Midwest Guest

Revisiting Ohio's Chagrin Falls

We've visited the village of Chagrin Falls, just east of Cleveland, multiple times over the years--but we'd never seen the town from a vantage point at the foot of the waterfalls in the center of town until a recent visit.

Visiting Chagrin Falls in the winter or early spring means that you can take some great photos from the top of the falls. Taking photos from the bottom of the falls is another matter because the village closes the steep steps leading down to the river during those times of year.

We didn't have the problem of snow-covered steps last time we were at Chagrin Falls this summer, so we took advantage of the opportunity to check out the waterfalls from a different angle.

There is a nice wooden viewing deck on one side of the falls about halfway down the stairs. You can get a close-up shot of the falls from here or just stay a while to watch the action at the foot of the falls as you enjoy an ice cream cone you got in town at the top of the falls.

The wide wooden stairs with handrails end at the viewing platform, but we took the lower flight of old stone steps right down to the rocky river shore.

Some visitors are even more adventurous and trek out onto the rocks into the middle of the river--something I wasn't quite willing to do with my big DSLR camera!

The village of Chagrin Falls originally grew up around the falls as a busy industrial area with factories, mills and other businesses taking advantage of the ample water supply provided by the falls. Today, the village center consists of businesses like restaurants, small retail stores and a large park bordering the falls.

The village center also has a smaller triangular park surrounded by businesses, many in well-preserved mid-to-late-1800s buildings. This particular park has a beautiful garden and a striking 1877-vintage gazebo constructed largely of grapevines.

I looked around the Web for a little more information about the gazebo and found a personal history of the town by Robert E. Cathan who said his great grandfather, Orrison Cathan, hunted elk (!!) in the area and built most of the gazebo. Check out Cathan's memories and some other tales from long-time village residents at the Chagrin Falls Alumni Association Web page.

There are still a couple of things I've yet to do in Chagrin Falls, though.

One of the readers of my previous Chagrin Falls post left a comment about the Pumpkin Roll, where village high school students smash and roll pumpkins down a hill hear the center of town to use as a gooey base for sliding and sledding down the hill. The Alumni site has a couple of stories about the Pumpkin Roll and its possible origins.

The grapevine gazebo also serves as the starting point for a Ghosts of Chagrin Falls walking tour of the village. The 60- to 90-minute tours sounds like a fun way to learn a little more about the village's history. (Have any of my readers taken this tour?)

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: John A. Roebling Bridge connects Ohio and Kentucky

I posted the story of the John A. Roebling Bridge connecting Ohio and Kentucky yesterday. This bridge between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky, is especially fascinating because it was a prototype for the famous Brooklyn Bridge in New York.

As usual, when it comes to bridges and cool architecture, I had more than enough photos to use with my story. So, here are a few more photos of the bridge, a statue of its designer and the floodwall murals depicting historic scenes from the region's history (see yesterday's story for an enlargement of one of the murals depicting a scene that supposedly inspired author Toni Morrison as she wrote Beloved).

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Cincinnati

Things To Do
Covington

Roebling Bridge links Ohio, Kentucky and Brooklyn

One of the things I love about travel is finding interesting sites that make you curious to learn more about something.

The John A. Roebling Bridge spanning the Ohio River to connect Cincinnati (Ohio) and Covington (Kentucky) fascinated me from the first time I laid eyes upon it. The stately brick arches, bright blue paint and the sign identifying it as the "John A. Roebling Bridge - 1867" looked a bit incongruous next to the modern riverfront buildings in both cities. The contrast was especially sharp approaching Covington and the ultra-modern Daniel Libeskind luxury residential complex, although The Ascent complex echoed some of the curves and bright blue color of the old bridge.

The John A. Roebling Bridge had pedestrian walkways, so it became a must that I walk across the bridge and snap a batch of photos from nearly every imaginable angle!

There are a number of bridges spanning the river at this point, but the John A. Roebling Bridge holds several distinctions. The bridge, completed in December of 1866, was the first to span the river and, over 140 years after its opening, still serves as a crossing for pedestrians and vehicular traffic.

The bridge served as a prototype for the Brooklyn Bridge, also designed by Roebling and seen to completion by his son, Washington A. Roebling. Washington Roebling also supervised work at the bridge over the Ohio River while his father planned the Brooklyn Bridge project.

The decade-plus construction period for the John A. Roebling Bridge also echoes the 14-year effort that it took to complete the Brooklyn Bridge by 1883.

