A Locale in Erie County Known as Union Corners

If you have ever passed by St. John’s Lutheran Church on Route 250, traveling from Sandusky to Norwalk, then you have traveled through an area of Erie County that has long been known as Union Corners. This rural area is located in the very southwestern corner of Huron Township, close to the intersection of Huron, Milan, Oxford and Perkins Townships. There was a stop at Union Corners on the old Lake Shore Electric Railway.

St. John’s Lutheran Church was founded in 1865, after Rev. J.G. Lehrer of Zion Lutheran Church in Sandusky did a survey to determine where another Lutheran church would prove beneficial. Since residents out in the countryside found it difficult to travel to Sandusky for church services, Union Corners was selected as the site of the new church. Services at St. John’s were conducted in the German language until the early 1940s. A cemetery associated with the church is found just to the south of the church. Many surnames of German descent are found on the tombstones at St. John’s Cemetery, sometimes known as Union Corners Cemetery. 

Faith and family seemed to be the cornerstone of the early twentieth century residents of Union Corners. A small column of neighborhood news appeared in the Sandusky Register.  The columnist known as “Billy Boy” told of weddings, births, church events,  and activties going on at area farms.

From the late 1800s until the 1930s, there was an elementary school in Union Corners. Local newspaper articles indicated that the Perkins Board of Education sold the former Union Corners school building in 1940. There was a ladies organization known as  Union Corners Club, formed on April 14, 1921. When the club celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, Viola Fritz Wonnell wrote a history of the organization, now preserved in the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.  The Union Corners Club was a social and literary club, which intended to promote good fellowship in the community. One of the earliest activities of the club was to join with the Erie County Federation of Women’s Clubs in protesting indecent dress of women and girls. The women asked proprietors of public dancing places to prohibit indecent dressing and suggestive dancing. The Union Corners Club, later shortened to U.C. Club,  raised money for victims of tuberculosis, for playground equipment for the local school, and refreshments served at  the U.S.O. during World War II. The group also had many social events, like card and theater parties. 

You can learn more about Union Corners by reading the neighborhood news columns in the Sandusky Register, now available on microfilm at the Sandusky Library Archives Center. St. John’s Lutheran Church records, including a hundred year history of the church are also on microfilm at the Library.