Remembering Forest Park

The Forgotten Gem of Genoa

This is a seldom seen aerial photo of Forest Park in its heyday. The road in the foreground is Woodville Road and off to the right is Reiman Road. The wooden roller coaster is clearly visible along Reiman Road. _{Photo Courtesy of Genoa Historical Society}

  It wasn’t the biggest amusement park in Toledo area history, but it may have been the best. And least that’s how many people from the area thought of it. It was known as Forest Park, opening on Woodville Road, near Genoa , sometime in the mid-1920’s.  The park, like many of that prohibition -roaring 20’s era was a promise of good times and fun.  One of several such parks around Toledo competing for the attention of those who wanted to a spend a few hours riding the rides, playing the games, dancing to the bands, or maybe lacing up some roller skates to take a few laps around the wooden rink. Forest Park offered a full menu of these features and much more, for several decades, from the 1920’s through the 1940’s. It was “the place to be” every summer, spring and fall, and even in the winter months. The land for the park, at Woodville and Reiman Roads, also known as Hickory Corners, was purchased by businessman Carl Uthoff in the mid-1920’s. Although the exact date of opening day has been lost to time, early Genoa Gazette articles show it was up and running by 1925.

Within a few years, it was it drawing record crowds, and on some days, those crowds were measured in the thousands. Pretty impressive for a park that was miles from the big city population of Toledo.  But one of the reasons it prospered was its convenient location along busy state highway(Woodville Road), and adjacent to that roadway, in the 1920 and 30’s, the Lakeshore Electric Interurban train ran several times a day. The stop at Forest Park made the trip from Toledo a short and easy ride for fun seekers from the city, or in the other direction from Fremont or Woodville. And once they arrived, there was a full spectrum of fun things that was boast worthy.

Below is a panel of photos from Margaret Fintel’s family photo album. They show photos of her grand parents Stephen and Peg Huntzinger and her mother, Peggy, astride the carousel animals from the historic Dentzel carousel that is now proudly operating in Burlington North Carolina.

Suprisely, there is not much written about “Bob’s Coaster” or the “Speedway” wooden coaster(below) that was a premier attraction at the park. Speculating from the aerial photo, it was a large and impressive structure and appeared to take riders as high as 50 feet or more at the top before the cars raced down the other side. The builders and the designers appear to be lost to time and the fog of the past. If anyone knows more about its construction and its eventual demise, this writer and others would be grateful to hear from you.

The Speedway Coaster

The park not only had a roller coaster,(The Speedway as it was called), but a (now historic)Dentzel carousel merry-go-round, A Hersell Carousel, dodg-em-cars, a miniature-train ride and even a Ferris wheel. For those seeking more traditional thrills, bowling alley, a movie screen, and a variety of circus acts and performers, including the dare-devils on the high wires and trapeze.

One of the high wire acts that were regularly featured at Forest Park over the decades

Conspicuous at on the highway side of the park was a popular restaurant and a large indoor large roller rink, while a few feet away there was a dance hall with a beautiful marble floor where couples could dance the night away. Owners Carl Uthoff and partner Bill Stanger always booked some top notch dance bands and singers to croon for the crowd and the young lovers.

The outdoor dance floor(right) that was built in the 1920’s. Later an indoor venue was built.

Forest Park was so popular, and packed with amusements, it was a fierce competitor with other parks in the area at the time, including Willow Beach at Point Place or Locust Point near Oak Harbor, or Walbridge Park in Toledo.

It seemed like every year, Carl Uthoff and buisness partner Bill Stanger added new and better offering for the public to enjoy. The midway offered a penny-pitch stand, a shooting gallery, an archery range and Madam Farray, the fortune teller, would tell you for a quarter what the future held. It’s not certain though if she ever foretold the future of Forest Park. If she had, she might have envisioned its eventual demise by the end of the late 1940’s. Times change, and after World War Two, Americans were seeking their entertainment in other ways. The arrival of television kept lots of folks glued to their black and white screens in the comfort of their living rooms. By the late 1940’s, the popularity of the big bands of the 20’s were falling from grace and no longer in vogue. Even the once popular Interurban trains were out of step with the times and the trains were shut down and the tracks taken out. In short, Toledo area families, like many across the nation, had found new opportunities and options for family getaways.

