West Water Street Businesses from Behind in 1926

Sandusky photographer Ernst Niebergall took this picture of the rear side of the buildings along West Water Street between Columbus Avenue and Jackson Street about 1926. Today we know this area as the newly renovated Shoreline Drive. The first building on the eastern part of this block is known as Hubbard’s Block, at what is now 101 West Water Street. The building was originally owned by Sandusky businessman Lester Hubbard, and designed by Sheldon Smith, was built in the Romanesque Revival style of architecture. Hubbard’s Block was home to the Cosmopolitan Art and Literary Association in the 1850s. Moving down the street, next is the Stiles E. Hubbard building at 115 West Water Street, which had as its first tenants a grocery and dry goods store, and Austin Ferry’s hat shop. In 1926 George M. Rinkleff had a hardware store at 121 West Water Street. This advertisement shows us some of the items that were carried by the Rinkleff Hardware store in the 1910s, a few years before Mr. Niebergall took the picture of the block.

Known as the Lawrence Cable building, the structure at 121 West Water Street was built in 1868. Samuel Love had a men’s clothing store at 201 West Water Street in the mid-1920s. Charles R. Carroll ran a transfer business and a second hand store at 211 West Water Street. Many of the vintage trucks parked on the street were probably used to transport goods to local residents by employees of Mr. Carroll’s transfer business.

Chicken dinners were served at a restaurant to the west of Mr. Carroll’s business. At the corner of West Water Street and Jackson Street is the Freeland T. Barney building, which was built about 1870 and renovated in 1892. Most of the buildings that are pictured had businesses on the street level and apartments on the upper floors. You can read more historical details about the commercial property on West Water Street in Ellie Damm’s book, Treasure by the Bay. Pages 53 to 58 are devoted to the architectural background of these historic buildings.

Charles Livingston Hubbard, Yale 1873

This tintype portrait of Charles Livingston Hubbard was taken when he was a young man. Charles was born in 1851 to Lester S. Hubbard and his wife, the former Jane Patterson Livingston. When Charles was still an infant, his family moved into an impressive large home at the southwest corner of Wayne and Adams Streets, which still stands today.

Charles was educated at Kenyon College and Yale College, graduating from Yale in 1873. After being associated with an iron manufacturing plant in Chicago for a brief time, he returned to his hometown of Sandusky to practice law. In 1876 he lived with his mother, who was by then a widow, in his childhood home. His law office was in the Hubbard Block. You can see the Law Office sign in this stereographic image, taken at Sandusky’s Centennial Fourth of July Celebration in 1876.

When Charles L. Hubbard married Jennie West in 1877, it was reported as “grandest wedding of the season” in the October 20, 1877 issue of the Sandusky Register. Both the bride and groom were the children of pioneer residents of Sandusky. The marriage produced four daughters: Eleanor (who died in early childhood), Millicent, Marion, and Jenna. 

Charles Livingston Hubbard died unexpectedly after suffering a stroke on May 20, 1904. He was only 53 at the time of his sudden death. The Sandusky Register of June 2, 1904, published a lengthy memorial article which featured numerous tributes from members of the Erie County Bar. A Resolution read, in part:

 Resolved, that in the death of Charles Livingston Hubbard, late a member of this Bar, having assembled at the court house to express in some manner their sorrow at his death and their appreciation of him as a man and a lawyer duly adopt the following resolutions:

Resolved, that in the death of Charles Livingston Hubbard the community has lost a valuable and high minded citizen who has for years been identified with the best interests of this city in which he was brought up.

The Resolutions continued, and pointed out that Mr. Hubbard was an avid reader, an agreeable companion, and a friend to many. C.W. Sadler noted that he was “pure in word and deed.” Several other local attorneys offered high praise of  the deceased, and noted that he had helped tutor high school students in Latin, Greek and mathematics. 

Mr. Hubbard was buried in the family plot at Oakland Cemetery. Though Charles L. Hubbard died as a relatively young man, his wife Jennie lived to be 103 years of age. Daughters Marion and Jennie lived until their nineties. 

Sheldon Smith, Sandusky Architect

Sheldon Smith, architect, ran an advertisement in the 1855 Sandusky City Directory. Mr. Smith was the principal of Smith’s Commercial College and Academy of Design, which was located on the third floor of the Hubbard building at the northwest corner of Columbus Avenue and Water Street. Ellie Damm wrote in Treasure by the Bay that the Hubbard Block was originally owned by Lester Hubbard, and that Sheldon Smith designed the building. Made from limestone and sandstone, the building was of Romanesque Revival architecture. In the image below, which was taken from an 1850s daguerreotype, G. J. Anderson had an office in the lower level of the Hubbard Block. The Cosmopolitan Art Association was housed in the Hubbard Block in the mid 1850s.

Sheldon Smith brought his family to Sandusky in 1853. He designed the house below for the proprietors of the Exchange Hotel in Sandusky. The McKenster-Groff house, at 334 East Washington Street, was built in the Gothic Revival style, and appears on the National Register of Historic Places. It was originally built of limestone, and covered with mastic, but the exterior has since been resurfaced and painted. (Article 27 of Helen Hansen’s book At Home in Early Sandusky provides excellent historical information about the McKenster-Groff house.)

Other projects which have been credited to Sheldon Smith in Sandusky include the West House hotel, Norman Hall, and commercial blocks built for H. Kilbourne, Sidney S. Hosmer and John G. and Major Camp. In 1855, Sheldon Smith moved to Detroit, Michigan. The son and grandson of Sheldon Smith carried on in the architecture business. The firm had several name changes, but now is known as SmithGroup.

A 1978 history of Smith, Hinchman, & Gryllis, by Thomas J. Holleman and James P. Gallagher, is available for interlibrary loan through the ClevNet consortium. Ellie Damm’s book Treasure by the Bay provides an excellent architectural history of many of the homes and businesses of Sandusky. See the City of Sandusky’s page on Historical Downtown Sandusky for an illustrated view of Sandusky’s downtown.