Minster Businesses - Dave’s Midwestern Ohio Memories

A Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s.

Minster Businesses

Continuing our series about businesses in local communities during the 50’s & 60”s, since our family farm was located just south of the Auglaize County line, we only were a few miles from Minster. As a result, my parents would routinely utilize the services of the businesses in that community. We also had several uncles and aunts living in Minster who we frequently visited.

Our uncle Al and aunt Dorothy owned the local hotel in the center of town on the southwest corner of routes 66 & 119, 4th & Main. We loved visiting there, playing pool in the hotel bar and roaming the old creaky halls and stairs of the ancient hotel now torn down. We were at the Wooden Shoe Inn recently, diagonally across the street from where the old hotel was located. Long time Wooden Shoe owner, Fred Meyer, pictured below tending bar at the Inn, told us a story about Herman Streacker, the proprietor of Streacker’s Implement where my uncle Clarence worked, which was located right next to the hotel. Dad purchased all his Oliver farm equipment from Streacker's. Herman would always come to the Inn for lunch, enjoying a few cocktails with his meal, then return to his implement store walking diagonally across the busy intersection shown below; the shortest way back to his store. My uncle Al and Fred’s dad helped ole Herman safely across the intersection many a time.

On the other side of the street was Bud Sommer’s gas station and pizza place. I became good friends with Bud and his sons. What a fantastic place to hang out as teenagers on Friday nights. And the opposite corner was the furniture store (large red brick building on right in above photo). Never entered the place, but now the town library is located in the building.

We had other cousins in town whom we enjoyed visiting. Uncle Clarence and aunt Ginnie lived on Hanover directly across the street from the high school ball diamond, which meant some lively games during the summer months. They had a great basketball court in their driveway with some smooth concrete for easy dribbling compared to our convoluted barn floor. Also, my aunt Anna Marie and uncle Greg lived in a home on Frankfort St. just south of 4th St. An alley in the rear separated their lot from the Miami-Erie canal, which was close by the hardware store owned by my great uncles Lou Hoying and Joe Westerheide. Also close by were Farno’s grocery store and the Ditch Mill; all provided great opportunities for adventure as kids. Loved playing around the canal, roaming through the well-stocked hardware store, and enjoying popsicles from Farno’s, which were the best on a hot summer day. And in the winter, my cousins recall having to shovel snow off the roof of the hardware store so the flat roof wouldn’t collapse, especially during the blizzard of ’78.

Our uncle Paul, from Osgood, worked at Minster Machine in the foundry, so we’d ride our bikes to the plant and meet him occassionaly when his shift was over. The foundry was quite a place to work, with all the hot furnaces and casting machines, which meant my uncle would be covered in foundry dust as his shift ended. He’d tell us to study hard and go to college so we wouldn’t have to work in such conditions. That being said, Minster Machine produced some of the best punch presses in the world, reinforced years later when I first traveled to Japan and toured a factory there. Setting side-by-side were two identical presses, one with the Minster logo across the top and another with no logo that the Japanese had replicated and made themselves.

Whenever we’d ride our bikes to visit our cousins in Minster, we’d head to the car dealers on the north end of town, Far Motors selling Fords and Linie Hausfeld’s, who always had some cool used cars for sale. The Tbirds, Mustangs, Camaros and Corvettes were our favorites. Invariably, during our bike rides around town, we’d run into Fred Sommer, from the Minster DPW working on some project that would always interest us. The photo of Fred below is from 1965. His son Fred, Jr. is now my bother-in-law.

Wrapping up our bike ride to Minster during the summer, we’d hit the Tastee Freez south of town on SR66 as we headed back to the family farm. The ice cream shop was part of the Meyer Dairy Farm, which eventually grew into what is now Minster’s biggest business, Dannon Yogurt.

I’d be remiss in not mentioning other businesses in town, such as the Cresent Theater, hosting both movies and live plays Wagner’s IGA with their cold storage locker, Fischer Grocery, whose son Rob was on our trip to Virginia Beach documented in this past blog, Ripploh Market, ran by Bill Ripploh, my K of C basketball coach who coached the team for 30 years, Maltinsky’s Mens Wear, ran by the local football coach, Kuehner Bakery and their outstanding pumpernickel bread, Lauts with their cellar full of keg beer, Wonder Bar at the K of C hall, the canning factory in the former Wooden Shoe Brewery, Gudorf & Moorman appliances, Hogenkamp and Heinle funeral homes and Gagel Plumbing.

I can’t forget Buschur Electric, founded by Jack Buschur and his wife Bonnie, a school classmate of my wife’s. Jack and Bonnie have been staunch Minster supporters since the early ’70’s, and Jack’s been a volunteer firefighter as well as active in local politics, as shown below in one of his more serious moments testifying in Columbus about tax reform for small businesses.

The fight for small business income tax reform began when Jack Buschur, owner of Buschur Electric, brought to light the amount of paperwork needed for the Company’s annual return.

As our series of blogs on local businesses in Ft. Loramie, Russia and Minster comes to a close, it’s business owners like Jack and all the other local proprietors who make our country great. Small business represent the heart and soul of a community. I treasure the memories of each and every business owner and pay tribute to their tremendous contributions for our local home towns.