Forever Delphos

I have been thinking a lot about Delphos these days. I had just turned 65 and find myself thinking about growing up in Marbletown in the 1950’s. It was such a great place to live. I had full run of the town from my house on Erie street to the tile works on the edge of Marbletown, to Waterworks Park, to the downtown, out to the pool.

It was a great time to be a kid in Delphos. Doors were unlocked, cars were left in the start mode (for those of you who remember what that was), and everyone older than you acted as your parent.

The tomato fields surrounded Delphos and the Mexicans would come to town during the harvest time to pick the crop. We always had fresh tomatoes during the summer along with a constant flow of corn on the cob as well as cantaloupe. Hamburgers and hot dogs were a summer staple as was fried bologna. I remember sitting with my siblings and we all had sunburned faces munching down on fresh tomatoes and corn on the cob dripping with butter. Had spent the day at the great round swimming pool that has always been a center piece in the city.

Good memories for sure.

A Man Named "Delphos"

I received this "comment" recently and I consider it very noteworthy. I would like to pass it on.

Living Water Productions said...

My name is Delphos Fulton. I was named after my dad. He was named Delphos after Delphos, Ohio. He wrote a letter to a can company in Delphos when he was about thirteen years old (1938), to tell them he was named after them. I did not know about this letter until I received an email from a retired schoolteacher who lives in Delphos, Ohio.
She told me she has the original letter.

Marbletown N.Y. vs Marbletown, Delphos, Ohio

I have not posted in quite awhile. I have been too busy living life. I am a history researcher by trade and I have been using those abilities to track my genealogy. What I have found out has set me square on my, well, you figure it out. Although I was born in Lima Ohio at the Lima Memorial Hospital I spent all of my early years growing up in Delphos, Ohio. I lived in a section of town that was known to the locals as "Marbletown". Hence The Marbletown Memoirs is the name of this blog
Growing up in Delphos was the greatest influence in my life. People never locked their doors or windows. They never locked up their cars and a lot of folks just left the key(s) in the ignition. We never stayed indoors because there was always too much to do outside. TV was black and white and we usually only got a couple of channels so it wasn't that important to us.
It was kinda strange though how the Miami-Erie Canal split the city. I lived in Van Wert County but went to school in Allen County. Little did I know that Delphos would become such a pull on me later on in life.
I no longer believe in coincidences. My real name is Richart Eugene Bogart. I am the third time that there has been a union between a Bogart and a Medaugh and NO I'm not inbred. Both families were Dutch. My adopted name is Richard Eugene Schramm. No one in my family ever told me or spoke of their roots. I only got little bits and pieces of information that I would store away in my memory. I found it very strange then when I found out that I had lived one township over from where my GGG, GG, and G Grandfathers are all buried and many of their descendants were still alive. Even more of a shocker was that Don Schramm, my adopted father, had all of half of his family roots right there in town. Delphos, Ohio is where his father was born and raised. Even worse was the fact that his grandmother lived there and he knew it. We went to see her once and mom and we kids remained in the car while dad talked with her through the door as she had opened it partially. We were there less than 10 minutes. You know, I kind of feel cheated by my elementary and high school education. There is very little I have used from that era to live my life. The history books were a bunch of things that other people decided that we should learn. I would have loved to have studied the History of Lima or the History of Allen County. Ever heard of the CCC? I hadn't. It stands for the Civilian Conservation Corps. Many of the structures, trails, and bridges they have built are a real tribute to them as most of the ones I saw were still standing.
Another odd thing was most of my ancestors had lived and were buried in, get this, Marbletown, N.Y. That is the only actual city in the United States named Marbletown. But when I lived in Delphos, Ohio I would be asked where I lived and I would say 729 South Erie Street, the folks back in Delphos would say, "Oh you live in Marbletown". And Marbletown had a reputation to be sure. They (towns people) were a very mixed crowd. Best group of people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing...

Regards,

Where the Erie Canal came from...

About this project:

This is a story of oil and lumber, railroads and highways, huge financial gambles, and the sheer grit that drained a swamp and carved a canal. It is the story of us.

About the authors:

Mike Lackey writes a column three times a week for The Lima News and has a special interest in history. He is a graduate of Earlham College in Richmond, Ind. and has lived in Lima since 1972.

Kim Kincaid writes The Lima News' popular "Let's Reminisce" feature. She is a graduate of Ohio University in Athens and has lived in Columbus Grove since 1975.

Heather Rutz writes about Allen County government and enjoys local history. She is a graduate of Otterbein College near Columbus and has lived in Lima since 2001.

The series was designed by Greg Hoersten with maps by Wendy Helmig and Paige K. Connor.

The Great Black Swamp

Draining the Swamp

By KIM KINCAID

• kkincaid@limanews.com •

419-993-2059

Today, many find the geography of northwest Ohio boring as they look at mile after mile of flat farmland. But in reality, the engineering required to take this area from its natural swamp into one of fertile farmland was a greater feat than building the Miami and Erie Canal.Just over a century ago, the land we now take for granted was non-existent. In its place was a giant swamp, so dark and foreboding that it sat untouched for centuries. The glacier that had covered the area in primitive times had left the land deficient for drainage. As a result, the water from rain and snow stagnated on the land over untold centuries, forming the dark abyss.
Year after year, the change of seasons went unnoticed on this ground. The thicket of trees towering from the still, black water kept all sunlight from reaching the ground. Wolves, bears and wildcats were the inhabitants of this Godforsaken area. Even the native Americans, with reservations on the edges of the swamp, crossed into the black waters only for hunting.No-man’s landSettlers kept away from the swamp, which was not easy because it was large: comparable in size to the state of Connecticut. The mighty swamp was 40 miles wide and 120 miles long, spread over what are now 12 counties. In the 1958 book, “It Happened Here” by Frank Hackman, he noted the southern shore of the swamp was just north of what now serves as U.S. 30 between Van Wert and Delphos. It continued northeast from Delphos to Findlay over state Route 12. Included in the swamp were the present-day counties of Paulding and Wood, along with the cities of Sandusky, Fremont, Fostoria, Findlay, Defiance and Toledo. The city of Bowling Green sat wholly within the swamplands.The swamp proved nearly impassable for those interested in pushing westward toward land in Indiana and Michigan, according to the Ohio State Archeological and Historical Society in its “History of Ohio.” So bad were the swamp legends that many travelers went miles out of their way to avoid what had become known as the Great Black Swamp.For those trudging through, the journey gave credence to the legend. As mapmaker Lewis Evans wrote in 1775, “the stinging flies and diverse other insects, but particularly mosquitoes in this country are like to rival the Seven Plagues of Egypt.”Another traveler, Gen. William Henry Harrison, noted of this area, “the country is almost a continuous swamp to the lakes and it’s almost impossible to get through the Black Swamp. The road to Defiance is knee-deep to the pack horses and up to the hubs of the wagons. We are often unable to get the empty wagons along, the wagoner being glad to get off with his horses alive.”By 1834, there were 31 taverns between Fremont and Perrysburg — a 30-mile stretch — to provide travelers with shelter on their cumbersome journey. Those who could travel a mile per day through the swamp were thought to be doing well.Of course, there were several attempts made to tame the swamp. Roads were built up, all of which eventually sank back into the swamp. In a story recounted by Joseph Arpad in the television documentary, “The Story of the Great Black Swamp,” the Ohio Railroad Company attempted to lay tracks over the muddy swamp in the 1830s and 1840s. After the project got underway, parts of the railroad began disappearing into the mud, including the track and equipment on board.A treacherous existenceSo treacherous was the Great Black Swamp that it was the last section of Ohio to be settled. Eventually however, the cheap price of land here made it attractive for settlers. But even with the low cost, many considered the hardships too dear a price to pay for swampland. Many couldn’t handle the pressure of eking out a life here.There were stories of women and children who got lost in the swamp, never to be seen again. There were stories of continuous darkness in which the settlers found themselves, and stories of wolves howling all night outside the makeshift cabins.And then there were the mosquitoes.The swamp provided a perfect breeding ground for the pests. For three of four seasons, settlers had to wear clothing which completely covered their bodies as protection against the mosquitoes. In a 1900 story from the Maumee Valley Pioneer Association, it was claimed that smoke pots accompanied the settlers everywhere they went as a means of lessening the number of bugs.In fact, it was said that the sickening smell of the swamp was only made worse by the constant smell of smoke which hung heavy in the air from the pots.A common malady of those early pioneers was commonly called the “shakes,” a symptom of malaria spread by the mosquitoes. If the constant annoyance of the pest didn’t drive out the settlers, the disease often wiped them out.But for many, the swamp became a challenge: a wilderness to be tamed. The task before them became draining the Great Black Swamp.The clearing beginsFor settlers to beat the swamp, they first had to figure out a plan to drain it.They soon realized that the first task in clearing the swamp was the removal of the downed tree limbs and branches that were obstructing the natural streams. A northwest Ohio pioneer’s most valuable asset was an axe.Many of those early pioneers also began to dig open ditches to help drain the water.While the idea was good, the first attempts were unsuccessful. Although a pioneer might drain his own land, that water naturally flowed onto his neighbor’s land, which created equally great problems in settling the area, according to the book, “The Great Black Swamp.”An organized, systematic way of draining the swamp was needed.In 1859, a series of state ditch laws did just that, marking the first giant step forward in draining the swamp. In this process, ditches were uniformly “marked out” by surveyors and engineers. Timber crews then removed the giant trees that had stood for centuries in the swamp. Early estimates were that it took three to four weeks of work to clear one acre.Stumps, the result of felled trees, were the next thing removed. Then horses hitched to farm plows began their work, according to the 1967 book, “Black Swamp Farm.”The ground was cleared in that way along the marked ditch. After the horse-pulled plow made a pass on the ground, a second crew removed the plowed ground, moving it to the banks of a new channel. This process was repeated until the desired ditch depth was reached, or the plows could no longer make it through. If the ditch was too deep, or if the clay in the bottom was too heavy, crews had to hand dig through the ground to complete the work.The dirt taken from the ditches made a roadbed several inches above the surrounding fields. Consequently, many roads ran parallel to those earliest ditches.The gargantuan job had begun. As the Ohio Geological Survey Report of Progress 1870 noted, “The face of the Black Swamp region presents a complete network of ditches, draining the land of the surplus water: Ditch No. twelve, 37 miles long, in Wood County, drained and rendered fit for cultivation 50,000 acres. It is by this system of drainage that the entire area, once known as the Great Black Swamp, is being converted into a valuable agricultural district.” The 1976 History of Allen County adds, “the feats of engineering, the labor required and even the economic impact on northwestern Ohio involved in ditching the 7,000 square miles of the Black Swamp dwarfed the canal projects of the 1830s and 1840s.”More work to doDraining the surface water by open ditching was only the start of making the area usable for farming. Underground, it was still a swamp.In fact, those walking over the topsoil said the saturated layers of earth underneath bubbled to the surface with every step taken. Settlers had to find a way to get rid of the stagnant water underground. And they did this by a system of underdrainage which removed the excess water from the soil, allowing it to “breathe.”Beginning in the 1880s, farmers employed various tiling technologies which eventually transformed the waterlogged ground into some of the most fertile in the state. They quickly found that this job was as difficult as draining the surface water.Aside from being backbreaking work, the process required mental skills to accomplish the task. The ditch diggers had to know the fall of a given field to grade the trench properly.Originally, many of those underdrains were wooden planks, hewn from swamp trees, according to the book, Black Swamp Farm. Later, the clay that lay underground in abundance became the readily available raw material needed for drainage tiles.So extensive was the swamp’s underdraining that it was estimated that enough miles of tile were laid to reach from the Earth to the moon, or wrap 10 times around the Earth.As a result of this superhuman effort, the Great Black Swamp was all but non-existent by 1920.But remnants of the Great Black Swamp are never far from the surface.Today, deep drainage ditches line many roads in the area, serving as a reminder of the effort it took to drain the swamp. And the mineral-rich swampland has produced some of the richest farmland around.And when the heavy rains fall, it doesn’t take much imagination to see swampland once again bubble to the surface.

