Frank Lloyd Wright owned a number of cars in his lifetime and most of them seem kind of flashy and unique to me.
Imagine my surprise when we walked into the Hagen History Center in Erie, Pa to find a car that was once owned by the renowned architect. Not only that, the car is a Crosley!
Crosley was a Cincinnati business first known for radios and then household appliances, cars and other items. I have a couple of their radios in my vintage radio collection and squeal like a little girl every time I see one of their products out in the world.
So, meet Frank’s (yes, I call him Frank) 1950 Crosley Hotshot roadster
Isn’t it fabulous?
Here’s a look at that Crosley logo.
And another look.
Headlights!!!
And just one more….
I somehow missed any signage describing this car but I think it speaks for itself. Want to see it for yourself? Visit the Hagen Center in Erie, PA. Don’t forget to check out yesterday’s story about Frank’s office which you can tour here as well.
As September draws to a close, it occurs to me that many, many stories are left untold from my Labor Day trip to Pennsylvania. Today we will start at the Hagen History Center which serves Erie County, Pa. They have two campuses and we visited the one on Erie’s Millionaire’s Row.
The campus includes two historic mansions, a new building for exhibit space and a historic carriage house which is home to a gift shop and library/reading room. This is where you buy your tickets.
My friend had already been there and was excited for me to see a specific exhibit but she held her cards close. She didn’t show her hand until we were in the room and compared it to throwing me a surprise party.
What was so special?
They have Frank Lloyd Wright’s office.
You read that right. The walls, floors, furniture, typewriters, pencils and protractors. They have it all. It even has a unique smell that I couldn’t quite identify- aged wood, pipe tobacco, and brilliance?
And that remark about this being like a surprise party? This was way better than a party.
This is Frank Lloyd Wright’s San Francisco field office which he used while working on California projects. It was disassembled and sold to a private collector long ago before spending some time behind glass at the Heinz Architectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.
Now at the Hagen in Erie, the office is no longer behind glass – you can walk through it! This is his desk! The office is relatively small with room for a desk, two guest chairs and a couch.
Those guest chairs, if you want to call them that, look rather unwelcoming to me.
This is the workroom. Notice the windows feature the image of the actual San Francisco view.
The view as you enter.
The secretary’s typewriter.
And her desk with the view.
And here’s the man himself keeping a sharp eye on visitors.
Walking through this space was near magical and I recommend going to see it if you are a fan of his work. Want to visit? Get more info here.
Also, come back tomorrow and we will have a look at his car!!!! It’s absolutely fabulous.
Next month marks the 100th anniversary of when Maude Collins became Ohio’s first female sheriff. She was appointed to the office when her husband Sheriff Fletcher Collins was shot and killed in the line of duty in 1925.
When the Vinton County Commissioners appointed the sheriff’s widow to the position, I suspect they thought it was an act of charity, something that would buy the young widow some time to plan for a fresh start. Back in the day, the sheriff’s family lived at the Sheriff’s Office. His wife was the jail matron. His five young children lived under the same roof as prisoners kept in cells. This was still customary in 1925.
So when Maude lost her husband, she lost her home too.
Maude was around thirty when she first put on the badge and I’m proud to say she proved to everyone that she was capable of doing the job. She was no one’s charity case. She investigated crimes including several murders, served warrants, patrolled the roads and arrested people just like a man would.
Women had only been voting for a few years when she was appointed Sheriff. She finished her husband’s unexpired term and then her name appeared on a primary election ballot across from some local men. She beat them pretty handily and went on to beat a male opponent in the general election. And a few years later, she went on to be elected county recorder.
Sheriff Maude busted up moonshine stills with a child at her hip. That’s because there were no social safety nets back then. There were no food stamps or welfare, no housing vouchers or even kindergarten to send her youngest to.
And when she finished her day, there wasn’t an electric washer and dryer at home to make sure the family had clean clothes or microwave meals for the nights she didn’t have time to cook.
I can’t fathom how she managed.
A double murder investigation she led gained her national attention. I have a copy of a mid- century “Startling Detective Magazine” that tells the story of a sensational murder.
Sheriff Maude is also in the state’s history books for being the first woman to deliver a prisoner (a man, no less) to the Ohio State Penitentiary in 1929. Incidentally, she was a descendent of the McCoy family that gained so much notoriety as part of the Hatfield and McCoy feud.
She must have been a character. I mean, to be a single working mom would be hard enough. To do it back then would have been a Herculean task. To do something so dangerous as be a sheriff would take true nerve. She did have a male deputy who seemed to be a decent guy and supportive of his boss but it would still have been such a hard life.
Her story was mostly lost to time until about 25 years ago. In fact, Belmont County, Ohio had been telling everyone that their lady sheriff, elected in 1976, was the first to do so in the country. No offense to her legacy but that woman wasn’t even born yet when Sheriff Maude was out breaking up moonshine operations. Plus, there were a few women sheriffs before our Sheriff Maude.
