Oil tank on fire, circa 1912
Sightseeing in Ohio, First by Train, Then by Bicycle by Alan Borer
Sightseeing in Ohio, First by Train, Then by Bicycle by Alan Borer
As recently as the 1980s, travelers between Toledo and
Lima could spot enormous, decrepit wooden tanks of oil. Rickety and prone to
burning, they were oil storage containers left over from Northwest Ohio’s oil
boom. Oil was discovered in several
locations along what is now I-75, concentrated around Bowling Green, Findlay,
and Lima in the late 1860s. The oil fields of southern Wood County sprouted
derricks, tanks, and wildcat towns just as surely as did Oklahoma and Texas a
generation later. My hometown of Bowling
Green was famous for offering free natural gas to industry. The “black gold” did not last long, but it
was a boon to the Toledo hinterland while it lasted.
Something of the flavor of the oil rush was captured in a
letter written by a young man named Fred Price.
Price journeyed from his home in Richmond, Indiana, to Toledo in
September of 1897. A letter that he
wrote to his mother has been preserved and gives some idea of what oil rush
Ohio looked like.
After some preliminaries, Price wrote:
We
had a pleasant trip from Piqua up, although it was dry and warm, and the grass
was on fire several places along the road.
We stopped for dinner at Lima and had quite a good lunch. It was quite a sight when approaching Lima to
see the long rows of oil well derricks, and most of them working, and then to
see the long rows of oil tanks. And you
could tell when you were approaching them by the odor. The country looks like good prosperous
farming country from Piqua and the corn in some places was as large as I have
ever seen.
In 1897 there was only one long distance mode of
transportation, so Fred was taking the train on his trip north. Many railroads served the north-south
traveler at the turn of the century.
Fred likely took the Cincinnati, Hamilton, & Dayton R. R. north from
Piqua through Sidney, Anna, Botkins, Cridersville, and to Lima. At Lima he may have switched to the Lake Erie
and Western, which reached Findlay by way of Beaverdam, Bluffton and Rawson. At Findlay, he could have hopped on the Toledo
and Ohio Central, a straight shot from Findlay north to Toledo.[i] Many of these lines were later consolidated
into the B & O.
Fred does not specify, but there were any number of
dining opportunities in Lima. A look at
the oldest surviving Lima City Directory (1901) showed fifteen restaurants in
Lima, plus roughly seventy “saloons.”
Many of these doubtless served lunches of varying sorts. Hotels also were available for dining. The restaurants were concentrated along Main
Street, which ran parallel to the railroad.
Food could doubtless be had at the depot however, and Fred may not have
even had to leave trackside.
When Fred arrived in Toledo, he was greeted by his Aunt
Ellen and heard fishing tales from local friends. Fred was an enthusiastic bicycle rider, and
brought his “wheel” along. After almost
losing it in a railroad freight mishap, he eventually set out to explore the
city:
I
had a nice ride about the city [Toledo] on my wheel this morning and your say
[ing] the residence portion is pretty and tasty [tasteful] is no exaggeration,
and everything seems to be kept up in such nice condition. I expect to take another ride this afternoon
and see more of it. I am much pleased
with everything I have seen thus far. . . .
“Tasty” or not,
Fred’s ability to see Toledo by bicycle was made possible by a bicycle “craze” that swept the country in the Gay
Nineties. Advances in bicycle technology
and in the making of pneumatic tires relegated the old high wheelers to the
basement. Suddenly, everyone needed and
wanted a bicycle. In a foretaste of the
automobile, citizens finally became mobile.
Many things changed. Women’s
skirts became shorter to avoid the spokes.
Riding schools appeared overnight. Cities accelerated the paving of
roads. In Dayton, two brothers named
Wright cashed in on the bicycle craze, although the bicycle factory they built
came to other uses. A journalist of the
time stated: “The discovery and
progressive improvement of the bicycle is of more importance to mankind than
all the victories and defeats of Napoleon, with the First and Second Punic Wars
… thrown in.”[ii]
Like most crazes,
the bicycle fad did not last. In 1897,
when Fred Price pedaled the streets of Toledo, bicycle mania was past its 1895
peak. By 1900 it was over, and bicycles
became children’s toys. The railroad
also is moribund, and one could not now recreate the rail journey that brought
Fred to Toledo. But the desire to see the
world beyond our doors burns brightly.
Only the mode of travel has changed, and will likely keep changing.
[i] Kayler, R. S. Railroad map
of Ohio published by the state, prepared under the direction of commissioner of
railroads and telegraphs. Columbus, 1898. Map.
https://www.loc.gov/item/98688545/.
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