Vacationland, Ohio

So I decided to take a little break from part 2 if my Vermilion post and take a ride farther West of the city into what was once known as "Vacationland". Vacationland is the section of Lake Road that runs from the outskirts of Vermilion to the West all the way into Sandusky. I only rode to the edge of Huron though due to time constraints.

Vacationland was basically a long line of campgrounds, cabins, dance halls, bathing houses and beaches that stretched along Lake Road in the early to mid 1900's. At a time when people had nothing else to do but go outside (I know, weird concept) the shores of Lake Erie was the place to be. Vacationland is still there, but it is now a shadow of its former self. There are still cabins and beaches along the shoreline, but they are mostly run down. All of the dance halls and bathing houses have been replaced with trailer parks and bars. Most of this is due to what is considered more "exciting" forms of entertainment coming about (most of which takes place indoors) and also the ever growing amusement park in Sandusky to the West, Cedar Point.

So here are some pictures from my ride through Vacationland.

32 Miles (Google Maps)

At Cranberry Creek there is an old LSE bridge abutment next to the road.

A better angle.

Otto's Grennhouse

A little bit farther down the road there is an abandoned greenhouse and some sort of a garage with a silo attached.

These greenhouse are not as old as most of the stuff I cover, but still cool none the less.

Now there is a forest growing inside of it.

Not sure what this building was exactly used for.

I did some research about the abandoned greenhouse and I found a newspaper article regarding their tomato crop. The article was in the Toledo Blade and it was from 1964. In the article it states that the Otto brothers had been in the large scale greenhouse business for 22 years. I'm not 100% sure if they were talking about this greenhouse, but if so it places the construction of the building around 1942. I could not seem to find when the greenhouse stopped production, but I did read a tale of how the Otto brother's demise occurred. To save money the brothers thought it would be a good idea to pump water from the lake into the greenhouse to water their crops, rather than using the city water, thus saving massive amounts of money. The day they turned on the pumps they realized that one of the valves had been installed backwards. By the time it was noticed the pumps had already flooded the yards and homes of the residents in the surrounding area. After much criticism and restitution the greenhouse had to finally close down. Now it sits and is slowly being overtaken by nature.

Old Lake Road

Lake road was not always the highway it is today, in fact before 1924 a paved road did not exist West of Vermilion. Once the road was built in 1924 it was designated State Route 2 (which we now know as the 4 lane highway to the south). In 1932 the road had to be relocated due to the quick erosion of the lake shore that occurred in the years before. The road was in jeopardy of falling into the lake and eventually it did.

As you can see the road used to be very close to the shore's edge. Photo taken in 1920's (Ernst Neibergall)

Close to the same area now. This dead end street that was once a through road is now called "Old Lake Road"

As you can see the road ends at the lake. Weird to think that at one point this was land.

Entrance to Old Lake Road today.

Miscellaneous Pictures

"Old Woman Creek".

Mouth of "Old Woman Creek".

Lake Erie sunset from Volunteer Bay.

 Stay tuned for part 2 of my Vermilion post. Thanks for reading.