Reminiscences of Frank Tanner
Part 2
June 11, 1979
Interview conducted by Harold J. Vogus
VOGUS: She graduated from high school in 1895.
TANNER: He generally was sitting right there @n the porch swing for the paper because he enjoyed his Cleveland Press. I can always remember, I could see when I was a block up the street see him still sitting there. Waiting on it. He
was nice, he certainly enjoyed his, he read clear through
that paper before he moved off of the porch.
VOGUS: Well he was a politician and he was a rather well
to do man, in comparison to the kind of home that he built as the Alliance Museum now is a show place and is still a
beautiful home.
TANNER: They got that big chair sitting in there that he
used to sit out there in. I remember when I was down there, oh it's been several years ago I was down there, I remember that· chair sitting in there that he used to sit out there in the porch in.
VOGUS: Well I know what you're talking about this because remember I copied a picture of him and his wife sitting on the porch out there. And just recently I got another picture of him from down in the museum there and he's got on a high top silk hat and he had banners and things like this around his door.
VOGUS: Well there's a little blind tape here that goes a
head of it but let's, tell us now about when you, your visit out to the Mormon Temple. I always enjoyed that story.
TANNER: Well, I was shortly after, I can't think of the date when it was, let's see about, about 25 years ago I guess it was. We'll say, oh about 1955 around there.
TANNER: I was working as the General Superintendent at the Alliance Machine Company at that time. I was down at the shop and it was Sunday morning. I went into the office and the switch board was buzzing, so I answered the telephone and here it was the steel company, the United States Steel Plant at Provo, Utah on the phone. They had an accident out there which included the crane over the soaking pits. And they were interested in having one of the road men out there right away to help them on fixing this crane up because it was going to shut down part of the mill. And our road men were all out on the road on important assignments, so I agreed that I would come out there that afternoon, be out to Salt Lake City in the morning, get a plane out there. So I made arrangements and the latter part of the afternoon I got out. Left the Canton Akron Airport for Chicago, changed planes in Chicago for Salt Lake City. The plane that I got on in Chicago I did notice that everybody getting on the plane was couples. I didn't think much about it but when we got to Salt Lake City why everybody got off the plane, this plane was a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles, but everybody seemed to get off the plane at Salt Lake City. So the bus going downtown was crowded there so I got a taxi to take me downtown to the hotel. I had sent a cable or I had sent a telegram out there that I had wanted a room that night at the hotel. So this taxi takes me down and the driver says to me are you here at one of the conventions that's here. And I said no, is there a convention? And he said oh yeah, he said the International Convention of the Mormons is starting here today. And they are coming in here from all over the country. So then he says to me are you sure you got a room at the hotel? And I said well I sent a telegram to them, that I want a room. So he took me to the hotel and he said, well I'll wait out here, he says if they haven't got a place for you, he says all the hotels are taken up here in town, he says I have a brother and his wife that lives close to the business district here. I think they could put you up if you haven't got a place. So I went in the hotel and told him who I was to the clerk and he said oh just a minute. So he goes and gets the manager of the hotel. And he says to me he says oh Mr. Tanner you put me in a bad spot, he says, but I got a room for you: He told about everything there and he says, well I told him what I was there for and that they had this accident down there and I wanted a car to drive down to Provo in the morning to the steel mill. so I got a room in the hotel drove down and I found out by my name's how. I got it. Tanner being a very important name in the Mormon set up out there, church and everything. So when I go down in the morning, the next morning to this hotel I went into the lobby office, in the office of the steel mill there, and the girl at the desk said, Mr. Anderson would be the gentleman for me to see. He's over, the superintendent of maintenance and the like and the steel mill there. He's out in the mill right now and he'll be back in a few minutes, so I waited. When he come back in, we went up in the room to have a conference with the foreman in the area and talk over what, well he first took me out in the steel mill and I saw where the damage was and what they'd have to do and checked on the supplies they had out there, the spare parts that they had for the crane, and I told them what they'd have to do to use some of them and the like. So we had a conference to set up what to do. So when we was ready to start this conference, when the superintendent there of the mill had come in and when I got introduced to him as Mr. Tanner why he right away started to tell me how prominent the Tanners were in the Mormon setup out there. And he took pretty near to a half an hour, and here we're waiting to get this thing a going, to get this steel mill started. He took pretty near ·to a half an hour to explain to all the fellows sitting there, what the Tanners, of the prominence of the Tanner name in the Mormon Church and the like wise there. This man was one of the outstanding persons there in the church. And went on to tell that Mr. Tanner there, one of the Tanners there was right up in the top of the church and that he had, also had two sons that were very prominent. One of them was a lawyer a very prominent lawyer in, was located in San Francisco a number of years and moved back there so that he could do his law cases and the like right there from the church. Would do them there and also gave a half a day of his time to the church on different things. And the other was a doctor. Who was a doctor, a plastic surgeon that was noted in the San Francisco area too. He had moved his services and people had come from all