“The Belle of Sandusky”

This advertisement for the silent film “The Belle of Sandusky” ran in the Sandusky Register on May 31, 1925. Walter Steiner directed the film, which was shot in Sandusky on May 17 and 18, 1925. The movie was shown for a week at the Star Theatre, beginning May 31, 1925. According to the Internet Movie Database, Walter Steiner also directed “The Belle of Kenosha” in 1923 and “A Romance of Seattle” in 1919.

Local residents who appeared in the film were: James A. Ryan, Mrs. Leroy Beutel, William A. Hart, Mathilda Botson, Frank Brown, Nora Richey, Walter Thorin, Evelyn Danke, Vivian Close, Paul Auxter, Fred Richey, Walter Brown, Francis LaDuke, Norman Borman, Edith Jeffrey, and Mrs. Clara Brooks. James Esposito played a “hootch hound.” At the last minute, Sergeant Al Tremper and Patrolman Henry Scherer of the Sandusky police force were added to the cast. They played policemen who were trying to catch the villains as they tried to make a getaway on the New York Central train. The Sandusky Register reported that crowds of Sandusky residents followed the crew making the film, and commented on “the seeming excellence of the cast.”

While we are not certain if the photos below are from the filming of “The Belle of Sandusky,” these pictures of three men in a 1925 Ford appear to be staged, as if for a movie.

Sandusky Boosters: 100,000 in 1920

In 1912 two men from Cleveland spoke to a group of fourteen Sandusky businessmen. Charles F. Laughlin and Stanley L. McMichael, president and secretary of the Cleveland Real Estate Board, were in Sandusky on the evening of September 19, 1912. They encouraged the local men to consider the possibility of trying to increase the population of Sandusky to 100,000 by the time of the next U.S. Census, in 1920. According to a Sandusky Register article, Mr. Laughlin stated in part, “You people in Sandusky must anticipate the time when you will have 100,000 or 200,000 population. You will not always remain a small town. You are too geographically well located. You have the greatest prospects of any town in the state.”  The speakers felt that by Sandusky men becoming affiliated with the Ohio Association of Real Estate Exchanges that the community could experience significant growth.

The men who committed to starting a new organization to promote growth in Sandusky were:

Philip Buerkle, A. C. Lermann, A. C. Close, C. C. Bittner, T. E. Risk, D. E. Weichel, James Flynn, Jr., C. W. Sadler, H. J. Schiller, Lawrence Frandsen, C. H. Stubig, and J. C. Hauser.

While Sandusky’s population did not achieve the goal of the population reaching 100,000 by 1920, at the celebration of the 100^th Anniversary of the Incorporation of the City of Sandusky, Ohio, held in the August of 1924, a poem entitled “Boost” appeared on the title page of the Official Souvenir Program. (Figures from the U.S. Census indicate that the population of Sandusky in 1920 was 22, 897.)

Sandusky High School Football Team of 1914

Pictured above are some of the members of the 1914 Sandusky High School football team. Notes on the original item, part of the Norbert A. Lange Collection, have identified the team players. In front from left to right, are: Bill Meese, Carl Kerber, Clarence Homberger, Herb Taylor, Amandus Smith, Bill Busch, and Joe Page. In the back from left to right are: Eugene Close, Hans Slackford, Bill Boehm, and Bill Smith. At the far right, Coach Bill Kinder is standing. In Northern Ohio League play in 1914 Sandusky won three out of four league games, including a win of 35 to 0 over the Fremont Little Giants. 

In 1914 Sandusky High School was still located on Adams Street, and future congressman James T. Begg was the school superintendent.

Coach Kinder went on to serve as an ambulance driver for the American Field Service during World War I. He then went back to seminary in order to become a clergyman. Rev. William Kinder became a well-known rector in the Episcopal Church in Detroit, Michigan and Youngstown, Ohio. 

Sandusky High School Football, 1912

The Sandusky High School football team about 1912:Pictured are:
Top row: C. E. Fleming, Leonard Osberg, George Singler, Frederick Slackford
Middle: Charles Abele, Frank Field, Howard Earnshaw, Wilbur Schoepfle, Estes Drake, Bob Judson
Front: Bill Busch, Roy Hazen, Wilson Harris, Gene Close, Don Hand, George Giesler, Art Wieland

Charles E. Fleming would go on to teach chemistry at Sandusky High School for thirty four years. Leonard Osberg served three two year terms as the Mayor of Vermilion in the 1940’s. Robert Judson retired as plant manager from the American Crayon Company in 1964, having been with the company for forty seven years. Wilbur Schoepfle was a Navy Ensign during World War One. He majored in mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan. Wilbur moved to California, and lost his life in an automobile accident in Orange County, California in 1941. The football team photograph pictures the young men with all their hopes and dreams ahead of them, years before the two world wars were thought of, and without the responsibilities of a job and family.

Visit the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library to learn more about the history of the people who have made Sandusky and Erie County their home.