If that wasn’t enough, on many nights, there were fireworks to keep the crowd’s attention . If people wanted to stay the night, on the other side of Woodville road were 25 cottages that could be rented for $1 per night.

One of many game sof chance along the midway at the park

The $1 a night cottages on the other side of Woodville Road. Some remnants remain.

Forest Park, like many of these pleasure parks of that era were aging. The once popular wooden roller coaster was condemned and other buildings were also in need of repair. The crowds dwindled and Carl Uthoff, who had been struggling to make a profit during the war years started allowing slot machines and gambling on premises. As a result, the park lost its liquor license. Soon theereafter, he sold the park to new owners. The time had come and time was cruel. By the 1950’s the only remnant of the park still in use was the dance hall building which was used as a auction house for a number of years. The once busy roller rink stood in mute silence along the roadway relegated as a storage locker, eventually surrendering to a ball of flame in 1957. As the decade wore on, the remains of this mecca of fun were mostly broken and lifeless. As many baby boomers of the 50’s and 60’s will attest, a drive-by on Woodville Road revealed only a mere wistful glimpse of what once was. Weeds and nature had mostly reclaimed the property and in 1967, that last remaining building, the big dance hall, also fell to fire and memory.

Peaches Browning, a scandalous actress and singer from the 1920’s was a big hit with the crowd at Forest Park.

It should be mentioned that Carl Uthoff and his business partner Bill Stanger also built an entertainment park in Pico California in the 1920’s. The community, now known as Pico Rivera, was in the mid 20’s a rural community wets of Los Angeles thta was growing quickly. Stanger, who lived nearby, must have seen the opportunity, so he and Carl Uthoff of Genoa built what became known as “Danceland” in Pico on Whittier Blvd. As of this wiritng, I am still researching this venue and what ever happened to it. Below are some images and photos of the “Forest Park” of California.

I am have unable, thus far to determine whether anything remains of Danceland in Pico Rivera. Perhaps like with Forest Park, mostly in the mist of memory. There is little if anything remaining on the corner of Woodville and Reiman that would inform the casual observer as to what an exciting and storied place it once was. A place that beckoned thousands of people every year to its gates. But while the buildings may be gone, the memories remain. Mostly second hand memories recountred in family stories and grainy photos. But I find that if you fasten your eyes on the faded photos and listen ever so closely, you can still hear the echoes of laughter and joy at a place called Forest Park.

Beulah and Ellsworth Scott were said to have been married on the dance floor at Forest Park.

The once popular roller rink that was visible along Woodville Road.In later years after Forest park was sold to new owners in the 1950’s, the rink was used mostly for storage and then in the late 1950’s fell to flames. (Below) a view of the miniature train and some of its young riders, and young at heart.

The Lake Shore Electric Interurban tracks (pictured below) ran along Woodville Road, and was a convenient way for thousand to get to Forest Park. Below are the tracks just north of Reiman Road.

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  Lake Shore Electric Tracks Along Woodville Road

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  The LSE on Woodville Road

The Fostoria Company That Made History Come Alive.

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It hardly seems likely, but there was once a modest little red brick building on Center Street  in Fostoria Ohio that put more people under the lights of the stage and theater than probably any other drama producers this side of Broadway. From coast-to-coast, for most of the 1900’s, thousands of communities, large and small, would become seduced by the bright lights and the scriptwriters from this Fostoria company who helped those regular folks put on the grease paint and costumes so they could “put on a play”. Not just any typical community theater production, but grand outdoor pageants designed to highlight the histories of those communities that were celebrating centennials, or other significant milestones of their heritage.

The company was the John B. Rogers Company, started in 1903, by Mr. John Rogers, an attorney from Fostoria who used the various talents of local actors and musicians to stage his own local dramas and musicals. Enjoying early success, Rogers soon expanded the concept and began employing the talents and eagerness of other amateurs in other communities to celebrate the anniversaries and centennials.  Many of the early productions were performed on indoor stages as operas, or minstrel shows. As the years progressed the company began selling community leaders on the idea of staging elaborate Centennial anniversaries, or commemorations of notable events of history from their area.  