I thought again of my walk across the Roebling Bridge as I finished the massive David McCullough book, The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was, after all, the Roebling Bridge that led me to tackle reading McCullough's 562-page book about the building of the famed New York bridge.

McCullough's book is a detailed account of the Brooklyn Bridge construction and both Roeblings' part in its design, execution and the fascinatingly gruesome manner in which both bridges claimed the health of father and son. John A. Roebling died after a workplace accident at the Brooklyn Bridge and subsequently contracting lockjaw. Washington A. Roebling experienced years of impaired health after contracting the bends as a result of his work at the Brooklyn Bridge. The book was technical in parts, but offered some interesting insights into bridge construction, technology and politics of the time.

But first, there was the John A. Roebling Bridge between Cincinnati and Covington.

Increasing ferry traffic on the Ohio River between Ohio and Kentucky drove the desire for a bridge between the two states. Ferryboat operators and steamboat companies were understandably less than enthused about the bridge proposal. Cincinnati's role as a major Underground Railroad conduit for slaves seeking a safe route north to freedom also led others to oppose the bridge because they felt would ease the journey for escaping slaves.

Bridge construction eventually began in September of 1856. Inflation and war caused construction delays throughout the Civil War.   

The central 1,057-feet span was the longest in the world when the bridge opened to traffic on January 1, 1867. Its larger cousin, the Brooklyn Bridge, became the longest bridge upon its 1883 completion.

Be sure to visit look for the Roebling statue and historical marker on the Kentucky side of the river when you visit the John A. Roebling Bridge, as well as the Roebling Murals. The 18 murals, on the floodwalls near the bridge, represent the largest public art display in the area and depict scenes from Covington, Northern Kentucky and the bridge's history--like this mural "The Flight of the Garner Family". The Garner mural shows the family's 1856 run across the frozen river toward freedom, an event that the murals committee says helped inspire author Toni Morrison as she wrote Beloved.

© Dominique King All rights reserved

Indiana cars help drive Frank Lloyd Wright design

Glamorous cars like those displayed at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum in northern Indiana often ended up in the garages of celebrities. I knew about the popularity of the Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg automobiles among famous Hollywood stars of the 1930s, but learning about famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright's reputation as a "car guy" was an unexpected and fascinating surprise for me.

I spotted a small exhibit of Frank Lloyd Wright drawings near a brilliant red-orange 1929 Cord L-29 Cabriolet on one of the museum's upper levels during our recent visit there. Given my latent leanings as a gearhead and frustrated architect, the exhibit aroused my curiosity.

It turns out that the great architect had a real fascination with cars--a fascination that informed many of his designs. He even attempted to design a few cars!

This ACD exhibit of 50 authentic and authorized Wright prints continues through October 25, 2009. The Cord automobile is part of the museum's permanent collection.

The prints come from the trust operating Samara, a Lafayette, Indiana home designed by Wright in 1954. The original owner, John Christian, still lives in the home and opens it to the public for tours, lectures and other events.    

The Cord Cabriolet, or convertible, is a car originally owned by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. The car is similar to the Cord L29 Phaeton Wright himself purchased in 1929 and painted the same bright Cherokee Red eventually called Taliesin Orange for the color used extensively at Wright's schools and studios in Wisconsin and Arizona.

Wright admired the Cord because of its front-wheel drive and streamline design.

The architect wrote copy for a sales catalog praising the Cord's performance on dirt, gravel and concrete roads near his Wisconsin studio. He felt front-wheel drive was more "logical and scientific" than rear-wheel drive and pronounced it "inevitable" for all future cars. 

Best of all? The architect thought the car "looked becoming to the houses I design".

The 1929 Cord originally cost an average of $3,095, at a time when the average price for a Ford or Chevy was closer to $450. The museum's car weighs 4,300 pounds and has an 8-cylinder, 125 horsepower engine.

It wasn't unusual for the architect to consider how automobiles and his architecture appeared together. He often designed for and around automobiles, starting as early as 1908 in his design for the Robie House in Chicago that included a three-car garage. He also coined the word "carport" and often included these car shelters with some of his designs for more modest 1930s homes.

Wright's fascination with cars and facilitating their easy movement around buildings also influenced his design for the famous spiral ramp at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Movement between Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin and Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona drove Wright's his purchase of a car quite different from the big Cord--the quirky little compact Crosley Super Roadster. 

