The Sleepy Village of Bay View

I had some time to kill today while our condo was being shown and I haven't done a post in awhile, so Minnie and I went exploring.

If you follow Route 6 west through Vermilion, Huron, and then Sandusky you will be forced to veer south and connect with State Route 2, the infamous byway that has turned many lakefront areas into ghost towns. But, if you continue driving straight on Barrett Road you eventually come to a village that you may have never known to exist, Bay View.

Barret Road. Surrounded by Lake Erie and swampland.

Welcome to Bay View.

According to the 2010 Census, Bay View has a meager population of 632 residents, now mostly full time. To put this in perspective, the police department has one cruiser and only one full time patrol officer. There is also a reserve officer, a sergeant, and the chief. They responded to 150 calls in September, October, and November of last year combined. That is like two days worth of calls for the Lorain Police Department.

A few motels still exist in the area....

....and cabins too!

There are a couple of restaurants as well. Mostly catering to the locals.

So what exactly happened to the once thriving vacation village of Bay View? Once the last stop in "Vacationland" before crossing the Sandusky Bay to the Marblehead Peninsula, this town was bypassed by the much newer and wider Edison Bridge that connected State Route 2 to the other side of the water. The original Bay Bridge was a toll bridge (25 cents, one way) and unless you were taking a train, a boat, or wanted to drive another couple of hours west around the bay, this was your only option to cross. I am not sure exactly when the original bridge was built, but it was bypassed by the Edison Bridge around 1965 and torn down shortly after. The land based ramps still exist today and are extremely popular fishing destinations on both sides of the bay.

The Edison Bridge is on the left. You can see the ramps to the Bay Bridge in the center (now actually renamed "Fishing Pier"), and the railroad bridge is off to the right. The Village of Bay View rests dead center at the bottom. (Google Maps)

Turning onto the Bay Bridge ramp.

The Edison Bridge from the Bay Bridge. Unfortunately the police (only one) had the end of the Bay Bridge blocked off for unknown reasons so I couldn't get a good picture of the bay from there.

Heading back to the village.

The Town Hall/Fire Department/Police Department/Maintenance Department at the base of the original bridge ramps.

The Sandusky Bay with the Edison Bridge on the left and the remains of the Bay Bridge on the right.

Unlike most of the rest of "Vacationland", Bay View has survived, and in its own way it has also thrived. Sure it is less visited than it once was and some would say it may look dreary in these pictures (mainly because of the overcast), but if you were drive off the beaten path and drift on over to this small fishing village you may just find something you would not expect. It seems that once the connection to this area was terminated to make way for the future, the village and its people were left in the past. It still has this feeling today, and sometimes we need a little bit of the past to recuperate from the hustle and bustle of the future everyone was always racing to get to.

As always thanks for reading!