The shows would often utilize a cast of hundreds of people, a truckload of period costumes, various animals, a large rolling stock of wagon and cars, plus a wealth of music scores, and about a dozen choreographed dance routines. In later years, the Rogers’ directors included early forms of multi media complete with slide shows, sound effects and pyrotechnics. Most of these elaborate shows were performed on a hand-crafted grand stage, made of platforms, scaffolding and curtains about 200 feet in length. It was built strategically on a football field where thousands of people attended the spectaculars from the stands.

These pageants were usually the culmination of a year-long celebration of the centennial or the sesqui-centennial at a 150 years. After World War Two, company officials estimated the Rogers’ Company produced over 5,000 of these shows before they finally closed down operations in 1977 in Fostoria, however another company bought the Rogers inventory and moved it to the Pittsburgh area where it continued until the 1980’s. 
The Rogers company, on average, would produce about 70 shows a summer. Most of operations focused on small town America where local communities would pay a fee for the Rogers company to design a celebration plan for them, that included not just an outdoor historical pageant, but would also give them an organization “plan of action” with which the townspeople could use to stage the entire year-long celebration. Those festivities always included beard contests, vintage clothing sales, commemorative dinner plates, historical programs and photos, wooden nickels, and other souvenirs of the community’s celebration. In the final six weeks of the event, the company would assign a director-business manager to the town to direct the pageant and generally oversee the celebration to ensure that company procedures and fiscal policies were being followed.

 

This writer became very familiar with the Rogers Company when I went to work for them in the summer of 1969, as a wet-behind-the-ears 20-year-old freshly minted “director”. Yes, I was unusually young for this type of heady assignment, but not one to shrink from adventure. One spring morning, I flew to points south to begin my director’s training in the small southern community of Clayton North Carolina, a few miles south of Raleigh.

(My first association with Rogers came the summer before when I took part in their production of Genoa Ohio’s centennial pageant in 1968. I was a theater major at the time, and the chance to work for Rogers the next summer was an experience of a lifetime)

Because this story was intended to be about the Rogers’ Company, and not about me, I’ll try to refrain from too much self-indulgence, but I will attempt to provide a unique perspective of the company and the effect in had on the communities they worked with.

The Clayton show was special and somewhat atypical because it was being directed by the Vice President of the company, George S. Elias. A man as unforgettable as he was skilled at his craft. With hundreds of Rogers shows on his long lists of credits, George also brought to his mini-school of new directors, an unflinching passion for the world of show business and showmanship. His stocky build,his soft blue eyes, and a face framed by a shock of graying blond hair, combined with a friendly smile and quick wit, had little trouble getting the attention of those around him. Be they young directors, novice actors or the most influential community’s leaders. I was fortunate to have had George Elias as a mentor in those early years.

 

George’s proudest accomplishment as a Rogers’ director was no doubt his annual reenactment of Custer’s Last Stand at the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana. It was a brilliant idea designed to raise money every year for the reservation and to tell the story of this great American story from the perspective of the Indians who crushed Custer’s 7th Calvary unit.
Elias for a number of years wrote and directed the spectacular battle scene, in classic Cecil B. DeMille’s style with bull-horn in hand, directing the hundreds of actors on horses with guns and arrows to be brutal and violent, while at the same time imploring them not to hurt anyone. Elias became so loved by the Crow Nation, he was made an honorary tribe member. By 1969, Elias was on set with director Arthur Penn, offering technical advice in the production of the movie “Little Big Man” with Dustin Hoffman and Faye Dunaway. Elias called me in June of 1969 to ask if I wanted to come out for the weekend to see the battle scenes being shot and to meet with Penn and the crew. I declined. A decision I have always regretted.

George Elias was not the only Rogers’ director whose roots were buried deep in the loam of Hollywood and Broadway. There were many others, including screen writers, dancers, actors, and behind the scenes technicians, who joined this Fostoria company during the summer months to earn some extra money and to experience a rich slice of pure Americana. One of the most popular directors for the company during its last years in operation was Carl Hawley, a Hollywood scriptwriter and showman who delighted in lending his experience and talents to these small town productions.

