Busy Northwest Corner of Jackson and West Water Streets

The northwest corner of Jackson and West Water Streets was the location of the passenger depot for the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad in Sandusky beginning in 1838. By 1867 Peter Gilcher and Son operated a lumber business at that corner. Eventually R.E. Schuck joined the firm and the company was known as Gilcher and Schuck. On May 9, 1911, a notice in the Sandusky Register stated that the stock of Gilcher and Schuck was to be sold without delay, following the death of Mr. Schuck.

In 1923, it was announced that William Py had purchased the building at the corner. The new Sandusky Butter and Egg Company building was opened to the public on March 20, 1924. The company had its beginnings by delivering butter, eggs, flour, cheese and sugar with horse-drawn buggies. In 1912 the business opened at 217 West Water Street, and soon after switched from horse and buggies to trucks. By the 1960s, the Sandusky Butter and Egg Company was best known as being the local distributor for Stroh’s Beer products.

From the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, the Feddersen Bakery was located at 301 West Water Street, at the site of the former Sandusky Butter and Egg Company’s plant.

Feddersen’s was just one of the many bakeries in Sandusky that sold New Year’s Pretzels in years gone by. Do you have any special memories of Feddersen’s Bakery?

Randall E. Schuck, Lumber Merchant and Banker

Randall E. Schuck, often known as R.E. Schuck, was born in Sandusky in 1843 to John and Louisa (Knerr) Shuck, who were natives of Germany. In 1863, he became the junior member of the lumber business Gilcher and Schuck.  In the picture below, you can read the name of the business on the building that once stood at the corner of Water and Jackson, which for a time had been the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad’s passenger depot.

         

For several years, Mr. Schuck served as president of the Third National Exchange Bank in Sandusky. He was married twice. His first wife, the former Rebecca Neil, died very young in 1869. She left behind a young son, John E. Schuck. In 1883, Mr. Schuck married Marie Landgraf. Mrs. Marie Schuck was on the Board of Trustees of the Sandusky Library from 1885 until 1910.

     

Randall E. Schuck was the namesake of the steamer R.E. Schuck, which was built at the Lorain plant of the American Shipbuilding Company in 1903, for the Gilchrist Transportation Company.

After having been ill for more than a year, Mr. Shuck died at his home in Sandusky on March 17, 1910. An article in the March 18, 1910 issue of the Sandusky Register reported that he had never been himself, after his only child John died in 1908. Funeral services were held at the family residence at 924 Washington Street. The offices Third National Exchange Bank and the Hinde and Dauch Company, in which R.E. Schuck had been a stock holder, were closed while the funeral took place. Burial was in the family lot at Oakland Cemetery. Sadly, Mrs. Marie Schuck passed away shortly after, in the fall of 1910. 

You can read much more about the background of the Schuck family in Sandusky Then and Now.