The Crosley, like the Cord, was an Indiana-built car and the brainchild of rich radio manufacturer and owner of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team, Powel Crosley Jr.

Crosley's car company had headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio and assembly plants in the Indiana towns of Richmond and Marion.

Considered the first modern compact car, the 4-cylinder Crosleys weighed less than 1,000 pounds and had a Crosley radio in the instrument panel.

The ACD Museum owns a two-passenger Crosley convertible originally owned by Wright and painted the signature Taliesin Orange. Wright purchased a small fleet of these tiny cars from a Madison, Wisconsin car dealer during the early 1950s.

Wright's Crosley fleet saw service most notably during twice-yearly trips between Wisconsin and Arizona. The architect, his staff and students left Taliesin in Wisconsin each fall to winter at Arizona's Taliesin West, returning to Wisconsin each spring. The trip took a week each way and the travelers camped along the way.

The Crosleys, like Wright himself, may have been a bit ahead of their time. They got 50 miles per gallon of gas, which probably wasn't that impressive to drivers in those days of cheap fuel prices.

Crosley car sales eventually tanked, and the company closed for good in 1952. 

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

New at The Urbane Life

Check out some of my latest articles at The Urbane Life:

Road Trip: Visit Toledo's heart of glass-Find out a little about this northern Ohio city's rich glassware and art glass history, check out the Libbey Glass Outlet store and schedule a stop at the Toledo Farmers Market.

Things to Do: Focus on upcoming DIA photo exhibitions-Preview several great photography shows coming to the Detroit Institute of Arts over coming months, including a special traveling exhibit of Avedon fashion photography from 1944-2000.

Buy Local: Shop fresh at Franklin Cider Mill-A trip to the cider mill for apples and fresh cider is a Michigan tradition, and Franklin Cider Mill has been "a family tradition since 1832" for metro Detroiters.

Lights! Camera! Action! See it all at the Detroit Film Theater this fall-Preview some great flicks coming to the Detroit Film Theater at the Detroit Institute of Arts this season, my favorite venue for movies.

The Urbane Life is a community blog for Urbane Apartments, a growing group of apartment buildings, luxury lofts and condos in metropolitan Detroit.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Visit Indiana's Art Deco Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum

I take so many photos whenever I visit the beautiful Art Deco-style Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum in northern Indiana that I never know which ones I like best!

I included a half dozen with yesterday's post about this museum, which is a must-see for fans of classic cars and classic architecture.

I had so many photos that I liked from the batch I took during our last visit there, that I've probably got enough for a couple of Photo Friday posts!

Here are a few more shots of this truly beautiful building and some really gorgeous cars.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum draws car buffs and Art Deco lovers to northern Indiana

It's difficult to know what to look at first when you enter the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum-the fabulous cars, or the restored Art Deco building housing the car collection.

The ACD Museum was an accidental discovery after following a sign on the freeway as we drove through Auburn, Indiana on the way home from a trip to Indianapolis. The building and the cars still wow us after many visits, and more than 20 years after discovering the museum.

Named as one of the "Top Ten Gearhead Destinations in the United States" by MSNBC in 2007, the ACD Museum draws car buffs wanting to spend hours admiring the 120-plus car collection that showcases Auburns, Cords and Duesenbergs, as well as many other unique vehicles.

The museum's home originally housed the car company headquarters and an impressive showroom built in 1930 at the mind-boggling price of $450,000. The 66,000-square-foot building, designed by Fort Wayne architect A.M. Strauss, includes three floors and a mezzanine.

Art Deco fans will love details like the hand-painted walls decorations, pendant lamps, wall sconces and intricate stair railings and grillwork.

It's the 12,000-square-foot showroom on the first level with all of its Art Deco detailing that made the biggest impression on me during our first visit there--and continues to be a highlight of every subsequent trek down to Auburn for me.

E.L. Cord was working as a filling station attendant and car mechanic in Los Angeles when he began tinkering with old Model Ts in his spare time. He raced his custom "T-Speedsters" and sold the customized racers.

Cord moved to Chicago and became a top car salesman.

Investors purchasing a failing northern Indiana car company offered Cord a management position with Auburn Automobile Co. in 1924. Cord ended up making a deal that gave him complete control, 20 percent of the profits and an option to buy the company once he managed to turn it around. By 1925, Cord purchased Auburn.

Cord added Duesnberg to his growing automobile company, purchasing that company in 1926 after it went bankrupt in 1922. Duesenberg, known for their racing vehicles, won several Indy 500 races and became the first American winner of the French Grand Prix at LeMans during the early 1920s.