Lumber is Plentiful

By KIM KINCAID

• kkincaid@limanews.com •

419-993-2059

Looking at the fields of northwest Ohio, one might imagine that this has always been a farming area.Wrong.History buffs might believe that oil was the first big industry to inhabit the flatlands of this area.Wrong again.The first industry that brought notoriety to northwest Ohio was lumber. And thanks to the Great Black Swamp, it was a natural resource found here in abundance.Looking around today, it may be difficult to believe that the trees of this area provided the first income for area residents. Indeed, it was the felling of the tall trees from the Great Black Swamp that helped build early towns in the area and develop the lumber-based economy.So abundant were the tall trees in the swamp that even though many were simply chopped down and burned, there were still enough left to provide a good industrial base for this area. So thick were the towering giants that the book “Black Swamp Farm” quotes early pioneers claiming that the trees stood in dense, unbroken stands, with leaves so thick they formed a vast canopy.Prior to draining the swamp, pioneers had tried chopping down some trees to use as roadbeds. Although ingenious, the downed trees often sank into the muck rather than keeping the horses and wagons from doing the same.When the pioneers attempted to drain the swamp, they realized one of their first tasks was to cut down the large oaks, maples, poplars, birches and sycamores that had grown there for centuries undisturbed. Many were as large as 60 inches in diameter.Settlers used many methods to cut through the thick forest growths. One popular method was to fell two trees toward one another, allow them both to dry out, and then burn them both. But even in doing that, the remains of the trees were used: wagonloads of the ash were hauled to asheries to make lye, an essential ingredient in manufacturing soap.Hours spent chopping down trees turned into days, and days turned into years. Yet the task remained a daunting one: clear the land of the trees.In doing this, some of the trees were floated through the swamps and creeks to Toledo where they were then shipped to sawmills in Quebec. Others were burned as fuel for iron-smelting plants; some were used by local barrel and container industries while others were purchased by the railroad for rail ties or as a source of fuel.But by 1850, people had begun to see that the trees from the swamp could be used to build a city.In that year, the city of Lima alone had 12 sawmills operating — eight run by water power and the remaining four by steam power. By 1869, Lima was an important lumbering center in the area, with 39 sawmills operating and seven cabinet shops.Likewise, other towns in northwest Ohio also became known for their lumbering. Van Wert, which sat near the Great Black Swamp, became the capital of barrel stave manufacturing, with 15 stave factories in the growing town making the wooden pieces of barrels that served as storage bins of the day.The villages of Leipsic, Bluffton, Columbus Grove, Ada and Spencerville were among the many others that began from a reliance on lumbering. The abundance of lumber gave them the raw material for stave factories, cabinet shops and other businesses, and also created the need for sawmills.Stroll down the streetIn the pioneer city of Lima, the smell of wood was everywhere.Early newspapers reported that Benjamin Faurot’s paper mill and egg case plant cut the logs at their own mill and nailed them together producing the paper and egg cases that were so popular.On Spring Street, the Johns, Tegeder and Hughes Manufacturing was known as one of the best furniture makers around. The company made furniture of all types — except chairs — and sold it around Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.Meanwhile, the Reichelderfer Lumber Co. on High Street was a well-known sawmill operation that would cut flooring and siding orders for customers.Everywhere a person looked, the trees cut from the swamp were being used to build the area.But it was not only above ground that the trees were put to use. They were also the materials of the first underground tiles that helped drain the swamp, according to Howard Good in his book, “Black Swamp Farm.”Trees helped drain the swampBecause of the expense involved in shipping clay from the east side of the state to the swamp, the early settlers employed their expertise in using what they had on hand to solve the problem. And what they had was lumber. Lumber in abundance. Cheap and plentiful. Soon, the elements that made up the swamp became the elements crucial for its elimination.They started to shave down the trees into planks, and placed them into trenches dug in the swamp for underdrainage. That method worked just fine until the 1860s when the settlers ran into a tremendous bed of clay underneath the swampy soil, which worked better as underground tiles.But even then, the trees remained important, for it was trees that fueled the fires of the kilns needed to bake the clay for the tiles.Enter the industrial ageAs the swamp began to clear, the lumber industry opened the way for this area’s foray into the industrial age through its railroad connection.A company began in Lima that manufactured steam engines as well as boilers for the sawmill industry. It was originally called Lima Agricultural Works, but by 1876 changed names to Lima Machine Works and then later, Lima Locomotive Works.Because of the company’s expertise in building steam engines to power the sawmills, it was asked by Ephraim Shay for help in developing such an engine for his new locomotive. It seems Shay, a lumberman in Michigan, had designed a locomotive engine that could travel uneven rails, haul heavy weights, and maneuver sharp curves and steep hills. The local business teamed with Shay to build the engine, and the Shay Locomotive was born.For years, this area was known for building that locomotive. But along with the Shay, Lima also became known for building many fine locomotives, all inspired by the work of the engines it built for the sawmills.Today, few trees remain in the area, but the towns they built and the innovations they sparked are vital.

