Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Portable Polling Places -- A Query

Does anybody remember these?

Local historians are trying to gather information about these portable sheds, which were used in the past as polling places during elections. Here is the text of their request:

Help! The Heritage Society of Erie County is looking for information about two metal buildings that have been donated to the group. They are currently being restored to use in the Heritage display at the Erie County Fairgrounds. All we know at this time is that one member remembers having voted in one in 1949 in the city of Sandusky. Neither the Board of Elections nor the Sandusky Library have been able to provide any further details.

If you have knowledge of these buildings, please contact Janet Senne (419-625-4341) or Donna Dahs (419-359-1520). If no answer, leave a message on the answering machine.

. . . Or you can post a message in the comments here.

3 comments:

  1. Hiya. Lovely site. Dorene P. sent me across.

    Although I'm being a touch hypocritical making this suggestion -- why don't you have categories?? (I personally use del.icio.us because I started my site before blogger got categories and ultimately it suits my needs better).

    The FIRST thing I looked for when I landed on this site was a category list. They really are very easy, not to mention help with indexing for search engines!!

    Anyway, it was just a driveby thought. Thanks. I love local history sites.

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  2. "-- why don't you have categories??"

    Thanks for the idea; we'll have to work on that.

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  3. Sure, I remember those metal sheds used as polling places, but I remember them as stationary, not as portables. They had a small coal or wood stove in them for warmth. One was located on Buckingham Street, on a then-empty lot three lots south of from our house at 1126 Fifth St. (Two lots south of Reinhart Ausmus' house) I remember it well because the part of our lawn between the street and the sidewalk, was the closest to the polling place where campaign signs could legally be posted. As kids, we would eagerly wait until the polls closed at 7 or 8pm, then we would run outside and yank the signs out of the ground. The next day the kids in our neighborhood would parade around the block in mock political parades. Our dad would later use the wood stakes the signs were mounted on, as kindling wood in our coal furnace. (We still used coal for home heat up into the 1950's as our dad worked for Matthes Coal Co.)

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