Picture Postcards by Louis Pesha

Louis Pesha was a photographer who was well known for his photographs of the Great Lakes area in the early twentieth century. The Pesha Postcard Company was located in Marine City, Michigan.

Pictured below is a Pesha postcard of Scott Park in downtown Sandusky. Scott Park was the original home of the Boy with the Boot statue, along with two maids of the mist statues.

The Erie County Courthouse can be seen in the postcard below, which features a fountain in Washington Park.

The steamer G.A. Boeckling is just one of the many Great Lakes vessels photographed by Louis Pesha. The G.A. Boeckling was christened on June 12, 1909, and transported guests to Cedar Point until 1951.

Tragically, on October 1, 1912 Mr. Pesha died in an automobile accident as he was traveling to visit his childhood home in Euphemia, Ontario.

Leisure Moments in Sandusky and Erie County

       

In the collection of historical pictures at the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center are several photos of people enjoying their leisure time. Men are pictured above relaxing in a garden in Sandusky in the early twentieth century. While not all the men have been identified, some of the men in the photograph are: Charles Metzger, Harry Green, Christy Koehler, Ossi Baumeister and Gus Schoepfle. 

A freelance photographer took this picture of two unidentified children playing dress up on Reese Street in 1912:

About 1920 the Sprau family gathered at Winnebago Park, now known as Lions Park. You can see Sandusky Bay in the background:

Members of the Sandusky Daily News baseball team posed for a picture at Huron Park in May, 1937:

  

   

These men are fishing at the Rockwell Trout Stream in Castalia in 1940:

  

This candid picture was taken at  the Boy with the Boot fountain in Washington Park on July 28, 1955:

The City of Sandusky Has Beautiful Parks

In a 1907 article for the Ohio Magazine, the Honorable Charles S. Reed wrote, “It can fairly be said that there are few cities in the country that can boast of such beautiful and well kept parks as Sandusky. They are the admiration and envy of the thousands and thousands of people who visit the city annually…”   The Sandusky Library Archives Research Center has several historical images of Sandusky’s City Parks in the Parks Collection of photographs. 

Here an employee from the City of Sandusky’s Park Department admires a floral mound labelled “Flora.” This picture was taken before the Erie County Courthouse was renovated in the 1930s:

   

In 1950, a worker mows the grass on a mound that features the Masonic emblem:

              

In 1955, Chris Goelz, then supervisor with the Sandusky Parks and Greenhouse can be seen working on a mound that reads “Drive Slow - Save Lives.” In the 1950s, Mr. Goelz often traveled to parks throughout the United States and Canada to get new landscaping ideas.

    

In the picture below, four city workers are hard at work getting the floral lighthouse ready for the summer season at Washington Park.

                                          

This picture of the city of Sandusky’s Greenhouse employees was taken about 1980. Three of the four people are identified: Ernest Erdman is standing at the back of the group; next to him is Mary Bloker; one of the other men is Fred Bloker.

  

The Early Days of the Boy with the Boot

In 1895 Sandusky hotel owner Voltaire Scott made improvements to the small park opposite his hotel, then located at the southwest corner of Water and Wayne Streets.  Mr. Scott paid for the park’s improvements himself, under the supervision of the city park superintendent. A statue of the Boy with the Boot was the focal point of the Scott’s Park. The statue had been cast by the J.W. Fiske ironworks in New York City. 

Other statues in the park included two dolphins that sprayed water and two females known as “Maids of the Mist.”  A drinking fountain at the park’s entrance was topped by a statue of a lady with an urn.

 

Scott’s Park was a favorite spot for picture taking by visitors to Sandusky as well as local residents.

    

The tornado of 1924 severely damaged Scott’s Park. In the 1930s, Scott Park was leveled, and the Boy with the Boot was moved to a fountain in Washington Park. After being vandalized in the early 1990s, the original Boy with the Boot was moved to Sandusky’s City Building, and a bronze replica was placed in the fountain. 

Here is a picture of the Boy with the Boot fountain in 1963:

The lady with the urn statue is now housed at the Follett House Museum, after having been repaired from the damage it incurred during the tornado:

    

You can read much more and Sandusky’s Boy with the Boot in Article 58 of From the Widow’s Walk, by Helen Hansen and Virginia Steinemann, as well as an article on the Sandusky Register website by Special Collections Librarian Ron Davidson.

Ohio’s Lake Erie Vacationland Postcards

Several postcards published by E.B. Ackley, a popular musician and band leader in Sandusky, are in the collection of historical postcards at the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center. These four postcards are from the Ohio’s Lake Erie Vacationland series. Notes on the items indicate that they were Art-Colortone postcards printed by the Curt Teich Company in Chicago, Illinois. The Cedar Point pier is featured on the first postcard.

The Sandusky Yacht Club is the topic of this postcard.

Multi-colored lights enhance the water in the Boy with the Boot Fountain, in a night time view of Sandusky’s Washington Park.

A daytime view of the Erie County Courthouse and the Boy with the Boot Fountain is the focus of this postcard.

While we do not know the exact dates of these Ackley postcards, they were most likely created in the 1930s.

Scott’s American Hotel

In 1865, Voltaire Scott and his father Jacob Scott bought a two story frame hotel on the southwest corner of Water and Wayne Streets. The hotel was originally known as the Steamboat Hotel, and was later known as Verandah Hotel. In the pioneer days of Sandusky, Water Street was the most northern street of the city. Sometimes the waves on Sandusky Bay were so high that they almost touched the entrance to the hotel. The old strap railroad ran right past the hotel. According to the advertisement pictured above, from the 1874 Sandusky City Directory, guests could request a feather bed, and the table was “always supplied with the best the market affords.” When Jacob Scott moved to Wisconsin in 1876, Voltaire Scott took over as proprietor of Scott’s American Hotel. An advertisement which appeared in the 1878 Sandusky City Directory stated that “Strangers and the public will find Scott’s American a pleasant home, every comfort and accommodation extended to all its patrons.”

Voltaire Scott established a park across the street from his hotel. In 1895 he installed the “Boy with the Boot” statue, along with statues of dolphins and maidens. In the evening hours, colored lights illuminated the park. The electricity was controlled by a switch in the hotel.

Mr. Scott willed the contents of his park to the city of Sandusky, along with funds to maintain it. The tornado of 1924 severely damaged Scott Park, and the statues were stored at the city greenhouse. In 1935, the “Boy with the Boot” was given a new home in Washington Park. After being damaged by vandals, the statue in Washington Park was replaced by an identical one made of bronze. The damaged statue was repaired, and is now on display at the City Hall building on Meigs street.

The hotel at the corner of Wayne and Water Streets had several different owners after Voltaire Scott’s death in 1899. The building was razed in 1923. An interesting story from the January 12, 1911 issue of the Toledo Blade reported that in 1911 a plumber who was working at the former Scott’s American Hotel found $1,300 in currency in the basement of the building. The article reported that Voltaire Scott did not have much faith in banks, so he kept his money in an old vegetable can in the basement. Eventually the money was turned over to descendants of Voltaire Scott living in Michigan at that time. Ironically, the property at the southwest corner of Wayne and Water Streets is now home to the Citizens Banking Company.