Duesenberg cars were pricey. Customers usually purchased a bare chassis for around $10,000 and ordered the rest of the car to their specifications. Completed Duesys could cost $20,000-plus and reach speeds of nearly 140mph.

Hollywood stars like Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Jackie Coogan, Marion Davies, James Cagney and Greta Garbo drove Duesenbergs, Cords or Auburns. A 1934 Auburn even showed up in a James Cagney flick called "Mayor of Hell"--a car listed recently for sale at $253,000.

Jay Leno may be the most well known Duesenberg owner today, reportedly owning several of them.

Hollywood glamour aside, the company couldn't withstand steep sales drops it experienced as the country sank deeper in The Great Depression of the 1930s.

Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg struggled and closed during the waning years of the decade, with the last Dusey built 1940 (that car sold a couple of years ago for $2.8 million).

The building also fell on hard times. A business owner bought it for $25,000 in 1938, turning it into an auto repair and restoration business with machines bolted to its beautiful terrazzo floors and a thick coat of grime covering its former grandeur.

The non-profit Auburn Automotive Heritage Inc. purchased the building for $105,000 in 1974. The work of many volunteers and an additional $108,000 resulted in the restoration and reopening of the building as the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum that same year!

The ACD earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and became a National Historic Landmark in 2005.

Checking out the guest book in the first floor showroom is always interesting as nearly 2 million visitors from around the world have visited the ACD since its opening.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Auburn

Brake for early automotive history in Geneva, Ohio

What is this photograph of my Aztek in front of an auto parts store doing in a travel blog?

When people include a photo like this with their travel photos, you usually figure you're in for a story about car troubles on the road.

But take another look.

The real question here is--Why is there a historical marker in front of this auto parts store in Geneva, Ohio?

I asked myself the same question as we drove through Geneva recently and spotted the sign on the side of busy Route 20 through town.

We'd gone for a couple of days out along Lake Erie at the end of the summer to check out some lighthouses and for a last couple of days out of town before the busy fall season started with school, work and hockey at home.

Traveling along Route 20 to avoid yet another dull ride along the Ohio Turnpike, I saw this marker and insisted Tim turn around and pull into the auto parts store lot.

Imagine our surprise when we found out that we were visiting the birthplace of an automotive pioneer we usually associated with Lansing, Michigan!

Ransom Eli Olds received the first patent in the United States awarded for an "automobile carriage" in 1896 and was first to create an automotive assembly line in 1901.

Olds Motor Vehicle Company launched in Lansing after Olds teamed up with investor Edward Sparrow in 1897. The company moved to Detroit a few years later when other investors insisted the company relocate there because it was a busy manufacturing center for carriages and other products.

Olds himself moved back to Lansing when he moved some of his production back to that city in 1905. Lansing embraced Olds, who was active in the city's social and business scene, by celebrating his birthday each year.

Ransom E. Olds died at home in Lansing on August 26, 1950. HIs wife Metta became ill at his funeral and died a few weeks later.

But long before Lansing claimed Olds as their own, Pliny and Sarah Olds bought a home in Geneva a year before the birth of their youngest child--Ransom Eli. Pliny Olds was a blacksmith and had a shop behind this home where he teamed up with "an experienced steam man" (according to this marker) named O.W. Price to manufacture small steam engines. Pliny parleyed success with this business to open a machine shop in Lansing when his youngest child was still in his teens.

Young Ransom (born June 3, 1864) proved gifted when it came to things mechanical and became a manager at P.F. Olds and Son in 1880. He quickly became a partner in the business and began developing a lot of his experimental ideas for steam and gas engines.

Ransom Olds' subsequent development of his horseless carriages, and founding of the automobile company that became the forerunner of the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors when GM bought the Olds Motor Works in 1908, began at his father's business. The Oldsmobile name lived on for over 100 years, until GM discontinued the brand in 2004.

Michigan celebrates Ransom E. Olds and his connection to the state with a historical marker in Lansing near the site where production of Olds' famous curved dash Oldsmobile Runabout took place. This particular model car, incidentally, inspired the song, "In My Merry Oldsmobile". This site also houses the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum--and another idea for a road trip for us!

And that is why there is an Ohio historical marker celebrating the accomplishments of an automotive pioneer placed, appropriately or ironically enough, in front of this auto parts store!

