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Hamster Hijinks
Did you have a favorite pet when you were a kid?I remember wanting a dog very badly. But Mom (who had a dog when she was growing up) said they were too much work. Plus, she was not the type to have a...
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Ohio Turnpike Opens Tonight at Midnight – 1955
The Ohio Turnpike opened 70 years ago tonight at midnight, marking October 1, 1955 as the official day that it opened. As the article below from the Lorain Journal of Sept. 30, 1955 notes, "The longest...
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The Ohio Turnpike in Vintage Postcards
Continuing our celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the Ohio Turnpike, here's an ample sample of vintage postcards featuring the iconic highway. I've included the postmark date when available.As you...
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Early Years of the Woolly Bear Festival 1973 - 1981
The 53rd Annual Woolly Bear Festival is coming up this Sunday in my town of Vermilion, so it's a good time to look back at how and when it all got started.What follows are clippings from the Journal...
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It's a "Sgt. Joe Friday" Friday
One of the photos in my Jack Webb/Dragnet collectionFor all you Dragnet Fans...While preparing my Sept. 1954 post a few weeks ago that included the showing of Dragnet at the Palace, I had a few things...
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2025 Woolly Bear Festival – Wild & Woolly Wrap-up
The weather couldn't have been better for the 53rd Annual Woolly Bear Festival on Sunday. Thousands of people took advantage of the perfect weather to visit Vermilion and enjoy some old-fashioned...
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Are they Wright About the Mosher House – or Not?
Way back in 2014, I wrote about this house (here), located just south of Wellington on State Route 58. I'd been an admirer of it since the early 1980s, when I first read about it in the Lorain Public...
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Fire Prevention Week Ads – 1950, 1955, 1960, 1965 & 1975
We're right in the middle of Fire Prevention Week 2025, which runs from Sunday, October 5 to Saturday, October 11. So it's a good time to post some vintage ads from Fire Prevention Weeks of years...
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"The Allotment" in Avon Lake – October 1968
The part of Avon Lake roughly being referred to in the articleAvon Lake doesn't get very much coverage on this blog which purports to be about Lorain County. So to help rectify that, here's an...
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V.O.L. Gets a New Fire Siren – October 1955
One of the things that I like about living in the east end of Vermilion is the daily six o'clock test of the siren at the Vermilion Fire Dept. Station No. 2 in the Vermilion-on-the-Lake neighborhood....
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Cutcher's Brownhelm Store – Part 1
I commute from Vermilion to Oberlin each day, so I spend a lot of time driving Baumhart Road – which is great, because I pass the Brownhelm Store twice a day. It's very handy. I love their homemade...
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Cutcher's Brownhelm Store – Part 2
Bill and Bonnie Cutcher's Brownhelm Store continued to be a favorite subject of Lorain Journal articles over the years, as we shall see. Twenty-one years after Bob Cotleur's 1974 profile of the...
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Cutcher's Brownhelm Store – Part 3
Bill and Bonnie Cutcher at the time they sold the Brownhelm Store in 1999. (Photojournalist photo by Katy McElroy)When the Cutchers sold the Brownhelm Store in 1999, the Lorain Journal sent well-known...
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Burt Shotton, Major League Baseball Player from Brownhelm
My blog post about the community well that used to be in front of the Brownhelm Store noted, "Not far from the well is the former home of Brownhelm's contribution to professional baseball – Burt...
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Suhr's Store in Mitiwanga
It's always a little sad when a local landmark is lost. It's not just the physical loss, the disappearance of something – a building, or whatever – that we're used to seeing year after year. It's the...
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Indian Burial Grounds Discovered in Vermilion – 1940
Courtesy lookandlearn.comEighty-five years ago this month, Indian skeletons were unearthed on the Louis Frank farm, located two miles south of US Route 6 on E. River Road (today's Vermilion Road).It's...
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Indian Burial Pit – Salina, Kansas
Yesterday's post about the Indian burial grounds discovered near Vermilion in 1940 reminded me of this brochure (below) that I had picked up during one of my family's cross-country camping trips in the...
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Fall Cavalcade of Color - 2025 Part 1
Along North Ridge Road in BrownhelmAs is my custom each autumn, I've been heading out with my camera phone to try and capture some of the colorful fall foliage. It's a little disappointing this year...
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Brownhelm Congregational church – Then & Now
Recently this great vintage shot of the Brownhelm Congregational Church (now known as the Brownhelm United Church of Christ) on North Ridge Road showed up on eBay. It's kind of a spooky shot, with that...
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The Workman Cabin in Loudonville / Mohican State Park
Last week I headed down to Mohican State Park to check out the fall foliage, and while driving through Loudonville, was curious about this old cabin in Central Park on South Market Street. I've driven...
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Dem Bones, dem bones...
Skeletons seem to be pretty popular these days when it comes to outdoor Halloween decorations. The creative displays I seen all over Lorain County, especially those utilizing the 8-foot tall variety,...
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Fisher Foods Fall Festival Ad – October 26, 1955
Fisher Foods must have been feeling a little squirrelly when it came time to come up with a theme for its annual Fall Festival promotional ad. Various cute, bushy-tailed nut gatherers romp all over...
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On Area Movie Screens – October 26, 1955
Many now-classic movies were showing on area drive-in movie screens back on October 26, 1955 – 70 years ago this week, including a double feature of From Here to Eternity and On the Waterfront at the...
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Halloween 1955
The celebration of Halloween in 1955 was pretty different from now, as you will see from this assortment of ads and clippings from the pages of the Lorain Journal back then. It was still a holiday for...
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Halloween 1965
Ten years after the events in yesterday's post, Halloween 1965 seemed to be a low key affair in the Journal, with not very many ads with a holiday theme.The well-remembered Ontario store seemed to...
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