Written by Charles Collett
Huntington, WV Newspaper – April 25, 1960
UP & DOWN THIRD – Ladies, were you one of the shoppers at the Johnston Department Store during the roarin’ 20s? … If so, will you join us in saying that it made the other stores seem rather outdated?
At the time of the Wall Street crash, the label “Johnston” meant exclusive style to Ironton, Ohio…When the banks, buildings, and loans over the nation closed their doors, the Johnston store moved to a smaller location all on one floor, instead of having costly elevator service to four floors and a bargain basement.
Charles Frederick Johnston came to Ironton, Ohio, in 1914 when the town was all decorated upholding an apple show on the streets…The town looked good to him and he purchased the Bee Hive Store from F. W. Therlich…The Bee Hive on Second Street at that time was one of the most modern, being one of the very few stores in town with elevator service for patrons.
Mr. Johnston expanded in a big way in 1920 by moving to the new Marlow building at Third and Park…His was the first store in town to have a live Santa Claus…Dip Mittelhauser, a retired city fireman, was the best in town to ever wear cotton whiskers…Among popular sales folks at the store were Bess Lambert, Amelia Brownstead, Addie Schaffer, Ada Brewster, Katherine Blaze, Genevieve McGinley, Georgia Clark, Gertrude Campbell, Mayne Abele, Bell Maxwell, Florence Henninger, Hilda Ebert, Laura Mays, Ida Kuthene, Dora Wirebaugh, Crystal Warrington and Frank Moeller.
The Marlow Building was later occupied by the Goback’s Department Store, but only for a short time…Mssrs. Robert and Joe Stern, who purchased the building started the Marlow Grill as a soda shop…With the repeal of national prohibition, the grill became the city’s first leading café…
At the time F. D. R. was seeking his second term, the Marlow Grill was the most popular place in town…Local unions were taking on a new life and very active, holding their meetings on the second and third floors of the grill…Dances, political rallies, and club meetings were held there and business was so brisk at the grill that in the evenings an elevator operator was employed.
George J. Deffner was a manager at the grill…The assistant manager was Norman Levine…The cashier was Katherine Ketter…All new fixtures on the first floor were a total loss during the 1937 flood…The grill shortly thereafter was moved to Park Ave. in a new building on the site of the old Olive Hotel…
The Gas Appliance Co. has occupied the location of the once-famous Marlow Grill for the past score year…Bob Renner the proprietor of Gas Appliance Co. is one citizen who can spell his name backward or forward and get the same result.
May 26, 1967
UP AND DOWN THIRD – The long-ago memories of South Third Street accumulate each day as a few are recalled in this column…Who remembers when John Boll had a meat shop on what is now a part of the A&P parking lot…Mr. Boll drove a one-horse wagon which the dogs followed because he tossed out a bone now and then…The shop is now operated under the original name on Fourth Street by his daughter, Mrs. James North often referred to as Ironton’s only “lady butcher.”
Six butcher shops along the street years ago were Ernest Horschel, Louis Glaser, John Meistedt, James Bruce, Al Warren, and Watt Allen…Later came W. W. Jenkins, who gave up meat cutting to become deputy sheriff, and also Derifield & Yates…
A more recent shop was Thomas J. Gildea now the Massie Market at Third and Chestnut…Horschel and Glaser were both established before the Civil War…The Glaser shop was taken over by step-sons George and Bob Wuest, who were better known for the shop on Railroad Street years later.
I have a boyhood memory of Ernest Horschel standing at his shop door wearing a blue apron and skull cap, as he looked up and down the street after a customer left to see if another was in sight before he went into his back work room…His sons Jake and Henry operated the shop after his death.
The butchers all had one thing in common…When a patron entered the shop door, a bell, attached to the door gave the alarm that a customer was in the building, should the proprietor be in the back room…All shops wrapped their meat in brown craft paper…A butcher shop was the only place that kept their front door closed in the summertime, and had no heat in the room in the wintertime…And let’s not forget the sawdust on the floor…That was to keep the dripping of blood from making stains on the floor…Frozen meat sold today has no blood to drip, hence that sawdust has all vanished.
