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Rails, the waterfront went hand in handPostcards show Pennsylvania (above) and New York Central (below) at Sandusky's waterfront.Follett House scrapbookBy VIRGINIA STEINEMANN__________________and HELEN HANSEN “_Post card pictures from early in this century of excursion trains at the foot of Columbus Avenue are fascinating. Where did all the tourists come from?They came from all over Ohio: on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern from Toledo, on the Lake Erie and Western from Lima, the Pennsylvania from Columbus, the Baltimore and Ohio from Mansfield, the Big 4 from Springfield, Findlay and Dayton, and the New York Central from Cleveland, to name just a few.Sundays and holidays were the big days with 5,000 people considered a good crowd for Cedar Point. Conventions sometimes drew two or three times that number.Typical of the conventions were the Ohio Bar, Ohio Grain Dealers, Ohio State Teachers’ Association, Ohio Master Bakers, Knights of Columbus, Elks and Lake Shore Pioneers. One Sunday in 1915, 18,000 Goodyear Rubber employees and families from Akron really crowded the facilities. Today the daily average is about 25,000.Not all of the excursionists went to Cedar Point on the boats Wehrle, R.B. Hayes or G.A. Boeckling. Some took the Arrow to the islands, some went to Detroit and Cleveland by boat and some boarded the streetcars to visit the Ohio Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home which opened in 1888.Long trips were tiresome, with the coal burning engines belching soot and cinders flying through the open windows. The empty coaches lined the Pier Line from the drawbridge on the east to Shelby Street and the railroad yards to the west. In the fall of 1984, the last of the Pier Line tracks were removed from what is now called Shoreline Drive.Tired but happy excursionists climbed into the cars to return home.Young boys begged the tourists to buy water lilies which had been gathered thatmorning at Big Island. Sad to say, the lilies would wilt almost before the train left Sandusky.Oldtimers tell us that sometimes unscrupulous vendors would sell hot dogs in buns which were found to be without the dogs” after the train was on its way! Apparently no one worried about good public relations.Mrs. Steinemann is chairman of the Follett House Museum, 404 Wayne St., a branch of the Sandusky Library. Mrs. Hansen is curator of the museum.CEDAR POfNT BOAT LANDING. SANDUSKY, OHtO
Newspaper Details
Sandusky Sunday Register
Sandusky, Ohio, US
Sun, Jul 12, 1987
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Sandusky P.
OH, USA 21 Jun 2022
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