Ft. Loramie - Main Street and Beyond - Continued
After last week’s blog about some of Ft. Loramie’s shops, my brother reminded me of several others, so of course talking about them with him brought back even more memories.
Recall this series of blogs started when Fish Report shared an article about Vogelsang’s restaurant closing. Adjacent to Vogelsang’s was the Ft. Loramie Mill and across the street was Seger’s restaurant in the old Loramie hotel building. Both are depicted in the above painting by Catherine Wolken, curator of the Ft. Loramie Historical Association for many years. The Mill was operated by John Siegel, the father of a classmate of mine and the restaurant was owned by Henry and Rita Seger, Henry and his brothers Carl and Fred were triplets and hard to tell apart.
A little south of Vogelsang’s and next to the mill sat the local welding shop ran by Julie Henke. He was a master with the welder, having fixed countless broken implement parts (many I broke myself!) saving Dad (and my allowance) many dollars. He was especially good at re-welding broken basketball rims that couldn’t withstand slam dunks - actually that’s not quite the truth as the rim in our barn was right in the path of fully loaded hay wagons that invariably got too close and broke the rim.
Further south was the doctor’s office staffed by a wonderful family doctor by the name of William Schoer. Although I dreaded the annual physicals required to compete in school sports, he was mainly responsible for our family longevity, with my mother and father both living to 88 and 94 respectively under his care, plus me and my siblings still hanging in there as well; knock on wood.
A little bit further down on the opposite side of Main Street along the Miami-Erie canal was the sawmill owned by Gus Wise. What a place that was to see those big logs get sawn into smooth planks ready for some construction project. Dad always was building or re-building something on the farm that would require lumber, and sometime he would have an oak or walnut tree cut down in our woods that the sawmill would turn into the needed lumber.
Heading further south, you’d come to the Gulf Gas Station operated by Clem Ruhencamp, who with his son Don, also provided ditching and escalating services locally. See a recent blog for that story. They had an ice house with huge blocks of ice stored in a small building out back that was the coolest place in town during the hot summer months. Speaking of gas stations, Fleet Wing Gas Company was just outside of town and owned by Elmer Schafer. He bought the one-truck business in 1950 from my eventual father-in-law when he went off to serve in the Korean War. That first truck was a lot smaller than the monster below.
On the outskirts of town was Ft. Loramie Cast Stone Products ran by Harry Wendlin. They made all kinds of concrete pieces; known especially for their decorative cast concrete art displayed out front of the business. Directly across the street was Al’s Place, a bar and restaurant ran by Harry’s son, Al Wendeln. It was the happening place on Wednesday evenings back in the 60’s. The place would be wall-to-wall with partiers celebrating hump day, with the refreshments flowing and the rock music playing in the juke box at full volume.
Just south of Al’s was Tony’s Service, which I had forgotten about but was reminded when this eBay offering surfaced for a box of wooden matches from the ’40’s or ’50’s advertising an Indian Motorcycle presumably sold by Tony's. Didn’t know we had a motorcycle dealer in town!
All the local business people described in my last two blogs were skilled entrepreneurs who knew how to effectively serve their customers and operate their business. Observing them in action as a kid growing up around Ft. Loramie had a very positive and early impact on my business training and experience, for which I’m very grateful.
The Historical Association has commemorated many of these businesses by displaying the quilt shown in the photo below. Their website also has many other photos of local business and their owners.
No comments:
Post a Comment