Sandusky Police Department Vehicles from the 1920s and 1930s

Officer Chris Sehlmeyer of the Sandusky Police Department is pictured above at the seat of a new police emergency vehicle. It appears that the car is on an assembly line or testing facility. (We don't know the details.) Note the spare tire, located right on the outside of the car door. 

In 1931, Chris stood in front of another new police vehicle.

   

Christian J. Sehlmeyer held many positions with the Sandusky Police Department, where he worked from the 1920s through 1944. He was a traffic officer, detective, and achieved the rank of Sergeant. He died on May 22, 1971, and he was survived by his wife, three sons, and five grandchildren. Below is a group photograph of members of the Sandusky Police Department in 1937. Sergeant Sehlmeyer is in uniform near the center of the front row.

   

Notes on the original picture identify each person.

To learn more about the past members of the Sandusky Police Department, you can view the historical roster at the city of Sandusky’s website.

Clarence Howard, Sandusky Crescents

In the Sandusky Library's collections are two photo postcards showing the Sandusky Crescents baseball team in 1912. We don't know much about the Crescents, but it appears that they were one of several baseball teams that played in the area at the time. The Crescents players were all very young men -- the few that we were able to successfully research were age 15-17 at the time of these photos. There were other teams from Castalia, Bay Bridge, Fremont, and other nearby places, who seemed to play not in a league, but as individual teams challenging each other on weekends.

What makes these photographs historically interesting, however, is the Crescents' star pitcher, Clarence Howard, an African-American on an otherwise all-white team. (It is a strange pleasure to see that Sandusky baseball was integrated some thirty-five years before the Major Leagues.) He also pitched for a team called the Sandusky Giants; an article in the July 19, 1912 Sandusky Register reported that he pitched a no-hitter for the Giants against a team from Fremont at an A.M.E. church outing at Rye Beach. (The only run that Fremont scored was when the Sandusky second baseman let the ball go by because he found a pocketbook on the ground; after the game, he was reported as saying "it was a good thing he found that purse, as it would have been scandalous to bring the boys all the way from Fremont and then shut them out.")

Sadly, Clarence Howard's life ended tragically and prematurely while a soldier in France during the First World War, when he was killed by the accidental discharge of a weapon in the barracks. He was 22 years old. His body was eventually returned to Sandusky, where he received a military funeral and burial in the American Legion plot in Oakland Cemetery.

The Crescents players are: Joe Schmitt, Bill Nottke, Larry Clark, Paul Mielke, Art Mielke, Ray Diehl, Gus Fehr, "Irish" Connors, Clarence Howard.