Ride Through History: The Main Event Part 1

As I've said before, one of my favorite places to ride is in downtown Akron.  The great thing about Akron's downtown (for cycling, at least) is that its really low key on the weekends and the traffic is manageable during the week.  If you're looking for a good place to practice your traffic skills, downtown is a great place to do it.  There is just enough lunacy to keep you on your toes, but not so much you won't survive (unless its after a Lock 3 concert).  Anyway, as one might imagine, there is a lot of history in downtown Akron.  So much so, I can't fit it all in one post.  To go easy on myself, I'll pick one street- The Street.  Main Street.

The road that would become Main St. was laid out on the original 1825 plat by General Simon Perkins and Paul Williams.  Originally, it ran from around University (Center) St. the Lower Basin of the Ohio & Erie Canal (just south of Exchange St.).  Around 1839, the Pennsylvania & Ohio canal was constructed to connect the Ohio & Erie Canal to the Beaver & Erie Canal located in Pennsylvania.  The end which connected to the O&E Canal at Exchange St. ran right down the middle of Main St.  So, the road ran on either side of the canal, making it much wider than the other streets.

Unfortunately, the canals were rather nasty.  The water attracted bugs, was polluted, and usually gave off a less than pleasant odor.  So, no one wanted to hang out on Main St.  The P&O was particularly disgusting.  Plus, its usefulness ended rather abruptly with the construction of the railroads.  Unlike, the O&E, the P&O didn't retain its popularity.  Very few items were shipped on the canal except coal for the railroads, and most of it was abandoned by 1872.  The residents of Akron had enough of the nasty, stagnant canal that wasn't being used.  After years of battling the powers that be, the citizens took matters into their own hands and filled the Main St. section on the night of December 8, 1873.  The process caused serious damage to the O&E Canal (which ran along Water St.), but no one really seemed to mind.  Arrests were made, but the accused were bailed out and nothing came of it.

But, for years Main St. remained relatively empty compared to Howard St. which ran parallel to Main St. one block west.  Unlike the other Main Streets of America, Akron's wasn't the retail center of the city.  That area was on South Howard and Market St.  It wasn't until the O'Neil & Dyas (later known as O'Neil's, yeah, that one.) moved their store to Main in 1889 that the retail district began to shift.  O'Neil & Dyas were ridiculed by their competition for their location choice.  However, their loyal customer base followed them to the new location and business thrived.  Eventually it became the city's most popular department store and O'Neil's became a household name.  From then on, Main Street became the retail center of downtown.  With the urban renewal movement in the mid-1960's all of the southern end of Howard St. was wiped out to make room for the Inner Belt Highway.  Main St. held onto its success for another tens years or so, but suffered a severe decline with retail's flight to the suburban malls and plazas.  Today, despite efforts of revitalization, Main Street is far from its former glory. However, there are still some sights worth a look.

Here we go, starting from Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, riding south, with everything on the west side of the street:

The first thing you pass is the United Rubber Workers historical marker and "garden."  On that spot in 1935, the first leaders met and organized the URW at the Portage Hotel, one of the first successful labor unions in the United States.

A year later, they would organize a strike at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., one of the first successful sit down strikes in the US.  Speaking of the Portage Hotel (NW corner of Main and Market, now a Summa location), it was an important historical site too.

By the early 1900's, Akron's hotels had fallen into decline.  The Empire House stood at this corner, but it had fallen into such disrepair, it rarely had any visitors.  However, The Empire was a fond landmark in Akron.  It served as the meeting place between Akron's prominent citizens and Dr. Benjamin F. Goodrich when he pitched his idea for a rubber company on the Ohio & Erie Canal.  Unfortunately, it wasn't bringing in guests based on its past glory.  So, M. O'Neil, owner of O'Neil's, headed up a plan to knock The Empire down and build a new hotel.  The Portage Hotel opened in June, 1912.  The building committee was composed of the likes of O'Neil, W.B. Miller, president of Diamond Rubber, and O.C. Barber of the Diamond Match Co. and founder of Barberton.  It was the finest hotel in the region when it opened.

The next sight you would pass on the SW corner of Main and Mill is the FirstMerit Tower.  Completed in 1931, it remains the tallest building in the city.  It has 27 floors and is designed in the Art Deco style.  After painstaking restorations, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.

Next, you will come to the intersection of Bowery and Main St.  Before the demolition of S. Howard St., this was the intersection of Howard, Main, and Quarry.  One of the most recognizable landmarks in the city once stood here, the Flatiron Building.  The Flatiron looked similar to the one in New York City, except a little smaller.

After passing this intersection, you have now entered the Main Street Historic District.  One of the highlights of the district is the Civic Theater.  The famous Civic used to be known as Loew's Theater.  It was opened in 1929 by Marcus Loew who owned theaters all across the country.  The interior was designed by John Eberson to look like a Moorish castle and the ceiling is meant to look like a night sky, complete with flickering stars.  All sorts of entertainments were held at the Civic such as plays, vaudeville shows, and films.  It was remodeled in 2001 and reopened in 2002.  The interior of this building is gorgeous.  Even though most of the shows aren't very remarkable, its worth going just to see the building itself.  It is one of the only surviving Loew's theaters in the country.

Next, you will pass Lock 3 Park.  Before its construction, it was the site of retail buildings.  These stores would have been found on any typical Main Street, such as shoe stores, grocers, bakeries, confectioneries, drug stores, diners and jewelers.  Apartments were on the second floors of all the buildings.  Incidentally, one of Akron's most important contributions to society took place at this spot along the canal.  In 1884, Samuel C. Dyke fully automated his toy factory to mass produce clay marbles which he then sold to the Merrill Clay Co. next door to distribute.  This was the first factory in the United States to mass produce toys.  Because the cost of production decreased, the price of the toys plummeted making toys available to all children.  This revolutionized the world's toy business.  If you visit the Akron History Exhibit, you can see the marbles and toys found at Lock 3 during the park's construction.

Some of the marbles found at Lock 3

Sitting at the corner of State and Main is the O'Neil Building where the O'Neil's Department Store was once located.  Today it is home to offices and the Barley House.  Way back before O'Neil's was here, this was the sight of the Merrill Pottery Co. and later a Robinson Clay Co. plant.  Before rubber, Akron was known for its clay companies that produced everything from fine stoneware to sewer pipes.  

After that, you will pass Canal Park, home of the Akron Aeros Minor League baseball team.  There were more retail buildings here before they built the baseball park.  After the baseball park, you will come to the surviving retail buildings on Main St.  The dates of these buildings range from the 1890's to present day and are home to an ever changing selection of clubs and restaurants.  Cilantro used to be a bank and the original vault is still in the building.  The Diamond Deli (best corned beef around, by the way) is the longest surviving business on this end of Main St. and sits at the corner of Main and Cedar.  From this vantage point you can see the old B.F. Goodrich complex which now houses several offices and chemical companies.  Goodrich was Akron's first rubber company, opening in 1871 (some of their first products were bicycle tires).  The plant originally drew power from the canal, but later ran on coal.  One of the smoke stacks is operating and the steam still rises above the city.  The towpath connector runs through this complex, if you can find your way through the maze.

I will end the tour here.  Part 2 will take us back north on Main St. to where we started as there is just as much history on the other side of the street.  If you are interested in seeing photographs of the historic places I mentioned, most are available online at SummitMemory.org, a service of the Akron-Summit County Public Library.