Grand Lake: From workhorse to playground Former canal reservoir now devoted to recreation

By KIM KINCAID

• kkincaid@limanews.com •

419-993-2059

For nearly a century, people from around the United States made their way to northwest Ohio just to see the largest man-made lake in the world. Until Hoover Dam was completed in 1935, Grand Lake St. Marys held that title.
Today considered a gem for its recreational opportunities, the lake was originally built as a workhorse for the Miami and Erie Canal. It served as a reservoir to keep that transportation link flowing.It solved a problem in the building of the canal. According to the "History of Mercer County," this part of the state sits higher than Cincinnati and Toledo, the starting and ending points of the canal. While both of those areas sit between 450 and 570 feet above sea level, this area rests at 968 feet above sea level.To accommodate that difference, a 100-mile system of locks was established to get the canal boats over the hump.And to keep a constant source of water in those locks, a reservoir was needed. In fact, three reservoirs were built to shoulder the load.The largest of these was called the Grand Reservoir,now known as Grand Lake St. Marys. The other two, the Loramie Reservoir and the Lewistown Reservoir, were considerably smaller. Today, those smaller reservoirs are known as Lake Loramie and Indian Lake.A grand reservoirThe location of the largest, Grand Reservoir, was a no-brainer. Mother Nature had created a nice spot for it on the Ohio Ridge in Mercer County, according to information from the Mercer County Historical Society. A glacier, centuries prior, had carved a dip across the middle of that area, making it a naturally low spot, ideal for water storage.The section chosen was known as Beaver Prairie, filled with tall grasses, leaves and fallen timbers. It was decided that water could flow into the proposed reservoir from the Coldwater Creek, Montezuma Creek, Big and Little Chickasaw creeks, as well as several smaller inlets on the south side. As an added bonus, the north and south sides of the prairie had a higher elevation, so only the east and west sides would need to be built up to retain water.In 1837, a final survey was done on the reservoir, which engulfed 13,500 acres. Original plans called for the removal of all the trees and tall grasses in the bottom ground, but eventually the expense of doing that proved prohibitive.Instead, 1,700 workmen were hired to bring the project in on time to coincide with the canal cutting through the area. The men worked sunrise to sunset for 30 cents a day and a jigger of whiskey, thought to prevent the dreaded malaria. Workers dug by hand the dirt from the floor of the reservoir and wheelbarrowed it to the east and west embankments of the nine by three-mile wide area.Many of those workers, primarily German and Irish, used their reservoir earnings to buy land in the area. An 80-acre farm went for $100.In a short time, the west side of the reservoir was finished. As the water was let in on that end from the creeks, it overflowed and covered several miles of farmland with water. Residents of the area were concerned their harvest was ruined, and also worried about getting disease from the stagnant water, according to the "History of Mercer County," a book by the Mercer County Historical Society.When an appeal to the state for compensation got them nowhere, a group of citizens decided to take matters into their own hands. Meeting one May morning, a group of about 70 people worked throughout the day to slice a hole through the reservoir's embankment. By the next day, their work was done and a flood of water from inside the reservoir poured out. In fact, some say it was six weeks before the water falls stopped running from the reservoir.Although the citizens were arrested, they were not charged with any crime. Some say it was because those involved in the plot included the county judge and sheriff, as well as the merchants and private citizens. It cost the state $40,000 to repair the damage.Reservoir opensBy 1845, ahead of schedule, the reservoir was opened at a cost of $528,222.And as had been planned, it kept the waters of the canal at a navigable level. Boats could also come up the canal, follow the three-mile canal-feeder into the reservoir, then cross from the east to the west bank, delivering passengers or supplies to Celina from Cincinnati or Toledo.Boats on the reservoir were poled through the water. To do this, the boat captain would set a 20-foot pole at one end of the boat and then, by pushing, walk the length of the boat, which moved it a boat's length. The process was repeated until the boat was across the reservoir, which averaged 10 feet in depth.People marveled at the Grand Reservoir. Travelers came from far and near to see the huge body of water, often taking pleasure cruises across after small steamboats were introduced. But the reservoir also served a variety of purposes during those early years.The water was clear enough that hunters and fishermen drank from it. In the winter, a profitable ice industry was derived from the waters. The rest of the year, a heavy fishing industry thrived. Bass, sunfish, catfish, perch and pike, as well as frogs, that were packed in ice and shipped to New York, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Dayton.Because of its location on the fringe of the Lima oilfield, the reservoir also had oil.In fact, at one time, it was estimated that between 200 and 300 wells were drilled in the lake, producing thousands of barrels of oil. It is said that the reservoir had the distinction of having the first offshore oil well in the country. At night, the burning gas from the derricks lighted the roadway on the eastern shore of the water.As the oil supply was exhausted, the wells were abandoned. Most were pulled from the water, but not capped, and the waste was allowed to spill into the lake. That pollution had a devastating effect on the fish and vegetation that had flourished in the waters.Reservoir no moreWhen the introduction of the railroad shut down the need for a canal, the Grand Reservoir underwent a change. No longer needed as a supply source for the canal, the reservoir became a source of recreation.It wasn't long before hunting and fishing lodges were established around the lake. The timber that until 1890 had surrounded most of the water's 52 miles of shoreline was cut down. Visitors flocked to the area in the summer for picnics or shuttles to the island in the center of the lake for parties.In 1915, the Ohio Legislature dedicated the reservoir, setting it apart forever as a park or pleasure resort.It was also at that time that the reservoir received a name change.Prior to that, it had been known as the Grand Reservoir, Lake Mercer, Lake Celina or Grand Lake. Because the lake sits between Celina and St. Marys, the first proposal for the new name was Lake St. Marys, which was not a popular choice with the people of Celina. A compromise was worked out and the name Grand Lake St. Marys was selected.In 1949, it became the first of the state parks to go under the management of the newly-formed Ohio Department of Natural Resources.Today, the water from the lake is still used by the industies in Celina and St. Marys. But more importantly, people still boat, fish and swim in the waters that for almost a century were contained in the biggest man-made lake in the world -- Grand Lake.

