing pier projecting into the lake, from which to transfer stone from tiny cars into vessels Chicago bound.”JJ Meyer
[pic]
Two hundred years since Nathan Perry Jr. decided on a business venture at the mouth of the Black River. Two hundred years and water still plays a significant hope for this community that still struggles and kicks against economic adversity but has prevailed thanks to her people!
[pic]BRB Logo
Black River Bicentennial August 25th/26th 2007
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