C.F. Schumacher Shoe Store

From 1898 until about 1927, Charles F. Schumacher sold boots and shoes in Sandusky. In the 1900 U.S. Census for Erie County, Ohio, Mr. Schumacher stated that he was a shoe merchant. He listed his birthplace as Ohio, and stated that both his parents had been born in Germany. Until 1915, the C.F. Schumacher store was in business on the 100 block of Monroe Street; around 1916 the numbering of addresses changed, putting his business on the 600 block of East Monroe Street. 

When you look at the words on the outside of the stairway on the exterior of the Schumacher store, the name of the store has an image of a shoe replacing the first syllable of the owner’s last name, creating a clever logo for the business.

In 1911, the C.F. Schumacher store sold Ball Band rubber footwear, which were a popular item at the time.

In 1922, the Schumacher store sold Educator shoes.

In the Erie County Commissioners’ Report which appeared in the Sandusky Register of December 31, 1919, C.F. Schumacher’s name appeared in the list of expenses because he had done shoe repairs for residents of the Children’s Home. 

On October 27, 1927, Charles F. Schumacher died at the age of 56. He was survived by his widow, a son, daughter, two brothers and a sister. Mr. Schumacher had been an active member of the First Reformed Church. Funeral services were held at the family residence, with the Rev. V.J. Tingler officiating, and burial was at Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery.

Black Patti Troubadours at the Grand Theater

In 1905 the Black Patti Troubadours appeared in Sandusky at the Grand Theater (on Water and Jackson Streets, originally known as the Sandusky Opera House). The Black Patti Troubadours were a group of African American performers who performed musical comedy. They traveled throughout the United States between 1896 and 1915. The group was centered around a talented performer, Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones. 

Image from the Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/at0155.2s.jpg

Madame Jones (as she was commonly identified) had a trained operatic voice, and the local press of her day compared her to the well known opera singer Adelina Patti. Madame Jones was the first African American performer at Wallack's Theatre in Boston in the late 1880’s, and sang at the White House for President and Mrs. Harrison in 1892. She sang in concerts in the United States, South America, and in Europe.  After facing racial discrimination, Madame Jones formed her own entertainment troupe known as the Black Patti Troubadours.

Looney Dreamland was the name of the show in 1905. Voelckel and Nolan were the managers of the Black Patti Troubadours at that time. The show, staged by Robert Cole, was advertised as “a musical visit to Dreamland.”

Madame Jones sang “My Dear Southern Home,” “At  Home,” and “Old Man Moon” in the second act. She performed the leading role in the final act of the evening, a condensed opera performance.

The Black Patti Troubadours also had appeared in Sandusky on November 1, 1898. The performance, at the same location (then called the Nielsen Opera House), featured comedy, songs, a cake walk, and operatic masterpieces. An article in the November 1, 1898 issue of the Sandusky Star reported that the Troubadours had “irresistible and fascinating charm” during their stage performance. The Black Patti Troubadours were considered “one of the marvels of the metropolis” during their 1898 run in New York City.

To learn more about Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones, you can read or listen to an NPR story from 2007.

Teacher and Students of a One Room Schoolhouse in Perkins Township

In about 1899, Miss Gertrude Taylor was the teacher at a one room schoolhouse in Perkins Township, on Columbus Avenue, south of Taylor Road. The picture was taken by Pascoe’s Gallery of Sandusky, Ohio.

Pictured in the photograph are: back row, Miss Gertrude Taylor, Mary Michel, Marie Strickfaden, John Von Eitzen, Morris Hills, Ethel House, Byron House, Henry Merriam, Vincent Morris, Ollie Merriam, Willie Michel; front row, Annabel House, Carl Oswald, Susanna Strickfaden, Edith Michel, Lloyd Hills, Beulah Taylor, August Von Eitzen, and Pauline Von Eitzen. The 1896 Erie County Atlas shows that the Taylor, House, and Hills families all lived very close to the school, so the children did not have far to walk to get to the schoolhouse.

