Aerial View of Milan Road and Perkins Avenue from 1970

On May 18, 1970, photographer Thomas Root took this aerial picture of the intersection of Milan Road and Perkins Avenue. The Mr. Wiggs Food Mart was where Michael’s is now located, at 904 East Perkins Avenue. In the strip of stores just east of the Food Mart were a record store, a barber shop, beauty shop, Elaine Powers salon, the Medic Discount Center, the Top Value redemption center, and a laundromat. St. Stephens United Church of Christ can be seen just across the street from the shopping center, with its semi-circle drive in front of the church building. Lum’s Restaurant was at 2904 Milan Road, to the west of the Food Mart, where Little Caesar’s and Soba are now in business. The Sands Motel and Cocktail Lounge were across the street from Lum’s. The popular Ponderosa Steak House was at 2916 Milan Road, to the south of Lum’s Restaurant. Dan and Red’s Union 76 service station was at the southeast corner of Milan Road and Perkins Avenue, and a Sohio station was at the southwest corner of that intersection. To the north of the Food Mart was the Sandusky Monumental Company at 807 East Perkins Avenue. The Memorial Monumental Works, next door to the Sandusky Monumental Company, had an address of 2704 Milan Road. You can just barely see samples of tombstones on the lawns of both of the monument businesses.

In 1970 on Tuesdays after 4 p.m., you could buy a rib-eye steak dinner at Ponderosa Steak House for 99 cents.

This is an advertisement from Lum’s from the holiday season of 1970:

Visit the Sandusky Library to see decades of historical Sandusky city directories, which can help you to learn more about the past residents and businesses of Sandusky.

Bargain Fair

In 1956 the discount store “Bargain Fair” opened on Sandusky’s West Side, at the site of an old roller rink, built by Emery Ward and operated by Lou DeBenjak and Leo Finkler.


Later known as "Mr. Wiggs," the original Bargain Fair store was located 2609 Venice Road. Harry J. Lorber wrote a feature article about the Mr. Wiggs store on Venice Road in the May 22, 1976 issue of the Sandusky Register. He interviewed Ed Singer, who was the chief executive officer of Mr. Wiggs at that time. Singer said that when Bargain Fair first opened in 1956, there were no homes west of the store, just farms. Except for the Giant Tiger store in Perkins, most of the shopping in Sandusky took place at the Cleveland Road Sandusky Plaza and in downtown Sandusky. There weren’t even dial telephones in Sandusky in 1956. Bargain Fair was athe first store in Sandusky to be open on Sunday. The Ford plant was just in the planning stages in 1956, and one of Sandusky’s biggest employers at that time was Philco, also on the west side of Sandusky.

The Register article told how Dave Wiggins founded the first Bargain Fair in Mentor, Ohio. “In the 1950s, as the nation emerged from a shortage economy of the war and post-war years, a new form of retailing was born. Discounting appealed to the price-consious consumer and offered merchandise at a lower price without frills, services or plush decor…Humble facilities where merchandise could be laid out for self-service at a low price was the prime consideration in this type of operation.” Promotions were popular at Bargain Fair. A “Krazy Daze” sale at the Mentor Bargain Fair attracted 50,000 customers to the store on one day in 1954.

Other discount stores to come to Sandusky before K-Mart and WalMart, were Hill’s and Ontario, both located on Perkins Avenue. Bargain Fair, later known as Mr. Wiggs, was sold to Heck’s Department Store, a division of Tri-State Wholesale from Charleston, West Virginia, in 1981. After Heck’s closed it doors, Pat Catan’s operated at 2609 Venice Road for several years.

Bargain Fair’s Second Birthday advertisement appeared in the October 24, 1958 issue of the Sandusky Register.