Carving the Canal

By HEATHER RUTZ

• hrutz@limanews.com •

419-993-2094

In 1834, the Miami and Erie Canal’s promise of prosperity was heading north.Already creating boomtowns out of Cincinnati, Dayton and Piqua, a new piece of canal was planned for northwestern Ohio. But where to build it?It was good (profitable) to be the man, Samuel Forrer, who knew the answer.As the government paid for surveys of three possible routes, land speculation abounded. The canal would carve cities with goods, services and transportation (not to mention taverns, gambling and prostitution) out of swamp and forest.Near Toledo, all that exists of a town called Providence is a church, house and the Isaac Ludwig Mill, now part of Providence Metropark. But in 1839, the canal had come through, creating five hotels, at least that many saloons and warehouses along the Maumee River. Though filled with many hardworking farmers and laborers, Providence was famous for its rowdy canallers.Forrer was in charge of designing the canal and surveying the land for it. If you couldn’t be Forrer, it was almost as good to be the men to whom he sold land.A chance meeting between Forrer and German immigrant brothers Frederick and John Otto Bredeick proved fruitful for the city that was to become Delphos.Boom towns on the canalThe 1830s spelled boom or bust for many tiny settlements through northwestern Ohio. Towns on the canal path flourished with boat building, mills and the advent of specialty stores; communities left off the route died.The interior of Ohio, especially the west side, owes its development to canals. The Miami and Erie Canal, though it traveled from Cincinnati to Toledo, was not created to move goods between the Ohio River and Lake Erie as the Ohio and Erie on the state’s eastern side was. It was designed to create commerce between communities and from those communities out.Ohio had originally planned for one canal, nearly down the middle of the state, but the geography was not suitable. As the Ohio and Erie was built in the east to move commerce from New York’s Erie Canal, the west squawked, and so a compromise canal was dug, in sections.Originally called the Miami Canal, it ran from Middletown to Cincinnati. Later, a “Dayton Extension,” from Middletown to Dayton was built. Last, sections from Dayton to Toledo were finished.Fort Loramie, Minster, New Bremen, St. Marys, Spencerville, Delphos and Ottoville are here because of the canal, and the people, mostly gritty German and Irish immigrants, who built it.Many of Fort Loramie’s residents are direct descendants from Germans who arrived by the boatload from Cincinnati to build the canal and farm the land, said Laura Paulus, a volunteer with the Wilderness Trail Museum, housed in a canal-era tavern and boarding house.The canal reached Piqua in 1837; in the years following it would come through Fort Loramie, Minster, New Bremen and St. Marys.A 12-mile section between St. Marys and Spencerville took nearly four years to dig, said Greg Myers, executive director of the Southwestern Auglaize County Chamber of Commerce.Spencerville began as a trading post in 1843, created when the canal was constructed there, according to a visitor’s guide produced by the state and Miami and Erie Canal Corridor Association.Just south of the village, lies the canal’s miracle — Deep Cut. The entire canal, including Spencerville’s big ditch, was dug by pick and shovel, using wheelbarrows to cart away the dirt. Deep Cut was the last piece of the canal dug; it is 52 feet deep and 6,600 feet long. The canal era was brief in Spencerville; the first boat arrived in 1845 and the last in 1906.Legend has it that when Irish Protestants digging from the north met Irish Catholics digging from the south, a three-day religious riot ensued.Riot or no, many immigrants died digging Deep Cut. When asked if they were buried in nearby Spencer Cemetery, local historian George Neargarder said no.“They just buried them in the banks,” he said. “It makes it kind of tough on the genealogists.”The canal was completed in St. Marys in 1839, and the village made good use of its section of canal, long after most of the waterway had been destroyed. Businesses used a section running through town to move cargo until 1969, St. Marys Chamber of Commerce President Nick Van Schoyck said. Many of the downtown buildings sport doors that seem to drop into nowhere, except the canal. Imagine a boat in the water and you can understand how the doors were built.In 1845, then Ohio Governor-elect William Bebb became the canal’s first passenger through Delphos. Residents on horses met the boat and towed it through town.Ottoville was founded in 1845 — the year the canal came through town.Uses for canal changeToday, only 75 miles of the original 250 miles between Cincinnati and Toledo remains owned by the state. The largest watered section, 44 miles between Loramie Creek in Shelby County and Jennings Creek in Delphos, is also the best preserved stretch of the Miami and Erie.The Ohio Department of Natural Resources maintains it for very practical reasons: drainage and flood control. But the benefits have sprung far beyond the canal’s original use.The village of St. Marys still pays a lease to the state for canal water it uses to cool the municipal power plant. Between Lucas and Miami counties, the canal is part of two major hiking trail systems: the state’s Buckeye Trail and the North Country National Scenic Trail.In this area, it is still possible to walk the original canal and feel what it must have been like to travel on a passenger packet at no more than 5 mph.The boats were built differently depending on what they carried: people, retail goods, freight, livestock. Some boats carried all of the above, along with an extra team of mules so the boat could be pulled 24 hours a day.Passengers slept in wooden bunks, many times women and children at one end with a privacy curtain drawn, men on the other and animals in the middle. Of course, you were always welcome to sleep up top, with a starry sky as a blanket, provided you didn’t mind the bugs.Boats run by families could be much different than a lone captain, who more than likely was a brawling, drinking, gambling sort.The romance of the era is what draws people to it, and creates the canal’s No. 1 use today: tourism.Canal’s demiseIf a visitor walked that path through Delphos, he would see a healthy, but small and stable, community surrounded by farmland. In 1847, it was anything but stable. Thanks to the canal, the city was growing at a clip faster than Dayton, according to a history by the Delphos Canal Commission.However, the canal was clearly in decline. Forrer, ever the entrepreneuring engineer, had plans for the area to see it grow further.As four settlements came together to form Delphos, Forrer, chief of survey for the Central Ohio Railroad Co., cemented a plan to bring a line through the city. He and other landowners bought stock in the company.“To further sweeten the pot, the partners offered a handsome concession of property, nearly 200 acres on the eastern end of the their city as a site for a series of switching yards, repair depots and warehouses,” the history reads.In 1853, the canal transported its own demise: iron for rail lines. Delphos was to be an east-west hub for construction, guaranteeing more growth. A construction superintendent arrived in the new city, bringing with him cholera he had contracted.The epidemic lasted three years, wiped out half the town and dashed hopes of becoming a great city. The railroad left and canal boat business dropped, as captains were afraid to stay too long in town, according to the Canal Commission.Legacy continuesAs the century turned, despite rail flourishing, the state tried to rebuild a canal system, now aging and considered cumbersome.When originally built, many of the Miami and Erie’s locks had been built with wood. Timber had been readily available and it hastened the canal’s opening. Just after 1900, the state rebuilt many of the locks with concrete.Rail, though more expensive, blew the canal away with its speed and efficiency. Near the canal’s end, it earned more money from leased water rights for power than it did from the freight carried on it.For a brief time before the canal’s real end, and before automobiles were readily available (Henry Ford would not introduce the first Model T until 1908) the canal was used for pleasure trips. Families and friends could take the day to travel, say, from Delphos to Sidney, have a lunch, do a little shopping, and return that night or the next morning.But the canal’s usefulness, as the state’s first highway, was over: in downtown Cincinnati, part of the canal was being used solely as a sewer, emptying into the Ohio River near the city’s waterworks, causing several cholera outbreaks.Mother Nature finished the job technology had begun; the flood of 1913 washed out much of the canal and any remaining restoration efforts.However, the Miami and Erie continues to link communities today through recreation, history and tourism, just as it did through commerce a century ago.

Lima’s age of steam opened in 1854

By MIKE LACKEY

• mlackey@limanews.com •

419-993-2092

The first steam locomotive appeared in Allen County in 1854. But it didn’t come puffing into the county under its own power. It was delivered on the Miami and Erie Canal as freight, coming down the waterway from Toledo to Delphos.It was, for a self-respecting steam engine, a rather ignominious arrival. But once here, the steam locomotive would transform the landscape, the economy and the course of history. The county would grow and prosper with the railroads. For a century, Lima would take pride in its status as a rail center.The first functional steam locomotive was demonstrated in 1804. The first public railroad offered regularly scheduled service in England starting in 1825. By 1831, the year Lima was founded, early railroads were providing regular passenger service on the East Coast of the United States.In time, Lima would be not only a hub of rail transportation but a center of the entire railroad industry. By the early 20th century, 140 trains would pass through Lima every 24 hours, carrying hundreds of passengers and more than 200,000 tons of freight.The coming of the railroads ushered in the age of steam. Before the age ended, the rail industry would account for thousands of jobs in Lima and the Lima Locomotive Works would build more than 7,500 steam locomotives.Allen County got its first look at one of these man-made marvels with the arrival of that first locomotive in 1854. It was christened the “Lima” and put to work on construction of the county’s first railroad, the Ohio & Indiana, which ran from Crestline to Fort Wayne, Ind. By 1857, trains on the line — now rechristened the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago — were making three stops a day both eastbound and westbound at Delphos, Lima and Lafayette.Trains also stopped at Elida, if flagged.A north-south line was added a few years later, the Dayton & Michigan commencing service to Dayton in 1858 and to Toledo in 1859.At that time, a journey from Findlay to Lima by horse-drawn stagecoach could take nearly 24 hours. Canals, seen a few years earlier as the answer to the country’s long-distance transportation needs, were still being built in Ohio when the first railroads appeared, but here, too, the advantages of rail transport were quickly apparent. Trains were faster, the earliest ones moving at 15 or 20 mph, compared to a canal boat’s 4 mph. Unlike a canal, a railroad wasn’t shut down by the winter freeze.And since they weren’t dependent on waterways, rail lines could be built anywhere and readily tied into far-reaching networks. The transcontinental railway was completed in 1869.Few accounts survive of the actual building of Allen County’s railroads, but lines gradually extended to communities throughout the county. Delphos became a hub of narrow-gauge railroads, with lines eventually extending in all four directions. The first line went north to Dupont in Putnam County, the next south to Rockford and later Mendon in Mercer County, the third west to Willshire in Van Wert County and the last east to Columbus Grove and Bluffton.These lines were converted to standard gauge in 1890 and eventually were absorbed into larger railroads. But at one time, according to T.K. Jacobs Jr. in his 1916 history of transportation in Allen County, Delphos was the center of “the greatest narrow-gauge railroad in the world,” extending from Toledo to St. Louis.By 1920, eight steam railroads served Allen County. There were two dozen passenger stations in the county including four in Delphos; three in Bluffton; and two each in Elida, Spencerville, Beaverdam and Cairo. There were also stations in Kemp and Hume, among others.The risks of starting a railroad were considerable, especially in the early days. The costs were large and the obstacles daunting. Historian George W. Knepper calculated that in the 1850s, 140 railroads were planned in Ohio, but only 25 of them were ever built. Jacobs, reflecting on the experience of investors in those Delphos narrow-gauge lines, wrote, “It frightens them to look back and think of the amount of financial obligations to which their names were attached in those days.“No fortunes were made,” he added, “but it was more remarkable that none were lost.”Because the economic benefits were potentially immense, cities and towns were eager to provide financing and incentives for railroads to come their way. Voters sometimes approved bond issues to help build railroads, and when this practice was halted by state law, communities assisted the railroads through private subscription drives and grants of rights of way.In 1879, when Lima gained approval from the state Legislature to issue $100,000 in bonds for a bid to lure the maintenance shops of the Lake Erie & Western to the city, backers of the bill broke out in such an uproarious celebration that they were asked to leave the chamber.Here as elsewhere, the biggest men in town aspired to become railroad moguls. Benjamin C. Faurot, who discovered oil here in 1885, was one of the prime movers in a proposed Columbus, Lima & Milwaukee line, which would cross Lake Michigan by ferry in order to avoid Chicago’s congestion.That line never got farther than Defiance, but Calvin S. Brice — a Lima attorney and later U.S. senator, described in one railroad history as a “colorful manipulator and self-made man of affluence” — started a number of successful railroads, including the Lake Erie & Western and what later became the Nickel Plate Road.The coming of a new railroad was a big event in the life of any community, and sometimes long anticipated. The Lake Erie & Louisville Railway, originally chartered in 1858 as the Fremont, Lima & Union, finally reached Lima in November 1872. The railroad celebrated by offering a free ride from Fremont to Lima; the city responded with a reception and dinner at city hall for all the visitors.The train arrived carrying an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 celebrants. The Allen County Democrat reported that “the platforms and tops of the coaches were covered with people who could not find room inside.” Officials of the railroad and their wives made the trip in “a magnificent new palace coach” at the rear of the train.Among the partakers of Lima’s free dinner was ex-Gov. Rutherford B. Hayes. He was at least the second future president to visit the city thanks to the railroads: Abraham Lincoln had passed through (but not stopped) on the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago, on his way to New York, eight months before his election in 1860.By the turn of the 20th century, Lima was served by five railroads, the Chicago & Atlantic having started up in 1883 and the Ohio Southern 10 years later. All the railroads have gone through numerous mergers and name changes — not to mention assorted bankruptcies and receiverships — in the years since. In recent years, the familiar names in town have included Conrail, CSX and the Norfolk Southern.The city’s last passenger service, provided by Amtrak, ended in 1990, but most of the routes of Lima’s original railroads are still used for freight.Over time, the railroads’ economic impact has been incalculable. Aside from the freight and commerce that arrived in Lima by rail, a century ago the shops of the Lake Erie & Western and the Cincinnati, Dayton & Hamilton — formerly the Dayton & Michigan, later the Baltimore & Ohio and then the Chessie System — each employed 500 men.The Lima Locomotive Works, which started out as a machine shop in 1869, built the acknowledged “Cadillacs” of steam locomotives for nearly 70 years — starting in the 1880s with the ingenious geared Shays, designed by Michigan logger Ephraim Shay to operate over wooden rails on sharp curves and steep grades, and continuing through such glamorous creations as Southern Pacific “Daylights,” designed in the late 1930s to complement Pacific Coast scenery. Employment at the Loco peaked at 4,300 during World War II.But perhaps the railroads’ biggest contribution was merely connecting Lima to the rest of the world. In 1905, the year a passenger train on the Pennsylvania Railroad — formerly the Ohio & Indiana, then the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago — hit 127 mph while hurtling through the night near Elida, a reporter wrote that steam power had made New York “a mere suburb of Chicago.”With the coming of the railroads, as William Rusler put it in his 1921 history of Allen County, Lima was “only overnight from anyplace at all.”