The names of grocers forgotten in the list printed last week continue to grow…Grocer Wm. Grant, was the father of Mrs. Ralph Mittendorf…Marcus McClung at the Kroger store and Ike Gray at Cemetery Lane were also omitted…Others were P. M Savage at Third and Madison and Thomas Rafferty near Walnut.
May 23, 1967
UP & DOWN THIRD – Third and Chestnut Streets may have been the only place in the United States where the hetheaw mules once had the right-of-way over the electric streetcars…The narrow gauge tramroad with little four-wheel dump cars, propelled by mule power, was built before the streetcar line was granted a franchise…Therefore, the donkeys, jack-asses, or whatever you want to call ‘em, had the right-of-way over the trolley cars…It may have appeared silly to strangers to see the conductor get off the streetcar, walk ahead and signal the motorman to proceed if no mule was in sight, but that’s the way it happened…
The mules walked in tandem fashion…The tramroad cut across town from Kelly Hill near Eleventh and Maple Avenue to the Kelly Nail Mill at Front and Chestnut Streets…Perhaps there are several grown-ups today who can remember stealing a ride on the little coal cars as the mule trotted along Chestnut near Third.
Construction crews working on the hill back of town building the new highway will perhaps dig into several of the old abandoned coal mines…The entrance to all was sealed as a safety measure by WPA workers about 25 years ago…
The old Kelly Iron & Nail Co. was organized on January 25, 1883…W. D. Kelly was president…Ironton A. Kelly, vice president…Oscar Richey was the secretary…T. J. Hayes was the office manager…John C. Brown was chief bookkeeper…Silas Clake was general superintendent…
The big mill was consolidated with Belfont, just before the big depression of 1929 when the citizens invested and lost about half-a-million dollars in stock sales in an attempt to save the industry for Ironton…I.P. Blaston was president at the time.
May 18, 1960
UP & DOWN THIRD – Many memories of days gone by have been recalled about people, places, and things on Third Street between Park Avenue and Vernon Street…The landlord of a couple of the large buildings in the block is Hugh Russell of Ashland…He erected the building occupied by Gabler Store…The building was designed and erected for the J. C. Penny Co. just before the Wall Street crash of 1929…
Ten years later the Penney store was moved to a larger location…Winfred C. Sparks was the manager of the store at that time…Before Gabler’s moved in the vacant room was rented by the Lions Club…Wonder how many readers remember the big bingo the Lions held in the room?… Bingo at that time in Ironton was a more popular game with adults than the post office used to be at a teenage party.
Bingo is an older game than “London Bridge is Falling Down”…Santa Claus left us the game under the Christmas tree under another name more than three score years ago…It was then called Lotto…Later, we remember the game when it was called Keno at the Elks’ picnic at Jackson…The Fraternal Order of Eagles promoted the first bingo parties in Ironton…
That was when jobs were scarce because of the depression and the money was used to buy shoes for school children…As the ladies became acquainted with the game, the interest became keener…Several times the Eagles had crowds of more than 900 in attendance.
The American Legion, the Knights of Columbus, and some churches took up the game as means of raising funds for charity or religious work…After professionals with $500 door prizes nosed their way in, City Council very wisely put the name “bingo” on the blacklist and made it illegal in the city… During the period prior to 1950, when bingo was so popular, slot machines were almost as common in some places in town as they are in Las Vegas.
During the era known as “Rocking Chair Days” following the war, Irontonians poked more than a half-million dollars into slot machines…Many of the machines were owned by Portsmouth agents…One Ironton organization realized two hundred thousand dollars during the prosperous days of the machines…Another lodge purchased $100,000 in government bonds from slot machine revenue…Lodge brothers today speak of those as “The good old days.”
A SILVER SPIKE – Larry Welch agrees that it pays to advertise and is showing friends his birthday gift…Larry retired a couple of years ago as an agent after more than half a century with the DT&I railroad…
His birthday was mentioned in this column and a few hours after the paper was on the newsstands, Larry received a parcel…It was a small box neatly wrapped, but heavy…Inside was a note which read – “A souvenir of the good old DT&I…Many’s the one I’ve driven when working for a dollar-ten a day”…The note was signed Karl K. with a postscript “Frog Rust suggests you can use it for a blackjack”…Larry’s friends say there’s little doubt that if his old friend circus detective, “String” Brice was alive, it would only take him about 15 minutes to discover that it’s Mills Hutsonpillar’s handwriting on the note.