This story may ring a bell for you longtime readers. I helped the local historical society get an Ohio Historical marker a few years ago and wrote that story here.
I sit on the local tourism board and we raised money to have a mural painted in Sheriff Maude’s honor. It will be dedicated on October 9, the 100th anniversary of her becoming sheriff. We’ll have an open house at the visitors center along with some vendors that evening.
When we announced the mural project, we had a local woman suggest that celebrating Sheriff Maude wasn’t the best use of a mural. After all, she just got the job because her husband died and she didn’t have to work that hard.
I would love to time travel that woman back to 1925 and let her see how hard Maude had to work to balance home and job and to keep it together. Let her do better. Why are there always naysayers?
Sheriff Maude did everything a man would do only she had to do it better, with a family to care for and undoubtedly with a lot of naysayers waiting for her to fail. Remember, this was still a time when women were expected to stay home and raise a family rather than have jobs, homes and incomes of their own.
This is why we talk about our past and study our history. It’s up to us to keep alive these remarkable stories and to appreciate how pioneers like Sheriff Maude helped shape our community and open doors for others like her.
Women today need to remember that our rights to vote, drive, be educated work, and do as we please with our lives are not a given and can be taken away much more easily than they were won by those who came before us.
I am proud of the legacy that Sheriff Maude left behind. Representation is important and I hope that little girls across the county will go by this mural and know that any dream is possible and that women like Sheriff Maude worked to make it that way.
PS: The mural is being painted by an artist who is just as excited about Sheriff Maude’s story as I am. She’s incredibly talented so I hope you’ll look up Pam Kellough Murals on Facebook. I am a big fan of her work and hope you’ll be too! She’s pictured here on one of the early days of the mural work.
Chillicothe held its annual ghost walk this weekend. I go for the history stories and for a glimpse inside areas of buildings not ordinarily accessible to the public. Some visitors though are deeply into the ghost story aspect of the tour.
This year’s tour featured four locations.
Guests got to go backstage, onstage and upstairs to an abandoned ballroom at the Majestic Theater. This is America’s longest continuously operating theater and a fun place to see a show. It was used as a makeshift morgue during the 1918 Spanish Influenza, creating a certain sense of intrigue around the spaces where bodies were stored and processed during that crisis.
The tour also went into the former Odd Fellows Lodge which was on the second and third stories of a stained glass shop. This building has many cool features that are remnants of the fraternal organization that once met there. That group did a lot of good for the community but the tour guides seemed ill informed, some even suggesting that something inappropriate might have gone on in their meetings. Still, I enjoyed seeing inside the building.
The Chamber of Commerce was another stop. This nicely remodeled building is a hub for much good in the county and has been on the city’s Main Street for a long while. The thing I loved best about this stop was the new mural on their building. Click here to see it!
The fourth stop this year was the Franklin House which is a beautiful old home operated by the historical society. I really enjoyed our visit here and would like to go back someday for a more in-depth tour. The home features mostly original furnishings, gorgeous stained glass windows, and some truly lovely architectural features.
This is an annual event so mark your calendar far for next September. It includes a different variety of locations every year so you have a different experience every time.
If you have ever been to Erie, Pa odds are good you’ve been past Sara’s Restaurant. Only, it’s not just a restaurant. It’s a nostalgic, roadside attraction and tradition for visitors to Presque Isle State Park since 1980.
It started out as an ice cream stand but now has a menu of hot dogs, cheeseburgers, onion rings and the like and it is always busy. Luckily, there’s a big parking lot, lots of outdoor seating, plenty of fun things to look at and staff that hustles to keep things moving.
Their motto is “Food tastes better with a smile” and we saw lots of smiles as families pose for pictures with things like Simpsons characters and a giant Humpty Dumpty perched atop a lifeguard chair. We wandered around outside so I could drool over advertising pieces before giggling at signs inside.
We did just get shakes because there’s not much food on the menu that’s vegetarian friendly other than fries and onion rings and maybe not them depending on how they’re fried. But I am not their target market and there was still ice cream.
There are sundaes, floats and cones to choose from but I opted for a shake. That’s the one thing I forgot to take a picture of but it was just the right consistency, a mild chocolate, and the perfect size.
I can see why folks have made a trek to Sara’s an annual tradition! Want to learn more? Visit their website so you can plan your visit. Hop over the Make the Journey Fun Facebook page today to see more pictures from my visit over Labor Day weekend!
I have a ton of stories to share with you from the long weekend but haven’t had time to sort it all out in my head. For today, here’s a photo that made me smile.
I had just walked out of this Erie, PA Barnes and Noble when I heard this car start in the parking lot. I believe she’s a 1967 Ford Mustang.
Ain’t she a beaut?
I say it all the time – you just never know what you’ll see when you go out into the world! Happy Wednesday, friends. Go explore if you can!
