B & O House Saloon

In the late 1890s the B & O House was a saloon that was located near the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad’s freight office and roundhouse on Sandusky’s waterfront on East Water Street. Mrs. Harold Strong donated this photograph to the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center. Mrs. Strong’s grandfather, Joseph Steiger, was the proprietor of the B & O House in 1897. He and his wife Elizabeth can be seen holding their infant daughter Eva in the picture below. Eva Catherine Steiger Hall was the mother of Mrs. Strong.

Some of the bar’s customers are enjoying a beverage in front of the saloon.

In early December of 1898, the B & O House was quarantined briefly when little Eva and another young lady came down with smallpox. By December 28, 1898, an article in the Sandusky Star reported that the last patient had recovered from smallpox and the quarantine was lifted. The April 9, 1977 issue of the Sandusky Register featured a column in which Karl Kurtz shared details of an interview he had with Mrs. Harold Strong. She stated that after leaving the B & O House, her grandparents had another saloon at the southeast corner of Milan Road and East Perkins Avenue, known as Steiger’s Sample Room. The motto of that business was: “First Stop Out & Last Stop Inn.” Prohibition eventually forced the Steigers to turn the business from a saloon into a grocery store. Mr. and Mrs. Strong went on to operate that grocery store for a time.

Visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center to view this photograph, and see hundreds of other vintage pictures from Erie County and Sandusky’s past.