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Geneva

Photo Friday: We meet Hotdogger Doggone Dave in Chicago

Regular Midwest Guest readers may remember my earlier post about the vintage 1952 Wienermobile at The Henry Ford here in metro Detroit. I posted a few photos and a little history of the quirky vehicles used as rolling advertisements for Oscar Mayer hot dogs.

Regular Photo Friday readers may remember Debbie's post on Delicious Baby about her seeing the roving hotdog in Chicago when we were all in town for the BlogHer convention.

Well, I spotted the same Wienermobile when I looked out the window as I was taking an escalator up to yet another BlogHer convention session. Needless to say, when I got to the next floor, I turned right around and took the down escalator back to the main floor so I could go out and see the Wienermobile up close.

Let's go inside, shall we?

And let's meet Doggone Dave.

Doggone Dave was just starting a year-long tour as a Hotdogger (Wienermobile driver) when I met him this summer. The company gives each driver their hotdog identity and a script of hokey puns to use as they greet visitors.

Doggone Dave is happy to see visitors.

"Franks a lot," he says as we board the Wienermobile and admire the custom orange-and-yellow interior.

We only have a minute or two aboard the vehicle--long enough to send a Tweet and for Doggone Dave to hand out a few promotional gifts like Wienermobile whistles and T-shirts.

Doggone Dave poses for a few photos. One woman says he should say "I have the best doggone job" instead of "cheese" as we snap pictures.

Doggone Dave happily obliges.

It's time all too quickly to leave.

"Ketchup with you later," says Doggone Dave.

Ketchup with Doggone Dave and read about his visit to BlogHer. I wish I'd been lucky enough to get a ride on the Wienermobile!

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Viewing Ohio's Ashtabula Lighthouse

The Ashtabula Lighthouse's location at the end of a rocky breakwater and near a busy industrial harbor seems to give the little structure a feeling of vulnerability, but a look at its history shows that the light is definitely a strong survivor.

The Ashtabula Lighthouse on Lake Erie in eastern Ohio is actually one of several that have served Ashtabula's harbor over the years.

The first Ashtabula light appeared in 1836, eventually making way for a newer lighthouse with the construction of new docks in 1876. Widening of the Ashtabula River mouth and a new breakwater led to constructing a third lighthouse in 1905.

A ramp connected the earliest lighthouse to a pier, but construction and river widening meant light keepers had to live on shore and take a boat out to the lighthouse in order to operate and maintain it.

We saw the old keepers' house when we visited Ashtabula's Point Park. Today, it houses the Ashtabula Marine Museum.

In 1916, workers moved the lighthouse 1,750 feet northeast, expanded it and extended the breakwater. The lighthouse now had a 50-foot concrete crib supporting it and, at double its previous size, had room for on-site keepers' quarters.

The 1920s were particularly eventful years at the lighthouse.

A Canadian Steamship Lines boat, the Gleneagles, rammed the lighthouse in 1927. The collision pushed the lighthouse back six inches without much structural damage, but the heavily damaged ship didn't fare as well.

The next year, an ice storm coated the lighthouse in ice, trapping two keepers inside for two days. The men had to thaw the front door and then hack their way through five feet of ice to get out.

Automated equipment replaced lighthouse keepers at Ashtabula Lighthouse, the last manned lighthouse on Lake Erie, in 1973.

If you read Tuesday's story about Ashtabula's Point Park and the city's heavily industrial waterfront, you may still be wondering if we ever got a decent view of the Ashtabula Lighthouse.

We looked through a maze of coal, boatyards and a huge coal conveyor to barely catch a glimpse of the squat little lighthouse from Point Park's elevated location over the harbor area.

Driving around the city's waterfront area, we found Walnut Beach. This free, city-owned park does offer a more picturesque view of the lighthouse, especially if you're willing to walk a ways from the public beach down the fairly rugged breakwater.

We walked a quarter-mile or so down the breakwater, but we didn't get too close to the lighthouse as the wind started to pick up a bit, and the walkway became rockier and rockier. Still, the photos we got were a bit nicer than the shots we got in between the industrial equipment and black coal mounds from the Point Park vantage point.

The Ashtabula Lighthouse Restoration and Preservation Society currently owns the light station, and work continues as the group repairs and restores the lighthouse with an eventual goal of offering public tours. This isn't an easy project as a local newspaper article in 2007 about the transfer of ownership from the government to the group quoted society members as estimating the process would take five years and have an estimated $1 million price tag.

© Dominique King 2009

Things To Do
Ashtabula