Oil and the sweet smell of good times

By MIKE LACKEY

• mlackey@limanews.com •

419-993-2092

Edward Orton, who was appointed state geologist in 1881, had given the matter considerable thought and there was one thing of which he was certain: There was no way anybody was going to find oil in northwestern Ohio.But even as learned a man as Orton, the first president of Ohio State University, could be mistaken. And boy, was he mistaken.It turned out Lima was smack in the middle of a rich oil field some 185 miles long, swinging in a wide arc from Toledo to Indianapolis. When discovered, the field was the largest in North America, and its existence placed Lima for a time at the center of the world’s oil industry.Coincidentally, in the words of local historian William Rusler, oil transformed Lima overnight from an agricultural and trading center “to the dignity of a city.”Local entrepreneur Benjamin C. Faurot didn’t know what he would find when he set a crew to drilling on East North Street near the Ottawa River in February 1885. Natural gas had been discovered the year before at Findlay, touching off a boom that quadrupled the city’s population.Faurot hoped for gas but figured he might find only water. His Lima Strawboard Works, a large manufacturer of egg cartons, could use either one.Drilling continued more than 2½ months, penetrating 1,200 feet and into the Trenton limestone that underlies Allen County. About noon on May 9, 1885, at a depth of 1,255 feet, the drillers struck oil.It was a multimillion-dollar shot in the dark. Faurot had found oil at a randomly selected spot without benefit of any previous scientific analysis. Geologists later said that if he had sunk his well a half-mile to the west, he would have had nothing but a dry hole.Ten days after the initial strike, in hopes of breaking up the underground rock and increasing the flow of oil, it was decided to “shoot” the well with a charge of nitroglycerin. A huge crowd thronged the nearby bridge and railroad embankment to see the show, and those in charge had a job to keep all the cigar-smokers at a safe distance.Shortly after the charge was dropped down the well, a column of oil shot 75 feet into the air.One vivid impression shared by all who were present was the smell. The oil was later described as “dark in color, low in gravity and very offensive in odor,” giving off an aroma most often likened to that of rotten eggs.Faurot’s first well didn’t prove a rich one, but a second started out producing 40 barrels a day, then settled in at a steady 25. Faurot and friends formed the Trenton Rock Oil Co., and within a year had drilled 250 wells from Lima southwest through St. Marys and into Indiana.Still, there were problems. The smell of Lima’s crude oil came from its high sulfur content. Refined, the oil produced a yellowish kerosene that retained that sickly smell and generated only fair light.This is the point where John D. Rockefeller entered the story. Already Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Co. had monopolized the transport and refining of crude oil from the Pennsylvania fields, but it hadn’t yet gotten into actual production. Rockefeller’s original thought was to buy Lima oil and store it until he could find a way to refine it into a more attractive commercial product. A year after Faurot’s discovery, Buckeye Pipeline Co. — formed by a subsidiary of Standard Oil — was buying Lima crude at 40 cents a barrel and hauling it away.Then drillers struck the first of a series of astonishing gushers, mostly in Hancock and Wood counties. Several of them were producing thousands of barrels a day.“There was no way to collect that much oil,” geologists Lawrence H. Wickstrom and John D. Gray wrote in a 1994 article published by the Ohio Historical Society. “… So gushers were allowed to flow freely until storage facilities were built or until they could be capped off. The fields were soon knee-deep in oil that ran off into ditches and rivers.”The price of oil took a nosedive to 15 cents per barrel.Standard Oil had already built a refinery in Lima, and now decided to go into the production end of the business as well. Rockefeller’s initial idea, according to Wickstrom and Gray, was to buy up all the oil leases he could in hopes of shutting down the field and taking the surplus off the market.But then a new development sharply increased the marketability of Lima’s oil. Standard Oil’s J.W. Van Dyke and Canadian chemist Herman Frasch — who had been hired away from Faurot — perfected the sweetening stills to remove the smelly sulfur from the oil.Soon the price of Lima’s oil had climbed to $1 a barrel.Around the same time, a legal decision made it impracticable for Rockefeller to simply leave the oil in the ground; the court ruling meant some interloper could simply drill in diagonally and steal his oil out from under him. So Standard Oil began pumping and selling oil as fast as it could.That strategy partially accounts for the rapid peak and sharp decline of the Lima oil field. Wickstrom and Gray called the result “an appalling waste of a major natural resource.”Output of the Lima field climbed almost annually until 1904, when it peaked at nearly 24.7 million barrels. Production plummeted to 10 million barrels in 1906 and the field was regarded as virtually played out by 1910. A few wells continued to produce fitfully, but by 1934, total output had fallen to fewer than 1 million barrels.Even so, the oil boom lasted nearly 20 years and fueled Lima’s most dramatic period of growth and prosperity. Lima’s population doubled between 1880 and 1890, and doubled again by 1910. Oil attracted industries that still contribute to Allen County’s economy. John D. Rockefeller’s refinery has survived, in good times and bad, for 117 years under four different owners, most recently Premcor.There’s still plenty of oil underneath Allen County. Some estimates are that 90 percent of all the oil we ever had is still in the ground. So far, it has never become economically feasible to bring it up. One reason is that the natural gas that originally accompanied the oil was typically just flared off in the 1880s and ’90s; now there’s no underground pressure to force the oil to the surface.But folks are still tantalized by the thought of all that potential wealth down there somewhere. Since 1961, 11 exploratory oil wells have been drilled in Allen County and more than 200 in the nine-county Lima region. Activity spiked in the early 1980s, “when oil prices went way up and it looked like there was no end to it,” said Jim Glass, a geologist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Mineral Resources Management. “Then the market dropped and that was the end of it.”In 2001, the most recent year for which figures are available, total oil production for the nine-county region was 76 barrels — all from one well in Logan County. Still, schemers and dreamers periodically come up with new approaches that seem worth a gamble. As recently as 1995, some optimistic Texas oil prospectors pumped $5 million into Perry Township before giving up and going home.Oil has been a big factor in Allen County’s development, and theoretically it could be again. Another oil boom might not be likely. But we shouldn’t forget the lesson learned by Edward Orton.After Benjamin C. Faurot’s big find, the man who’d said it couldn’t happen acknowledged, “The entire history of the discovery and exploitation of petroleum in this country has been full of surprises.”

