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Paul F. Laning was a teacher at Sandusky High School for thirty years. He had previously worked for the Nickle Plate Railroad and taught at Kirtland, Ohio for five years. After retiring from Sandusky High School in 1968, he served as bailiff in the Erie County Court of Common Pleas for six years. Though Mr. Laning had been the head of Sandusky High’s English department, he was extremely interested in history, particularly the history of railroads. His Master’s Thesis at Ohio State University was: The History of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway in Ohio.
Mr. Laning was a popular guest speaker for area clubs and organizations. In 1953 he unearthed an original account of the May 1838 trip of David Campbell, founder of the Sandusky Clarion newspaper, on the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad, to and from Bellevue, Ohio. Campbell was amazed that the return mile trip of fifteen miles from Bellevue to Sandusky took only forty five minutes by rail (about 20 miles per hour). This story of the first commercial trip of the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad appeared in the June 19, 1953 issue of the Sandusky Register Star News.
Featured in the Twin Anniversary Edition of the Sandusky Register and Star News, November 24, 1947, is an article about the History of Steam Railroads in Erie County, written by Mr. Laning.
He wrote that Eleutheros Cooke and other Sandusky leaders had been quite upset over Cleveland becoming the northern terminal of the Ohio and Erie Canal instead of Sandusky, but these civic leaders felt that Sandusky being chosen as a terminus for the the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad compensated for the loss of the canal. General William Henry Harrison broke ground for the railroad at the corner of Water and Meigs Streets on September 17, 1835.
The sketch map below, drawn by Mr. Laning, shows Sandusky’s Railroads and competing routes in 1854.
A rough draft of a speech Mr. Laning gave, entitled Sandusky and Cleveland: Railroad Rivals in the 1850s, is on file in the Transportation Collections of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center. Mr. Laning had a deep understanding of the history of Ohio Railroads, and he enjoyed sharing his knowledge with others.
Paul F. Laning died at the age on 90 on August 30, 1991. He had been a charter member and president of the Erie County Historical Society. He was also a member of the Firelands Historical Society, Ohio Historical Society, Mad River and Nickle Plate Railway Society, Erie County and Ohio Retired Teachers Associations and the Senior Men’s Fellowship Club of the YMCA.
2 comments:
I have often wondered where the various railroad stations were located in Sandusky ca. 1900-1920, and when the New York Central railroad line was relocated so as to bypass the center of town. Where was the NYC station before the one opened on North Depot Street??
I seem to recall that there had been a Nickle Plate (or "Big Four RR"??) station on the west side of Warren St., somewhere near E. Washington or E. Adams Street. When walking home from St. Mary' School in the 1940's/50's my friends and I would sometimes place a penney on those tracks where they crossed Huron Ave., and wait for a slow-moving freight train to flatten it.
Also, where were the stations in town for the Lake Shore Electric interurban trains??
There was a B&O station and office on Warren Street between Washington and Market. The building stood until at least the early 1980s, but I'm not sure when it closed. (Possibly the same time that the freight line to the dock was ended?)
There has been a station on N. Depot Street since at least the 1880s, It was the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern before it became NYC. The original Mad River depot was at Water and Jackson; not sure when it stopped being a train station (probably in the 1850s, when they moved the tracks off Water St), but there were other train stops along Railroad St. (now Shoreline Drive), but I don't know if they had a formal passenger depot.
As far as interurban stations, the only ones I can determine are the ones on Columbus at Market and at the Veterans Home; there was a maintenance shop along Columbus, just south of Perkins Ave. There were other stops, of course, but I don't know about stations.
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