May 17, 1960
UP & DOWN THIRD – The memory story of Third Street from Park Avenue south continues…Every day somebody reminds us of something we have failed to mention…When just a young fellow out of high school, we stood on the corner in front of what is now Ted Allyn’s jewelry store during a World Series baseball game…
It was a chilly October afternoon and believe it or not, it was snowing…The Central Union Telephone exchange was on the second and third floors of the Hoffman building…The score after each inning was announced from a window on the second floor to a crowd standing in the street.
That was the only place in town that year where the fans could hear the scores…As a special service to their friends gathered in the street below, Walter Sites and the late Len Gtherling, using a megaphone to speak through, called the results from the window of the workroom.
That broadcast of the game was not the same kind of description as the voice on the radio today…The linemen were cut in on a long-distance wire listening to a description of the game…It was sort of an eavesdropping affair, which today perhaps they’d call “bootlegging” or “wiretapping.”
After each inning, they’d raise the window and give a report something like this… “Third inning – Wagner out – Evers to Chance…McGinnity flies out to Collins…Bender fanned…Pittsburgh 2, Boston O”…We hope rabid fans like Bernie Gallagher, Tom Hudson, and Johnny Frecka don’t double-check us on those names…However, we are sure it was Pittsburgh playing.
Among some of the shivering fans standing in the street during the snow flurries, a few with top coats, were Harry Minces, owner of the Underselling Store…Frank Wieteki of the First National Bank, then on the corner at Second and Railroad…C. W. Kettel, who closed his barber shop on Adams Street during the hours of the game…John Helbling, the brick contractor…John Lucas the druggist…Barney Brumberg…That was a long time ago.
Irontonians have always taken time off to listen to World Series games since way back when the New York Nationals refused to play Boston of the American League…That was in 1904…Billy Byers perhaps will recall when he passed the hat at the Smoke House at Second and Vernon Streets to pay to get the scores each inning from Western Union…Even before that, we remember the crowd on the sidewalk at Schachleiter’s where the scores each inning were posted on the window as a public service.
It was in 1912 that crowds gathered up on Fourth and Center Streets where the Register erected a large scoreboard picture of the ball diamond and operated a gadget to show the runners on base and where the ball was hit…The big board was over Don Wieteki’s drug store entrance…
The year Cincinnati defeated Chicago, (1919) Shocky Taylor operated a scoreboard with a special wire service at the Smoke House on Center Street…Radio stole the World Series show in 1922.
May 12, 1960
UP & DOWN THIRD – Indoor fairs as ways and means of revenue for church or lodge is an idea as old as Methuselah…Ironton has such ballyhoo when funds were raised to build Memorial Hall and St. Lawrence Catholic Church seventy years ago…Both fairs were held at the Olive Rink on Park Avenue…
Citizens knew the purpose of those fairs and patronage was liberal…The public was just as liberal in 1911 when a group of young men advertised a fun fest “The Agwa Club Fair” at Princess Rink…That even won first prize in flimflamming the public…We would never recall this memory, had not we been a member of the club and taken part in the fun.
The Agwa club had a reputation for doing exceptional stunts…The club had staged two minstrel shows at the opera house with an extravagance that took audiences by surprise…Although the theater was crowded to standing room only, the boys lost money on both shows…The rental of costumes, scenery, and employment of the best orchestra, left no profit after many weeks of rehearsal.
The club kept its name in newspapers during all seasons for a couple of years…Their sweethearts helped in a big way…The girls worked two weeks making the largest pennant ever seen in town for a parade that opened the Ohio State League baseball season in 1911…The boys and girls rode on a 4-horse hay wagon…A grand jury once investigated the “spiked punch” served at the club dance…Lawrence County was dry at the time (1908-1911) under local options laws.
The record shows that the club, composed of about 40 young businessmen promoted several public entertainments in an effort to raise money to buy a piano for their club rooms in the Berg building…Each time the membership became so enthused in giving the public the best, forgetting expenses, that no profit was realized on any endeavor…The public knew this, and they attended the Agwa Fair knowing what to expect.