 

In 1968, Hawley and his wife LaFaye, produced a show for Brookfield, Illinois’s 75th anniversary, called the Diamond Jubilee. The local paper wrote of Hawley.

Everything was coming together. In late June “congenial” Carl Hawley, of Hollywood, Calif., arrived in Brookfield to produce and direct the pageant. Apparently no local person could come up to the standards needed for this job, so Hawley was sent for by the Rogers Company.
Hawley was a true showman, in the best “S.E. Gross” style, brimming over with good nature, optimism and a fine sense of flamboyance. And he had 20 years’ worth of experience in promoting such spectaculars as this.
The July 3rd Enterprise reported that   “he has worked with a number of movie stars before joining the Rogers Company. He has assisted in producing and directing James Arness in ‘Gunsmoke,’ Red Skelton and others. He has also traveled with Bing Crosby and appeared in movies under the name Carlos Fernando.”
On his pinky finger, Hawley wore an outrageously large ring, with a gigantic diamond in it that would’ve made Eva Gabor jealous, if it were real. He wore it, he said, as a symbol of Brookfield’s Diamond Jubilee. In early July, his wife, LaFaye, arrived to help co-produce and direct.

There were many directors in the history of the Rogers company and they essentially became the public face of this mostly obscure Northwest Ohio company that provided a wealth of memories to hundreds of thousands of people across the nation. One of their long time directors, Phillys Shelflow, left her Hollywood home each year along with her husband to direct and choreograph the pageants. She said in a 1968 interview that she loved the work because it was all about “bringing America to Americans”.
And speaking from my own experience as a Roger’s director, this seemed to be the essence of each celebration and each production. Every celebration would not only feature the pageant, but a “queen’s contest” which allowed local women in the town to sell tickets to the big show and the woman who sold the most won the crown and a truckload full of prizes from local merchants. Each celebration also featured beard growing contests for the men any man who grew some facial hair was encouraged to join the “Brothers of the Brush” which involved buying a button, an old-fashioned bow tie, and maybe a top hat or some other type of historic fashion.

The ladies, as well could pick through the racks of beautiful recreation of historic period dresses of many type which were at the Centennial store.

This store was also the headquarters for the event and was the place where everything was coordinated, meetings were and a variety of commemorative items were up for sale. Items that were mostly produced or brokered by the Rogers’ company. In fact the Rogers company also owned another firm called the Ohm Company which specialized in various trinkets, badges, hats and ties that most folks, who got into the celebratory spirit were eager to buy. It was a win-win-win situation. The town, the Rogers company and the director all shared a cut of the profits.

While money and the American “profit motive” were certainly in play for the Rogers Company, I always sensed that the owners and directors were motivated by more than just the almighty dollar, and that the greatest reward was in the sense of community these productions created.  In the smaller towns across the country who got caught up in the spirit of the celebration, the people who took part often found themselves making new friends, sharing new experiences and generally painting some indelible memories they carried for many years.

 

One case in point, was my first show I directed on my own which was in Newell, Iowa. A small farming hamlet of 700 citizens in Northwest Iowa, not far from Storm Lake, and about 60 miles east of Sioux City. It was essentially in the middle of nowhere and I thought I’d be dealing with some pretty dusty folks who had corn silk in their ears. How wrong I was. This little town was as prosperus and progressive as any town I had ever known, and  . the townspeople of this bucolic village were as energetic and friendly and competent as any I have ever encountered throughout the rest of my life. These folks knew how to have fun. A small town with a big heart. I learned a lot from them and never forgot their hospitality and zest for life. The show and the celebration of the town’s 100th birthday was a grand success. I was proud to be a part of it.  In 2004, 35 years after the 1969 Newell Iowa Centennial. I decided to visit that small town again while on a trip out West. The intervening years had taken their toll.  Much of Newell had physically changed, with closed up store fronts, and fewer downtown businesses. But more importantly, the people had not changed. Many of the same folks instrumental in putting the celebration together were still there, 35 years older, but just as eager as ever to have a good time. They held a party for me and my family. I was humbled. We reminisced, we laughed, we drank, we traded stories, and we paid tribute to those who had passed on, and by the night’s end, we made the past come alive again.  I also realized that the Centennial they observed in 1969 was more than just a one week event. It had stayed with them for decades. Several told me that it was the biggest thing that had ever happened in their little town and it was a very important time in their lives. One they would never forget. Nor shall I.