When electric trains traversed the countryside

By MIKE LACKEY

• mlackey@limanews.com •

419-993-2092

An advertising campaign spelled out the appeal of the electric interurbans quite succinctly: No dust, no smoke, no cinders.As a 20th-century alternative to the coal-fired, steam-driven huffing and puffing of the 19th-century railroads, the electric interurban railways were a quiet, clean, attractive innovation that temporarily transformed the landscape of western Ohio. These grown-up trolley systems also provided cheap, efficient rail service to dozens of isolated rural communities that couldn’t be effectively served by the big, expensive steam railroads.Their technology was ingenious and their economy was promising. The only thing wrong with the electric interurbans was their timing. Dealt a one-two punch by the automobile and the Depression, the interurbans lasted barely 30 years, then abruptly disappeared.Despite their picturesque history, few remnants of the interurbans’ brief heyday survive. When an interurban garage at Main Street and Grand Avenue was demolished in 1971, The Lima News acknowledged the passing of “a symbol of Lima’s former glorious transportation era.”Just about the only prominent structure still standing from that era, remodeled almost to the point of unrecognizability, is at 219 E. High St. In a former life, before it became Lima’s City Hall and now the home of the Allen County Health Department, the building was an interurban passenger station from 1910 to 1937.Interurbans were an outgrowth of local trolley services like the one in Lima, originally horse-drawn, that was converted to electricity July 4, 1887. The visionary behind that move was the indispensable man of late 19th-century Lima — entrepreneur, oilman and rail mogul Benjamin C. Faurot. Within a few years, electric “street railways” were carrying passengers in urban areas across the country, and the lines began to expand into the surrounding countryside.Allen County’s first interurban line was constructed in 1901, entering the county from the northeast and connecting Bluffton, Beaverdam, Lima and Cridersville. This was part of the Western Ohio Railway, which eventually combined with two other companies to form the Lima Route from Dayton to Toledo. Lima service began March 10, 1902. Round-trip fare to Wapakoneta was 55 cents, to St. Marys 90 cents. The line eventually covered 110 miles, carrying passengers from Toledo to Dayton.By 1906, the Western Ohio had 20 passenger trains stopping daily in Lima. Between 1905 and 1908, interurban lines were also constructed to Springfield and Van Wert, and a steam line to Defiance was electrified.At its peak the Ohio Electric Railway — which for a time also operated Lima’s local trolleys — ran over more than 600 miles of track, connecting much of Ohio with parts of Indiana and Michigan. Between the Ohio Electric and the Western Ohio, Lima became the hub of an interurban network that reached to Fort Wayne, Toledo, Cincinnati and Cleveland, along the way delivering passengers and some freight to dozens of smaller communities.Early interurban lines often stimulated business by creating destinations for people who otherwise would have been content to stay home. One example was near the present-day intersection of Shawnee and Spencerville roads. McBeth Park existed before the coming of the first interurban, but the Western Ohio, whose line ran along the eastern side of the site, contributed to its development into a full-blown amusement park by building a dance floor and providing paved walkways from the tracks throughout the grounds.The interurbans quickly grew in sophistication and reach. Ohio developed the nation’s most extensive network of interurban railways, much of it concentrated in the corridor between Cincinnati and Toledo. The western part of the state was crisscrossed by electric interurban lines offering fast service between larger towns plus local cars to hamlets and crossroads that were bypassed by the steam railroads.As early as 1905, the Dayton & Troy Electric inaugurated its Clover Leaf Special, designed specifically to deliver passengers from small towns to urban rail hubs. The Clover Leaf Special, stopping in Wapakoneta, Lima and several other cities along the way, made its daily 95-mile run from Dayton to Delphos in two hours, 34 minutes, then the fastest long-distance interurban service in the country. Within a decade, speeds of 60 to 80 mph were common in open country.Low fares and frequent service provided spirited competition for established steam railroads. While the interurbans couldn’t match the long-range speed or freight-hauling power of steam engines, they typically made several times as many runs and charged passengers about two-thirds the fare.But perhaps the interurbans’ greatest impact was in breaking down what railroad historian Scott Trostel has called the “awful isolation” of rural Americans at the turn of the century. The growing rural population didn’t have telephones, electricity or daily delivery of mail and newspapers. Interurbans made it possible for farm families to make regular excursions 15 or 20 miles into town for shopping and entertainment. Interurbans also enabled farmers to send their perishable milk, produce and poultry into the city for same-day sale to consumers.The farm economy boomed. And there were other benefits as well: Having strung the lines needed to operate the trains, a rail company could bolster its bottom line by selling electric utility service to customers along its route. Also profiting from land development along their rights of way, interurban lines also drew working people out of the cities and created some of the first bedroom communities.Each interurban car contained both motor and passenger compartments, becoming in effect a self-contained train. As such the interurbans could run frequently and stop practically on demand, dropping rural riders within walking distance of their homes and delivering merchandise almost to the customer’s door.The interurbans also often contributed a dash of unaccustomed glamour and excitement to the rural landscape.“They were painted in brilliant colors,” Harry Christiansen wrote in his history of Ohio’s interurbans. “There were stained glass windows that reflected rainbow lights at night. There was a shrill whistle that pierced the countryside for miles.”But the interurbans weren’t entirely the stuff of storybooks. The combination of increasing speeds, impossibly tight schedules and the ever-growing danger of automobiles on the tracks made for harrowing moments and occasional tragedies. Three people died in 1906 when a Western Ohio car derailed at 40 mph on a dangerous curve in Cridersville. Head-on collisions on interurban lines claimed four lives in Sidney in 1908 and two near Convoy on Easter Sunday, 1910.By the end of World War I, the interurbans had passed their peak of development and were beginning to slide into decline. Things would only get worse.Faced with increasing economic hardship after the stock market crash of 1929, and with increasing competition from private automobiles, the interurbans wooed passengers by adding parlor cars and lounges with deep-cushioned leather seats and porters providing personalized service.But the interurbans’ days were numbered. As Christiansen noted, the rise of the electric railways coincided almost exactly with the development of the automobile.“The farmer who so happily witnessed the first trolleys in 1900,” he wrote, “was saving up for a Ford in 1915.”As the Depression deepened, more and more interurban lines were abandoned, depriving communities of service they had enjoyed for 30 years or more.The Western Ohio Railway ceased operation Jan. 16, 1932. The Cincinnati & Lake Erie, which provided service for a time after the Ohio Electric Railway went into bankruptcy, abandoned its Lima service on Nov. 19, 1937. The city’s electric trolleys held on a little longer, bucking the increasing tide of downtown vehicular traffic, before finally making their final rounds May 13, 1939.The interurbans may have been doomed from the start. Emerging as they did at the same time as the automobile, they were fighting not just traffic, but history.“Few industries have arisen so rapidly or declined so quickly,” wrote George W. Hilton and John F. Due in their history of electric railways in America. “… The interurbans were a rare example of an industry that never enjoyed a prolonged period of prosperity.”The interurbans fought throughout their existence merely to survive, and “those (investors) who had faith in them paid dearly.”Still, if they were never an economic success, they were a creative triumph. For a time, at least, they were also a boon to small crossroads and scattered farm families of west central Ohio.