Ethel House would go on to become very active in the Daughters of the American Revolution, serving as Regent of the organization for a time. Her first husband was former prosecuting attorney and judge, Claude J. Minor. Following his death, Ethel became the wife of Bowling Green State University president, Dr. Frank Prout. When Lloyd Hills had completed his school years, he became the owner and operator of the Hills’ Supply Company, which dealt in paints and automobile accessories. Susanna and Marie Strickfaden were the sisters of Joseph Strickfaden, who operated a garden center in Perkins Township for fifty years. Visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center to view this and hundreds of other archival photographs relating to Sandusky and Erie County, Ohio.

Mr. and Mrs. Louis Duennisch

Louis Duennisch was born in Saxony, Germany on September 4, 1842. In 1857 he and his widowed mother emigrated to the United States, settling in Sandusky, Ohio. For thirty five years, he was employed by the Sandusky Sash, Door & Blind Company, and its successors. Mr. Duennisch was made foreman of the shop when he was only nineteen years old. 

On July 2, 1867, Louis Duennisch took Margaret Newman as his bride; she passed away in 1875. He married Margaret Ebert in 1878, the daughter of Conrad Ebert, a native of Bavaria.. 

Between 1895 and the early 1900s, the couple traveled extensively in the United States and Europe. Descendants of the Duennisch and Ebert families bequeathed a photograph album to the Sandusky Library Research Center, which contains many pictures from their travels.  Below is a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Duennisch in Madeira (part of Portugal, despite the caption).

For many years, Mr. Duennisch served as a trustee of Oakland Cemetery. The front page of the Sandusky Sunday Register of October 10, 1886 featured a story which reported on an electrical device which he had invented. Having heard of cases of “suspended animation,” in which a living person had been buried alive, Louis wanted to provide an escape method for an individual finding oneself in this unfortunate situation.  Insulated rings were to be attached to the body in the coffin, and these were wired to an alarm bell in the bedroom of the cemetery superintendent. At the slightest movement of an individual’s fingers, an alarm would ring loudly in the superintendent’s room. We do not know if this invention was actually implemented by Oakland Cemetery, but on October 10, 1888, it was lauded as “one of the grandest triumphs of electrical science.” 

Louis Duennisch died on October 4, 1918. He was buried in the North Ridge section of Oakland Cemetery.

Photographs by John G. Brittingham

According to the 1886 Sandusky City Directory, John G. Brittingham was a photographer whose work was “unexcelled and guaranteed.” His studio was at 707 Market Street (between Columbus Ave. and Jackson St.), and he resided at 1059 Columbus Avenue.

We do not know the name of the young lady in the cabinet photograph below, but Mr. Brittingham took this picture at his Market Street studio. This studio was later occupied by J.M. Lloyd, who was a photographer in Sandusky from about 1888 to 1893; it appears that Lloyd may have acquired the studio when Brittingham moved to Springfield Illinois. (According to A Directory of Early Illinois Photographers, published in 1977, John G. Brittingham was in business in Springfield, Illinois in the late 1880s.)

Another picture taken by Mr. Brittingham features the names of the cities of both Springfield, Illinois and Sandusky, Ohio at the bottom of the portrait. Perhaps Mr. Brittingham traveled between Ohio and Illinois for a time.

Bridges over Sandusky Bay

There has been a railroad bridge over Sandusky Bay, connecting Bay Bridge in Margaretta Township, Erie County to Danbury Township, Ottawa County since 1854.  You can see pictured  above a representation of the bridge on the left side of an 1898 birds-eye map of the Sandusky area, published by the Alvord- Peters Company. 

Samuel Catherman received the contract for the construction of this bridge, and employed three hundred men during this project. The May 30, 1854 issue of the Sandusky Daily Commercial Register reported that once the railroad bridge was completed across Sandusky Bay, there would be continuous rail service from Sandusky to Chicago, a total of 271 miles. According to Dean K. Fick’s book The Lakeside and Marblehead Railroad, the bridge was commissioned by the Port Clinton Railroad and the Junction Railroad in 1854, but it was abandoned in 1858. It was reopened in 1872 by the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway. Later owners of this bridge were: the New York Central Railroad, Penn Central Railroad and Conrail, and most recently the Norfolk & Southern Railway. 