The festival opened on a Monday night with a parade headed by a brass band…The club was cautioned about gambling and games of chance…The fun started at the front door where Keystone Komedy Kops (young ladies dressed in burlesque) held kangaroo court…The best money-making stunt was the sale of confetti…A ton of colored paper was purchased, swept up from the floor each morning, and resold until Saturday night…The public enjoyed a week of throwing confetti on one another’s faces, dirt and all.
The feature was a free aerial act every hour…Among sideshow attractions was the “red bat”, a platform where people paid a nickel to look down in a pit at an old red clay brickbat…(Carl Selb at the City Building will remember how the public bit on that one and came away smiling, hoping their friends would be a sucker too).
The attraction that took in the most jitneys was a girl wearing the new Harem skirt, the style sensation that season that exposed one leg up to the knee…That was the first such daring style exposure of the century…The little enclosure where the young lady stood on a stage for the “style show” was crowded with men all evening…Mayor Charley Golden warned the girl not to wear the skirt on the street.
Pete Minego, the sports editor of the Portsmouth Times, came up to see the fair…He went home and wrote a story blowing up the myth that the “charming young lady was a Broadway star”…Pete claimed the skirt was the same one that had been displayed in a style shop window in Portsmouth and the gal who wore it at the Ironton fair worked at the Portsmouth shoe factory and was paid $5 a night and expenses to display her limb…Wonder if Pete remembers writing that bit of humor?
May 13, 1960
UP & DOWN THIRD – The formal opening of the old Marlow theater at Third and Park Avenue in December 1920 was recalled in this column last week…Memories of the road shows, the minstrel shows, and home talent productions at that theater are many, no doubt, for many Irontonians…One of the most successful shows on the stage there was the Elks Minstrel of 1925…It was the last of such types of entertainment staged by the Ironton Lodge No. 177…The first by that lodge was in 1894…Elks minstrel shows were regular events at the old Masonic opera house until it burned in 1915.
The minstrel of 1925 was highly praised by the newspapers as the most successful by that lodge…The two-night performance in February grossed $1,766.75 at the box office…The profit for the lodge was $978.78…The committee in charge of staging the show was Leo Brumberg, Waldo Mittendorf, Bert Cohen, Charles Collett, and Nick McMahon…The committee went to Columbus and rented scenery and costumes at the expense of $500, so said the newspaper.
The ballad singers were Bill Schachleiter, Harold McCarthy, Leo Brumberg, Al DeBruin, Gifford (Gig) Scherer, Eddie Smith, Haviland Weiler with L. R. Andrews interlocutor…Jim Hunter sang “You Can’t Fool an Old Horse Fly”, Doyle DeMarco sang “The Lone Mule”, Bert Cohen sang “Where’s My Sweetie Hiding” and Nick McMahon sang “Doodle Doo Doo”…Taking part in olio specialties were Elmer and Dan maybe, Jess Isreal, Gene Brown and Harry Parker.
Among things the newspapers did not mention about the show was that Halford (Pete) Hayes, the tenor, lost his chewing gum just as the curtain went up…When he was introduced and got up to sing, he discovered where he lost his gum…He was sitting on it and it stuck the seat cover to his trousers…The giggling audience almost stopped the show, but Pete acted like an old professional and went right on with the song and the seat cover on his coat tail.
Other memories about the old Marlow home talent shows are many…It was in that same performance that Min Mauck Schachleiter made her first public appearance as a singer…The attractive young newspaper lady from Proctorville had been in town only a short time and the boys talked her into singing “The Blues” when that style of singing was new…
At another time Miss Lillian Corn was the narrator for patriotic pantomimes in which many prominent citizens took part including the beloved pastor Rev. W. H. Hampton and Howard Lewis, the boy who sang to beat the band…Our last appearance on the Marlow stage was in December 1930, when a purse of $100 was presented to Earl (Greasy) Neale, coach of the Tank football team after victories over the New York Giants and Chicago Bears.
May 11, 1960
UP & DOWN THIRD – Since starting to recall people, places and things on Third Street between Park Avenue and Vernon Street, readers galore have offered tips and suggestions to refresh our memory…
Among the questions asked – “do you remember Albertson’s restaurant?”…We sure do, but we never ate there…Mr. Albertson often bought a newspaper when we were a newsboy passing that way…That takes memory back three-score years…
C&O veterans will recall when Mr. Albertson closed his restaurant and became chef at the railroad YMCA at Russell…The restaurant was on the west side on Third…The little frame building was razed when the Marlow theater was erected.