Out of the mud and into the 20th century

By MIKE LACKEY

• mlackey@limanews.com •

419-993-2092

The Lincoln Highway was often referred to as Main Street, U.S.A. It served that purpose, literally or figuratively, in communities including Beaverdam, Cairo, Gomer, Delphos and Van Wert.But in actuality, the Lincoln Highway was much more than the main drag through a lot of small towns. From its beginnings, it was the highway to America’s future. Our first transcontinental highway, the Lincoln passed through 12 states and more than 400 towns, reshaping the American way of life as it went.Years before such a road was seriously contemplated, Americans’ ideas about transportation were changing. In 1900, there were fewer than 4,200 automobiles registered in the United States. By 1910, two years after Henry Ford introduced the Model T, there were 180,000.Ford’s vision was to build a car that would enable the typical working man to “enjoy with his family … hours of pleasure in God’s greatest open spaces.”Getting there, however, was another matter. In 1903, the United States had fewer than 150 miles of paved roads. That year, spurred by a $50 bet, a Vermont physician named Horatio Nelson Jackson completed the first coast-to-coast trip by automobile, from San Francisco to New York.The journey took 64 days, meandering over 6,000 miles of rutted trails and muddy pathways. Jackson spent $8,000 for gasoline, tires, car repairs, and provisions and accommodations for himself and a mechanic.The idea of a modern, paved coast-to-coast motor highway originated with Carl G. Fisher, auto dealer, manufacturer of carbide headlights and one of the prime movers behind the Indianapolis 500.Fisher first proposed the idea to a gathering of auto-industry executives in 1912. The biggest problem they faced, he said, was mud: For six months of the year, most roads were nothing but mud, and people who owned cars didn’t drive them. As long as that situation continued, the industry’s growth would be stunted.The Lincoln Highway Association was formed in 1913, adopting a name calculated to appeal to patriotic sentiment in the states through which the road would pass. The association described itself as “a patriotic and non-commercial body.” Backers saw the highway as a symbol and agent of progress, uniting the country and quickening the pace of national life.Backing came from cement companies, tire manufacturers and automakers. Important boosters included Frank Seiberling of Goodyear Tire and Rubber, who pledged $300,000, and Henry B. Joy of the Packard Motor Car Co., who became the association’s first president. Notably absent was Henry Ford, who steadfastly maintained that public highways should be built with tax dollars.Fisher originally hoped the road could be built for $10 million and completed by 1915. Both projections were wildly overly-optimistic. Joy saw more clearly that they had taken on “the work of a generation.”Even in 1913, the project had to start practically from scratch. At the time, Pete Davies wrote in his book “American Road,” “there was nothing west of Pittsburgh that even remotely resembled a connected road system.” Of 3,389 miles that comprised the original route of the Lincoln, only 650 were macadam or stone.From the beginning, Joy pushed for the straightest, shortest route possible.“It was as if they laid a chalk line on the map from Times Square (in New York) to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, then snapped it tight,” Gregory Franzwa of Tucson, Ariz., founder of the modern-day successor to the original Lincoln Highway Association, told a Lima audience in June.The red, white and blue logo with the prominent block “L,” eventually a familiar guidepost all along the Lincoln, first appeared in 1913. The first guidebook to the highway was published in 1915. By then, the Atlantic-to-Pacific distance was figured at 3,331 miles. The guide’s editors estimated that driving 10 hours a day, averaging 18 mph, a motorist could travel from New York to San Francisco in three weeks.The guide apprised motorists of where they could look forward to paved roads. Most were crushed rock or brick, which Franzwa said made for “really good roads for a while, until they started to wear, then they got pretty bumpy.”Highway promoters saw poured concrete as the wave of the future. To demonstrate its virtues, the association offered free cement to any community that would provide labor to pour it. “Seedling miles” were typically placed far out in the country. It was hoped that if motorists had to labor through dust and mud to reach a stretch of good road, they would appreciate it all the more.The project also got a boost in 1919 from the experience of the Army’s transcontinental “motor train,” devised as the ultimate road test for its new motorized vehicles and as a way to systematically ascertain the state of the nation’s roads.By this time, much of the Lincoln was paved in Ohio. But farther west the convoy’s 81 vehicles and 300 men ran into severe difficulties, eventually requiring two months to traverse 3,250 miles from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco.The convoy followed the Lincoln much of the way and, lacking good road maps, used a Lincoln Highway guide. The soldiers camped overnight in Delphos’ Waterworks Park, and were entertained at a gala dance.Among the officers on that journey was 28-year-old Lt. Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Thirty-seven years later, in 1956, President Eisenhower would sign legislation creating the interstate highway system.By the time Ike passed through, any hopes that Lima’s downtown businesses would be nourished by the Lincoln’s steady flow of traffic were a thing of the past. Lima had been on the highway early in its development, when the route swung southward from Upper Sandusky through Ada and Lima, then back northward to Elida and Delphos.But northwest Ohio was an ideal place to pursue the most direct route possible. By 1915, the highway was redrawn along the straighter, more northerly route through Beaverdam, Cairo and Gomer. Ultimately, Drake Hokanson wrote in “The Lincoln Highway,” it achieved a route that, between Upper Sandusky and Cairo, “runs as true as a surveyor’s line for more than 50 miles.”By 1924, the last of the Lincoln Highway guidebooks reported that such systematic straightening and shortening had brought the two coasts 247 miles closer together. Total distance, calculated at 3,389 miles in 1913, was now 3,142.It would still be years before the entire route was paved. But already people were feeling the lure of the open road. One of the great thrills of the 1920s was to open the windshield and feel the breeze in your face at speeds up to 25 mph.Travelers saw a lot of country and a lot of small towns. And the small towns saw a lot, too. The late Martha Partch Evans, who liked to say she was about the same age as the highway, recalled in her 80s how she used to sit on her porch in Gomer as a child, counting out-of-state license plates streaming past on the highway.Wherever the highway went, it altered the towns it passed through. It brought new institutions and enterprises — diners, gas stations and tourist courts — strung out across the continent specifically to serve the needs of automobiles and their occupants as they came in increasing numbers.Mobility spurred more mobility. The process continued and accelerated. The experience here was typical: By 1920, seven years after the formation of the Lincoln Highway Association, there were 8,000 motor vehicles in Allen County.In the end, the success of the Lincoln Highway sowed the seeds of its demise. As Americans bought more and more vehicles and drove more and more miles, the push for good roads became ever more insistent. The federal government got into the interstate highway business in 1928 and the private Lincoln Highway Association, its work largely done, went out of existence.Today, many communities once invigorated by the Lincoln Highway are bypassed by U.S. Route 30 or Interstate 80. The Lincoln, where it’s still recognizable, has become a picturesque byway.But this vivid and vital part of 20th-century America hasn’t faded away. A new Lincoln Highway Association was formed in 1992, dedicated to identifying and preserving surviving stretches of the original highway and significant landmarks along the way.Enthusiasts are clustered along a belt across northern Ohio and the organization’s national convention visited Van Wert in 1997. Red, white and blue Lincoln Highway signs mark much of the traditional route through Allen and Van Wert counties; in Beaverdam, a brick Lincoln Highway pillar, a replica of those that marked the way across Ohio in the 1920s, was dedicated in 1999 to the memory of Carl G. Fisher.These days it may be the road less traveled. But once the Lincoln Highway brought the world to our door. As Martha Evans told a reporter in 1992, “This was one thing that came to us instead of us going to it.”

Footnote

This is most likly a reprint of a series in the Lima News. I have relocated here as it is the history of the area I grew up in. When I first read it it was already in a web format and located at this web site: http://www.limaohio.com/special/ggg.php Since then I have been unable to locate it again except on Yahoo search it turns up as snapshot page in their cache archives at this web site: http://66.218.69.11/search/cache?p=%22Black+Swamp+History%22AND%22Lima%22&fr=FP-tab-web-t400&toggle=1&ei=UTF-8&u=www.limaohio.com/special/ggg.php&w=%22black+swamp+history%22+lima&d=Pu0yxGP9NNdD&icp=1&.intl=us

Regards,

Summertime in Delphos was the best....

Summertime always meant brand new Keds tennis shoes, sun burns, mosquito bites, and corn on the cob. Swimming was at the top of the list. Getting together with my dads folks there would be plenty of homemade potato salad and hand churned ice cream. We ate tomatoes off the vine and drank plenty of cool aide. Some how I never seemed to be able to dodge poison ivy and usually spent a week or 2 battling it but plenty of cantaloupe and watermelon seemed to help. We had plenty of flat tires on our bikes but dad was the best inner tube patcher in the world and he would come home from work and have us up and running in no time. Hula hoops were boring and they usually didn't hold my attention very long. Now slingshots were cool and I could hit pretty much anything I aimed at. My birthday was near the 4th of July so that was just another reason I liked summer. And then there was the fair. Cotton candy, candied apples, taffy, rides, french fries, games that you couldn't win and rides that made you sick. Yup, summertime in Delphos, Ohio. There has never been nothing quite like it. I forgot to mention the VanDel. It is the drive in between Delphos and Van Wert and as far as I know it is still in operation. Best drive in in the world.

Regards,

Wish I would have spent more time in Delphos...

I was on my way through town to Willshire Township in Van Wert County to one of my family's grave sites. I have been working on the genealogy for awhile and I wanted to document some more headstones and re-shoot some I had done earlier. So I only had a chance to spin through one end and out the other so I'll have to make a return trip for sure.

