Sandusky, the "Ideal Home City"

In the 1912-1913 Sandusky City Directory, Conrad Boehm was listed as a confectioner at 103 Columbus Avenue, in the West House hotel in downtown Sandusky (the present site of the State Theatre). An envelope from Mr. Boehm’s store advertised Sandusky as the “Ideal Home City.”

Conrad Boehm sold post cards and other souvenirs at the time of the Perry Centennial Celebration in September, 1913. The image he used on the envelope was from a popular postcard at the time. 

The return address on the envelope

A gate featured on the envelope promotes Sandusky as being the Gateway to the Perry Centennial, with steamers providing a direct route from Sandusky to Put-In-Bay. (Note that the imagined Perry's Victory monument doesn't quite match how it ended up in reality.) Cheap fuel, power, and free factory sites are also promoted on the envelope.  Sandusky has long been a hub of transportation, with Sandusky Bay being a natural harbor on the Great Lakes, and railroads running east, west, and south to and from the city. 

To read more about the history of transportation in Sandusky, see Leola M. Stewart’s article entitled “Sandusky, Pioneer Link Between Rail and Sail,” available on the Ohio History Connection’s website.