Adjoining the restaurant on the corner was a little frame building (now the Gas Appliance location) which was occupied by plumbers almost too numerous to mention…
Among the names recalled are William Meyers & Son; C. Cricher & Son, Peter Constable; J. P. Ward; Joseph E. Owrey and his brother William H. Owrey who later was the city water works clerk with an office in the Memorial Hall…The last plumber to occupy the little building was Albert J. Frecka.
The Mains brothers, William, Edward, and Bob, all plumbers, worked at this little shop at one time or another…Bob Mains was one of the most widely known athletes in the Tri-State prior to the time colleges adopted eligibility rules…
In baseball, he was a catcher and on the football field, he was a “hard egg” in any backfield position…Those were the days before forward passing became a part of the game, and a team had only three downs to make five yards…The “center rush” was push and pull or drag until the ball carrier cried “enough” or the referee heard him shout “down”…
Bob Mains played many a college game for $5 and expenses…At the time of his death, he was a motorman on a cable car in San Francisco…Bob’s last game with Ironton High School (and a lot of people won’t believe this) was in 1907 when the team went to Charleston…His fee to represent Ironton was $5 which money was raised by passing the hat in a Third Street pool room the night before the game.
April 29, 1960
UP & DOWN THIRD – One of the largest billboards in the downtown business section many years was on Third Street between Park Avenue and Vernon…The bill posters were kept busy there posting pictures of circus clowns, elephants, and opera stars as often as once a week…
That large billboard called a “24 sheeter” covered the side of the wagon shed of the Goldencamp feed store, which is now the site of a shoe shine parlor and Lee Dressel’s news and magazine shop.
It was one that board in 1900 that Buffalo Bill’s Wild West with Bill Cody and Annie Oakley were pictured…Season after season Al G. Fields, the “Minstrel King” with Billy Church and Jack Richards, was advertised…
Such famous stars as Sophia Tucker, Robert Montgomery, Alexander Carr, and Elise Janis were pictured in color on the big board…During the fall and winter seasons, the attractions at the old Masonic Opera House kept the bill posters busy…During spring and summer months it was the circus, boat excursions, street fairs, and chewing advertisements that filled the space…Dick and Pat McQuigg were the official bill posters.
It was across the street from that big billboard in 1904 that T.H.B. Jones erected the large building known for many years as the Princess Skating Rink…The popular amusement place was under the management of William and Milton Weiler…
The front of the building had a large gallery for spectators where it cost a dime to watch the fancy skaters…The main floor was about 44 by 140 feet…The opening night of the new rink was a great social event…Maybe you were there?… A brass band furnished the music…Some folds were on rollers six nights a week.
Shortly after the Memorial Hall was destroyed by fire in December 1905, Mr. Jones rented the building on Monday nights to the Ohio National Guard…The armory had been in the basement at the Memorial Hall…The seats were removed and the spectators’ gallery was made into offices for the commissioned officers…The armory was there until the start of the first World War…This left five nights for skating and dancing.
Among the best skaters whom the boys of 50 years ago wanted for partners in the contests were Ethel James (Mrs. Thomas Cannon), Miss Emma Kinney, Miss Mabel Butcher Mrs. Robert Widemeyer (Ethel McCarthy) of Columbus…
The first basketball games played in Ironton for admission were at the old rink in 1907…Two members of those teams who bounced the ball around on the floor and missed the baskets fifty years ago, active in the city today, are Johnny Frecka and Tom Hudson.
Other members of the team known as the “Red” and “Blues” recalled were O. D. Hayes, Frank Wieteki, Harry Wolfe, Chet Cannon, D. H. Clark, Ray (Red) Booth, Hi Brumberg, Edward Bird, Shocky Taylor, Elza Parker, Frank Sage, Jim Peters, Sam Livingston, and Louis Marting…
Mr. Marting later became the coach at the high school…No doubt we will hear about others before the ink on this newspaper is dry…Anyway, we have several more memories about the old skating rink to recall next week.
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