Feed on Posts or Comments



Feed on Posts or Comments

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.

              [pic]

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

         [pic]  

“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

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download