MUD STREETS
WERE THE NORM IN FOSTORIA, BUT BRICK LAYER WILSON CHANGED THAT
September 21, 1978
PIX #1 - MUDDY
MAIN - A view of Main Street at Center looking South taken about 1845.
The building at the extreme right was the first brick structure in Fostoria.
The shingled structure in the foreground was a building occupied by
Drs. Hales and Caples on the present site of the Rosendale Building,
often called the Andes Block. On the left side of the photo, foreground,
was the site of the Hays building, later to be rebuilt as the Hays Hotel.
The large two-story structure, center left, is the corner of Main and
Tiffin streets where the Commercial Bank is now. The building was moved
and replaced by the Foster Building which is still there.
PIX #2 - Charles
"Gene" Wilson
PIX #3 - Paving
brick from a Fostoria street weighing pounds.
Not many living
Fostorians remember the days of mud streets in our town. The accompanying
photo provides evidence they were here.
When I was a boy
I remember some of the streets that were still unpaved then. When my
family lived at corner of McDougal and Cadwallader, the street became
a small river during a hard rain, and it didn't drain away very fast.
So, the neighborhood kids always had abig time wading knee-deep in the
muddy water. It was still fun.
EARLY IMPROVEMENTS
The first drainage
for our town was by open ditches, and the first one was from the southeast
corner of Fremont and Perry streets, thence west along Fremont Street
to Portage Creek. That first segment was completed in October 1856...and
the cost was the amzing amount of $68.36, according to early records.
First improvement
to Main Street was authorized by city council in 1859. Fifty car loads
of stone were used on Main Street between Perry and Tiffin Streets.
The stone cost $4.00 per load.
In 1870, city
council created a board of improvement and employed a city engineer...James
Lewis, appointed by Mayor Bricker. soon after that the first underground
sewer (no.1) was authorized. It was a main sewer that began at Potter
and Sandusky streets, thence across Perry Street and on west to College
Ave., then north on Countyline to Fremont and west to Portage Creek.
LITTLE DONE BY
1880
During the 1880's
there were not any hardtop streets yet. After a hard rain it was almost
impossible for a horse-drawn vehicle to traverse them. During the dry
season it was conversely nearly as bad because of the dust created by
the horse-drawn vehicles.
On Main Street,
prior to paving, the dust was layed by a large tank-type sprinkling
wagon, which applied water daily for a cost of $1.00 per month for each
business establishment. ven in later years, when I was a boy, and the
street was improved, Tom duffey still sprinkled Main Street to lay the
dust.
Gradually, sewers
were extended and Fostoria's streets were improved by one or more methods...some
being cement, others macadam, and a few wood blocks saturated with preservative,
but mostly were brick.
Today, Fostoria
has 85 miles of hardtop streets. Those that were paved with bricks formed
the substantial base for the successive layers of asphalt that have
been applied in later years.
CHAMPION BRICK
LAYER
Most Fostorians
are unaware that a great contribution to the improvement of Fostoria's
streets was made years ago by Charles "Gene" Wilson, who earned the
title of champion street brick later for this area...perhaps nationwide.
He was written up in "Believe it or Not", many years ago.
"Gene" as he was
generally referred to, was credited with laying an average of 225 tons
of paving bricks per day...and they were much heavier than normal construction
bricks. Each one of those bricks measured 3 1/2 X 4 X 8 1/2 and weighed
10 pounds. One of the bricks shown in accompanying photo.
It took a crew
of men just to keep Wilson supplied with the bricks as he worked with
both hands picking them up and laying them in a checkerboard pattern.
As a boy, I remember seeing him work...no lost motions...and oh how
they went down. And oh how the persperation poured off him.
SET RECORD
Wilson once set
a record of laying 132 of the bricks in 55 seconds, which bettered his
average record of 225 tons per day by a large margin.
Fostorian W.J.
Banks recalls that "Gene" reportedly layed the bricks on Sandusky Street
from Main, east to the railroad tracks in one afternoon. That's a lot
of 10 pound bricks to handle.
In later years,
when there was no more street paving to be done, "Gene" worked on the
county highways. Dan McGinnis, director at Kaubish Memorial Library,
remembers working with him at that time.
Wilson passed
away in 1961, at age 76. His widow has remarried since his death and
still lives in Fostoria, her name now being Mrs. Stanley Scales. Hubert
Landers, a stepson resides in Columbus, Ohio.
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