In the 1850s, Sardis Birchard, uncle of Rutherford B. Hayes, tried to stop the development of a railroad bridge across Sandusky Bay, because he feared the bridge would interfere with ship traffic. Ultimately, it was impossible to stop development of the railroad bridge across the bay.  

Trains going across Sandusky Bay carried mail for the United States Post Office. These photographs of “fast mail” trains, from the early twentieth century, show the trains traveling on the railroad bridge across Sandusky Bay.

The bridge over the bay had a lift mechanism, to allow for the passage of boats.

In 1929, the opening of the Sandusky Bay Bridge allowed for automobile traffic across the Sandusky Bay.

In the 1960s, the four lane Thomas A. Edison Memorial Bridge, a part of State Route 2, was constructed parallel to the Sandusky Bay Bridge.

The portion of State Route 2 commencing at the approach of the Thomas A. Edison Memorial Bridge and extending through Erie County is known as the Jackie Mayer Miss America Highway. Jackie Mayer is a former Sandusky resident who served as Miss America in 1963. Both the Sandusky Bay Bridge and the Thomas A. Edison Memorial Bridge were in use from 1965 until the mid-1980s when the State of Ohio removed the steel center of the old bridge because of the high cost of maintenance. Traveling over Sandusky Bay has been a key concern of local residents and officials for well over one hundred years. Visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center to learn more about the history of Sandusky and Erie County.

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show Visited Sandusky

The September 15, 1885 Sandusky Daily Register carried an advertisement for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, to be held at the Sandusky Fair Grounds (in the area now known as Cable Park) for “positively only one performance,”  on Thursday, September 17 at 2:30 p.m. Admission was fifty cents for adults, and twenty five cents for children. Streetcars ran directly to the fair grounds, and railroads brought excursion groups to the show.

A grand parade was held at 10 a.m. on the day of the performance. The show advertised the appearance of Sitting Bull, White Eagle, and fifty-two braves, along with Miss Annie Oakley, Frisking Elk, and the phenomenal boy-shot Johnny Baker. The show claimed to have the largest herd of buffalo ever exhibited. 

Buffalo Bill was to shoot at clay pigeons while on foot, but he would shoot at glass balls while riding horseback at full speed. The ad continued to state that the ten cowboys who rode bucking horses were wilder than the horses themselves.  Equestrian acts, lassoing, and steer riders rounded out the program. Proprietors Cody and Salisbury promised to “fulfill every promise.”

Charles E. Frohman, in his Sandusky Potpourri, recounted Sandusky’s only buffalo chase.  After Buffalo Bill’s September 17^th show closed, a buffalo escaped near the railroad depot at North Depot and Mcdonough Streets. The buffalo ran out Hayes Avenue, as a dozen Native Americans pursued it on horseback. It ran through the yard of C. C. Keech’s residence, and kept going through neighboring fields, destroying corn stalks along the way. After an hour’s pursuit, the buffalo was caught and taken back to the depot.

(About twenty years later, the C. C. Keech home later became part of Sandusky’s Providence Hospital, now the South Campus of Firelands Regional Medical Center.)

  

While the chase was in progress, two cows belonging to Patrick Gagen were frightened, and ran away. Dairy farmer Louis Benckart and his sons found the two cows, and refused to give them back, stating that the cows damaged their fields. Mr. Gagen took legal action to recover the cows.

Elementary Textbooks by Frank J. Prout and Other Sanduskians

Between 1924 and 1936, Frank J. Prout and other local authors produced several reading textbooks that were published by the University Publishing Company, which had offices in Lincoln, Chicago, Dallas and New York.

