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.

Sandusky High School Football Team of 1914

Pictured above are some of the members of the 1914 Sandusky High School football team. Notes on the original item, part of the Norbert A. Lange Collection, have identified the team players. In front from left to right, are: Bill Meese, Carl Kerber, Clarence Homberger, Herb Taylor, Amandus Smith, Bill Busch, and Joe Page. In the back from left to right are: Eugene Close, Hans Slackford, Bill Boehm, and Bill Smith. At the far right, Coach Bill Kinder is standing. In Northern Ohio League play in 1914 Sandusky won three out of four league games, including a win of 35 to 0 over the Fremont Little Giants. 

In 1914 Sandusky High School was still located on Adams Street, and future congressman James T. Begg was the school superintendent.

Coach Kinder went on to serve as an ambulance driver for the American Field Service during World War I. He then went back to seminary in order to become a clergyman. Rev. William Kinder became a well-known rector in the Episcopal Church in Detroit, Michigan and Youngstown, Ohio.