Regards,

Ode to David Slaughter

David was my age, in fact we were in the same grade and went to school together. He was a good looking kid. Sandy hair, freckles I believe, and a mischievous grin. He lived on the north side of town. I got to know him from school and then I really got to know him after school. My folks both worked and so after school I would go to the sitter’s house which was just off of Highway 30 (Lincoln Highway). At first she lived in the big house on the corner of Canal Street and Fifth. Last time I saw it was torn down and called “The Wheel Restaurant” and now it is called something else. Then she moved right across the street so that her backyard now included the canal. Her folks still lived in the big house on the corner of Canal and Fifth (Lincoln Highway). Some how David and I hooked up after school and played together. I was close to where he lived so he would ride his bike over. We were together a lot. Nobody really knew it. It was no big deal. When we saw each other at school it was just normal that we didn’t discuss that we hung out together. I don’t know why. Neither one of us were embarrassed or anything. We didn’t hide the fact that we knew each other more than we knew about other classmates either. We were just cool about everything.

Anyway, David was a blast to hang out with. One day we ended up with some cane poles with some line wrapped around the ends with bobber and a hook. All we had for bait was bread that we mashed into dough balls. Hey, that was then. We didn’t think we would catch squat. But we ended landing the biggest Carp I have ever seen. They were huge. Of course Carp are considered a garbage fish to the WASPs (white Anglo sexton Protestants) but we didn’t care we had caught some fish! Yup, David was cool to hang out with.

All that changed one day. David had been over to where I was at with the sitter and we were goofing off. My folks came to get us early and so David took off. No big deal. Next day, I go to school and everyone asks me if I had heard what happened to David. I knew nothing so I said so. David had been hit by a car while crossing Fifth Street (The Lincoln Highway). It was not very far from where we last saw each other. David never saw it coming. His injuries were extensive and there was no hope of survival. He passed away that afternoon. I was in shock. Just numb. I had wished David had never known me, I wished he had never crossed that highway to see me. It didn’t do any good. It was too late. All the wishing in the world wouldn’t bring him back now. I suffered hard and in silence. Just one of many of the “man” lessons I would learn. No one really knew how close we were or that we hung out together. So I mourned for him alone as best I could as best I knew how. I got to see him 3 times at the funeral home. Once after school with some kids I walked home with. Again that night when my parents took me and then again the next day when my whole class went aboard a bus. I did not get to go to David’s funeral.

I believe I was in the 4th grade when David died. I am not sure any more. I know the teacher did one of the most morbid things I had ever seen up to that day. She emptied David’s desk out and just put his stuff on a shelf in the back of the class room. There was nothing else on these shelves but David’s school supplies. The area looked so stark bare naked except for these pencils, ink pens, a ruler, glue, some paper, and a pencil box. Things that David would never use again. Never. And we kids had to come into class every day and like it or not that is the first thing we saw. We couldn’t help but not see them. They were directly in your line of sight as you entered the doorway. It was so haunting. Some days I could almost see David coming back to get them. They stayed there for a long time. Way to long for this little boy.

Then something strange happened. My parents got into financial trouble and either sold the house or had it foreclosed on. So half way through the 5th grade we were moving to Lima, Ohio. I would change schools during the Christmas break. In the mean time we had swapped out baby-sitters again. When we first met her I thought she looked vaguely familiar. Then I realized who it was. This was David Slaughter’s mother. But the guy in the house didn’t look like her husband. Then I found out what had happened. I came to find out that after David’s death her marriage to her former husband collapsed and they divorced and then she remarried. She had David’s older sister with her. It was a strange set of affairs I found myself in. I remember asking her a lot of questions about David but always watching her body language to see if I had treaded too far. She was very gentle about answering the questions and really put me at ease. The time flew by and before I realized it we were saying goodbye for good. She, her daughter, and her husband lived in a cozy little place by the tracks on Franklin I believe and I wondered what would become of her.

So the Christmas vacation was over before it started and I was enrolled in Lowell School down on the corner of Spring Street and Jamison in Lima. I sure didn’t like being the new kid and I stayed the new kid for quite awhile. So I finished out 5th grade and soon forgot about Delphos when summer arrived cause there was a million and one things to do. It seemed like everything in my past just kinda faded away into a dream, then to fog, and then just gone.

Fate was not done with me yet to my amazement. My family and I had started taking vacations a few years earlier as us kids had become old enough to manage on outings into scenic and historic areas. Mom was a history buff so we spent our summers receiving an education in places like Williamsburg, VA, Lake George, NY, and Cape Cod, RI. She had set into motion something that would decide the rest of my life’s pursuits. First she took us to Virginia Beach, VA where I got my first look at the ocean. Next we were driving through Norfolk, VA looking at all the navy ships docked there and we picked up 3 sailors in their dress whites. That was it. It was all over with except for the signature. I was going to sea and that was that. And I did, 24 years in the U. S. Navy and you can call me Chief. Anyway, back to fate….. So it was during one of these vacations that we happened to be in the Smokey Mountains. We had hiked quite a while to get to a view point. No sooner then we got there than I looked over and here came David’s mom, her husband, and her daughter coming from a trail from another direction. We spoke with them for awhile and then went about our separate ways. David’s mom had moved on. She loved and missed him as only a mother can but she had let go with dignity. I admired her for that very, very much because it was at that moment I realized that I could not and I never have….

I am coming back to find David's grave site. If anyone happens to know where it is please email me....

The Marbletown Festival

Well, the Marbletown Festival should be in full swing and getting ready to move into the spotlight. I'm glad to hear the folks back in Marbletown, Delphos, Ohio decided to start the festival. Marbletown was a great place to grow up in and an even better place to remember.

There is actually another Marbletown and it is in New York. I know little about it and felt for a long time that they must have stolen the name from our Marbletown. But that was not the case and as I got older I realized that the world was big enough for 2 Marbletowns.

Happy Marbletown Days to all....

It was a one of a kind...

Well this time of the year used to find me at one place. The DeIphos Public Swimming Pool. I spent so many hours there I couldn't even begin to keep track. I learned to swim there, went off my first diving board there, and almost watched a kid drown there. Unique in it's shape, completely round. It is the only swimming pool I have ever seen like it. I have know idea how old it is or who designed it but I loved it. Seeing pictures of it brings back some fond memories....

I'll never forget that overwhelming smell of chlorine, the metal baskets to put our clothes in and the shelves they sat on while we could care less if they were there or not. I remember we had to step into some kind of small cement enclosure was filled with some mucky looking water that was suppose to kill any germs on our feet. I was prone to step around it for fear of really getting something on my feet.

Now this I never understood. Me and the rest of the kids would do this over and over again. We would go up to the snack bar and get a candy bar. When we opened them for some strange reason they were always melted. Whoppers and Clark Bars seemed to go the fastest. It was probably because we didn't have a beach but instead a hot cement like beach area surrounding the pool. Hey....it was a beach to us.

About the kid the almost drown, I'm sure you're still wondering about that. Well, before I could swim I had a blow-up plastic sea horse that was in the shape of a doughnut with a horse's neck and head. I could hang on inside the doughnut hole and kick myself around. Well me and some other kids were walking around near the deep end of the pool and I was carrying my blow up horse and the wind blew it out of my hands into the deep section of the pool. All of us kids stopped. I wasn't sure what to do next and neither were they. Next thing we knew a little kid came up and said to me "Hey kid, do you want me to go get that for you"? I was kinda dumbfounded because he was so much smaller than any of us. But before I knew it I said "Yes". And, into the water he went, just like he knew what he knew what he was doing. Then things got weird. He quit moving around so much and he didn't return to the surface. He was kinda just floating about 3 to 4 feet from the surface, his eyes were open but had a blank stare to them. His skin started to change colors to a motley purple bluish to an off white. Something in my gut was screaming at me that there was something terribly wrong here but about that time one of the boys next to me said " Look at that kid swim, wow he is really good". I short circuited at this point because I trusted the boy who made the statement but my gut feeling was overwhelming. About this time a teenage girl had dived into the pool and came face to face with the little boy who was obviously drowning. She grabbed him and hauled him out of the pool yelling at the life guards at the same time. All hell broke loose. It took me and the other kids awhile to figure out that the kid had been drowning this whole time. I was at best 4 to 5 years old and I had no idea about drowning or what a drowning victim looked like and neither did the other kids. Shortly an ambulance arrived and hauled him off. To this day I don't know his name or if he lived or died. I tried to get a hold of the Delphos Public Library but they said they didn't have the staff to look for the article. I hope he made it.

I love that pool....

Footnote: I do not remember where I aquired the picture of the Delphos Public Swimming Pool from so if you recognize the photo please contact me so I can properly document the photo credit and request permission of the owner for use. Thank you.