The book, Thought Test Readers, for First Grade students, is shelved in the Woolworth Bookcase in the Quiet Reading Room of the Sandusky Library. The authors were Frank J. Prout, Emeline Baumeister, and Nellie Mischler, with illustrations by Helen Renner. In 1930, when this title was published, Mr. Prout was the Superintendent of Schools in Sandusky, Emeline Baumeister was a second grade teacher at Campbell School, and Nellie Mischler was a first grade teacher at Barker School. Dr. Prout would later serve as president of Bowling Green State University.

The King's Drum was written in 1937 by Dr. Prout, and Ms. Baumeister, who by this time was the Principal of Campbell School in Sandusky. This title, another in the Thought Test series, was designed for use with students in Grade Four. Ruth Mary Hallock illustrated the book. The illustrations were done in shades of aqua, green, and orange.

Included in this book were fictional stories, tales from other lands, stories about numbers, citizenship, and animals. Chapter 10 was entitled “Song and Story” and featured background information about familiar songs. To view this title, which is located in the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center, inquire at the Reference Desk of the Sandusky Library.

Copies of books written by Frank Jay Prout, Emeline Baumeister, and Nellie Mischler are found at several colleges in Ohio, the Library of the R. B. Hayes Presidential Center, the Ohioana Library in Columbus, Ohio, and the Library of Congress. A Thought Test Reader is also housed at The Richard L. Venezky Collection of 19^th and 20^th Century American Primers and Readers at Stanford University in California.

Garment Care in Sandusky

The 1896 Sandusky City Directory lists a variety of businesses which advertised services that helped area residents maintain their clothing. While we not know the specifics of what types of renovation were offered, four individuals were listed as "Clothing Renovators": John Conley, Louis Dietz, John M. Fox, and Mrs. Otto Peter.  Businesses which offered to dye clothing in 1896 were: Burt Moskovits, C. F. Rathke, and Waibel & Knoebel. Three laundries appeared in the 1896 City Directory: Beilstein & Pfanner, Henny Frank, and Till & Wagner. Ten merchant tailors and dozens of dressmakers were also included in the 1896 Sandusky City Directory.

By 1919, C.A. Rathke had expanded his business to a dry cleaning and dyeing works. Mr. Rathke also made suits to order. Mr. Rathke was a tailor in Sandusky for many years.

In 1906 Henry Beilstein and Philip Pfanner were the proprietors of the Beilstein Steam Laundry at 630 Market Street. In later years, there were Dry Cleaning establishments owned separately by the Beilstein and Pfanner families.

The people in the photograph below are not identified, but notes on the back of the photo state that some of the last names of the people pictured are: McLaughlin, Ryan, McCann, and Conley. The Sandusky Dyeing and Cleaning Works was on East Park Street in the 1890s.

By the 1950’s, there were several dry cleaners in Sandusky. The Sun Way Dry Cleaners offered “One Hour Martinizing” at its East Market Street location in the Hubbard block.

There were many more laundries and dry cleaners in Sandusky for which we do not have photographs. The Mahala Steam Laundry operated in Sandusky for many years, with various owners and locations. Visit the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library to view historical city directories. The historical city and county directories will provide information about the citizens and the businesses of Sandusky and Erie County dating back to the nineteenth century.

Dedication of Cable Park Historic District

On October 8, 1989, the Erie County Historical Society dedicated a marker in the Cable Park neighborhood of Sandusky to commemorate the historic district on Wayne Street between Scott and Cable Streets, as well as the former Erie County Fairgrounds, at this location between 1865 and 1899. In the picture above, Mayor Mike Kresser is speaking to the group gathered for the marker dedication. Laurence Cable and his sons Frank and Edward planned the residential district.

There were specific guidelines for the homes that were built at Cable Park, listed below in the August 9, 1914 issue of the Sandusky Register.

There were to be only residences, and no commercial properties in Cable Park. The house lines were to be no less than forty feet from Wayne Street. No two-family homes were allowed. The planned residential area was to have a park-like atmosphere, and it was close to public transportation routes.

Cable Park Historic District was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. You can read more about Cable Park in the Sandusky Register of February 24, 1988.