The work of the Rogers Company may be over, but still quietly lives on in thousands of towns across America.

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  The Rogers Room At The Fostoria Museum

The Strange Story of Marie Lilly Bowers: Kidnapped and Found 14 Years Later in Genoa, Ohio.

Marie Lilly Bowers shortly before she vanished.

Genoa, Ohio is quiet village. Not much noise, and not much big news.  So rarely does it ever make national or world news. It has happened, but not often. Once for the deadly tornado back in 1920, and another time for a sensational bank robbery nearly a century ago when the local druggist was shot to death. But perhaps the biggest local event that ever sent ripples beyond its village borders is one that few people today have ever heard of. It was a story so gripping that if it were to occur today, Genoa would likely have to endure a crush of TV crews and cameras all crowding each other to get the scoop. But there were no TV cameras back in the mid-1800’s, just newspapers and while they did report this story, its notoriety has faded along with the ink of the old news print.  The roots of this curious tale began to unfold in 1867 in Sandusky, Ohio with the kidnapping of a young three-year old girl by the name of Marie Lilly Bowers.

From family records it is written that on October 26, 1867, a neighbor asked Mrs. Martha Bowers if it would be okay of their three-year old daughter, Marie Lilly, could come to their house for a few hours to play. Her mother agreed and so Lilly left with the neighbor woman. She would never return. On her way home that afternoon, she vanished.  An immediate search was conducted by her frantic family members to no avail, and by the next day,  much of the city became involved in the search. It was recounted in family records that every “vault and cistern” was searched and even nearby “Sandusky Bay” was dragged for her body, but not a “single clue” turned up.  Days went by and still no sign of Marie Lilly Bowers.  Most of the major newspapers of the time carried the story of the missing child and the desperate search by her parents James and Martha Bower to find their precious “Lilly”. Many of the stories mention speculation that she had perhaps been abducted by a group of “gypsies” who were camped nearby.  Days passed into weeks and then months. Lilly was gone.

Mr. Bowers for years later would buy advertisements in papers around the country in a vain attempt to find his daughter. But to no avail.  Some leads were reported and followed, but in the end, all proved to be false.

Lilly’s Parents. James and Martha Bowers

The only clues came in rumors and theories. The Bowers family even contacted Levi Stanley, the “King of the Gypsies” living in Dayton, and asked that he become involved, thinking he might be able to find out if any of “his people” had the child. Stanley reportedly became angry with the suggestion, although a child was brought forward as a possible candidate for the missing Lilly, but after Mrs. Bowers saw the girl, she knew it wasn’t her daughter.

The Bowers family, crushed and heart-broken, eventually left Sandusky, and moved back to the town of Hudson Michigan, north of Toledo, to a previous home where many of their children had been born.

What the Bowers’ family didn’t know, was that about 50 miles east of Sandusky, near the small Ottawa County village of Genoa, on the farm of James and Jeanette Calkins, an old “gypsy” man by the name of Jack Patterson began working for them about the time that Lilly had vanished in 1867.  Old Jack, the gypsy, would work during the day for the Calkins while leaving his own “tawny” children in a nearby hovel during the day along with a child of a much lighter complexion. It was Marie Lilly Bowers. As the story is passed down in the Calkins’ family records,

“ One day Mrs. Calkins hearing screams rushed into the hut and rescued Lilly from the stove where she had been placed by the other children because she had refused to do their bidding. Soon after this, old Jack brought the child to Mrs. Calkins’ home. She was clothed in nothing but an old coffee-sac. The Calkins adopted the child. She was given the name “Ida Bell”.

For the next 15 years, Ida Bell Calkins was raised as their own child, although, her new parents, James and Jennette Calkins always told her they were not her real parents and that perhaps someday she might find her real family, whoever and wherever they might be.

In the years that followed, Ida Bell Calkins grew up in rural Genoa and lived with her new parents, and her five step brothers on their 80 acre farm near the current intersection of State Route 51 and State Rt. 163. Because she was so young, probably about three years old, when she was abducted, she had no recollection of her own family or her name. Because there were no local papers at the time in Genoa, the Calkins family never saw the numerous stories about the missing girl from Sandusky.

By the time the young “Ida Bell” had grown to be a beautiful young woman of about 18 years, she had been schooled and raised to be a proper young church-going lady and traveled in “prominent circles” of friends. But Ida still wondered about her real identity and who her parents really were.  Strangely she always favored the name Lilly and wished that it had been hers. She loved the name so much that she often gave her pets the name of Lilly.

In 1882, as she was about to be married and assume a new married name, she was about to learn her real maiden name. The Gibsonburg Chrsistian Monthly of July 1910….wrote that Lilly’s real mother, Martha Bowers, still living in Hudson Michigan and, “never ceased to have faith that some day, somehow, God only knew when or how, Lilly would be restored to them. “

Then, seemingly out of the blue, Mrs. Bowers received word from friends in Sandusky that they had heard of a young woman in Genoa who might be the long lost Lilly.  Quickly letters were exchanged with the Calkins’ family in Genoa and Mrs. Bowers soon made the trip south to Ohio to test another moment of truth.  It was arranged that  during a picnic at the old GAR hall in Genoa(which still exists), Mrs. Bower was to look at a group of girls and see if she could identify her daughter. When she saw “Ida Bell”, she is said to have immediately picked her out as her daughter Lilly.  There was no reunion that day, however, for Mrs. Bowers was to visit the Calkins home the next day to reveal herself to the girl. When Mrs. Bowers was brought into the room with the girl..recognition was immediate.

“My mother”, repeated Ida. These were the first words Mrs. Bowers had heard her daughter utter since she was a toddler.

News Article from Reading PA, July 27, 1882

Further identification was verified by a birthmark on Lilly’s head and as Jeanette Calkins would later write,… “there was joy and weeping.” It was a miraculous mother and child reunion. After 14 long years, the misery and the mystery was over. Preparations were made at once for Marie Lilly Bowers to return to the family home in Hudson Michigan. Newspapers across the country began picking up the story and Genoa, Ohio was the place where this miracle story had taken place.

Within weeks after the reunion, Ida Bell, or Marie Lilly, headed back to adopted hometown of Genoa and to marry a local man by the name of Daniel Cunningham.  Curiously, within months, her biological baby sister, Edith Clara Bowers would also move from Hudson Michigan to Genoa to marry James Levi Calkins, Lilly’s stepbrother, with whom she had been raised.  Both sisters remained in the vicinity until their deaths many years later. Lilly and Daniel eventually relocated to Gibsonburg where they raised two children, while her husband Daniel worked in the oilfields of Sandusky County.  Lilly would later tell newspaper reporters  that she felt very fortunate having two caring sets of parents. While she was very happy to have reunited with her real parents, the Bowers, she held the “highest and tenderest” regard for the James Calkins family of Genoa and could not ever think of moving away from them and deserting them in their old age.  Marie Lilly “Ida Bell” Calkins-Cunningham lived in nearby Gibsonburg until she passed away at the early age of 45, in 1910 from a mastoid infection. She is buried at Gibsonburg along with her two children and husband.

 

Edith Clara Bowers Calkins, Lilly’s sister.

 

The Calkins family legacy does not end with Lilly’s passing, for Lilly’s sister, Edith Clara, who married James Levi Calkins, lived to be nearly a hundred years of age and died in the 1960’s in the Genoa area. She was well-known and well liked by all who knew her.

James Levi Calkins, Lilly’s stepbrother in Genoa who would end up being her brother-in-law.

The Calkins family tree still stands tall in the Genoa area and still is growing. It now includes many well known local names such as Navarre, Early, Nagucki, Hesselbart, Schnapp and Bowland.

My Thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Leo Schnapp of Elliston for helping to track down this fascinating story of Genoa’s past.