over the country for plastic surgery from him. He could do just, he could do it there at Salt Lake City just the same as he was doing out there in San Francisco. And so he moved his business there so he could give part of his time to the church. So this plastic surgeon had, at that time when I was there had the whole top floor of their hospital there was turned over to his services so he could take care of his business and he could be there and give some of his time to the church. Like he was doing. And I found out that was, this man tells all of this before we went through this meeting. So I was there for a couple of days and when we were through then, and I was ready, well Wednesday morning, we got, I supervised what they had to tear down and how they had to rebuild the end of this one crane, that was damaged so bad and they had spare parts to do it. So I was through Wednesday at noon, so I went back up in the hotel where I was staying and I went to a booth that they had in the lobby of the hotel there that you could -make arrangements to see over at the Tabernacle and go through the Tabernacle and stuff like this. They had a little booth there. So I goes over to this booth and asks the girl there if I could, what time the next tour went through the Tabernacle and everything over there, that I wanted to go. I told her that I had already called up the airport and had a plane going out, that I was going to take out for home at 2:30 for Chicago. And I wanted to know if I could make one of them. Well I found out that the next tour through why, it wouldn't give me time to go on the tour and make my plane. But she said, just a minute and she asked me what my name was and I told her what it was and she said oh Mr. Tanner you're the gentleman who come in here Sunday afternoon aren't you? And that surprised me. And she said just a minute to see what I can do, so she left her little booth there and went and she come back in a little bit and she said Mr. Tanner I've got it all arranged for you. And in just a few minutes we will have a gentleman come here, will take you on a regular conducted tour through, special tour for you so you can make your plane and everything. And so I gets this special conducted tour through and I found out the gentleman that was taking me was, what do I want to say, man who was the general sales manager of the Kroehler Company who builds furniture and the like. And he was at one time located for years in San Francisco but he found out he could change his head quarters to Salt Lake City and could give the church a half an hour a couple a times a week. Then he studied all the history of the church and everything and he takes tours. But they got him, he wasn't signed right up for his tour but he took me as a special tour. He took me all through and showed me just like they were, even in the big Tabernacle when we were in there, they generally have the fellow play the organ in the Tabernacle so you could see it, then he generally gets off and talks to you and on your way back and show you what the acoustics are. It's considered the finest place in the country. Well when we went to this special tour when we went through that part of the Tabernacle and was standing back there the organist was down there in his place. He played for me he got off of it and he said Mr. Tanner can you hear me, he talked to me just like he knew who I was going through there. And they took me through there. And I had that tour and they even give me two or three of them books that they have there for sale you know. They have a sale of books that they sell of the different things. I got a couple given to me. But I had that special tour in count of my name.
VOGUS: I understand that that is one of the most, one of the beautiful buildings in all this country.
TANNER: It is.
VOGUS: The art history, and of course the Mormon choir is known far and wide for their...
TANNER: Yeah, they broadcast and televise it you know around the country and the like, the Mormon choir. But the choir wasn't there but the organist was there, he played a piece for me. Got off and called me Mr. Tanner and wanted to know if I could hear him alright, talked to me a few minutes and showed me how the acoustics was in that thing and everything. That just surprised me when that happened, see.
VOGUS: That was a really beautiful experience to go through that.
TANNER: Yes. That was.
VOGUS: Well I got a couple little things here that we've talked about before.
TANNER: I want to tell you this too.
VOGUS: Go ahead then.
TANNER: This trip down in the valley what they call there from Provo down, or from Salt Lake City to Provo down that valley, that was one of the most beautiful drives that I've ever had in my life. I went down there several days in this car they had me each day and the like while I was there. And it was a beautiful drive down there. I'd, I recommended it to a number of people from here that's went out that way. In fact a friend of mine who lives here in town who always went out to California to spend the winter out there and they generally drove out and drove back. And I was telling them, they've been to Salt Lake City several times and never took that drive down. And I told them about it and they took the drive the next year and when they come back they said they were tickled that I told them. They said that is a beautiful drive down that valley.
VOGUS: Well all of that was built right from the desert wasn't it? When they first went out there it was a marvelous work that they did.
TANNER: Well you know, when looking too, when you go down and looking to the west on the side it's up on a, just over from the drive a little, it's up on a plateau and that sits back quite a ways before the mountains comes up in there. And on that plateau there's a big lake up on there you know. You can go up on that lake and the like, if you want to drive in and around there and the like. And it's just beautiful there you know.
VOGUS: Is that the great Salt Lake that you're talking about?
TANNER: Yes, oh yes.
VOGUS: Is it true that they can float with a lot of salt?
TANNER: I don't know about that.
VOGUS: You didn't watch any of them do it.
TANNER: I didn't get in on any of that. I've heard that about it that you can do that, it's a salt lake, yes.
VOGUS: Well I got a couple of things that we talked about one time and I think it would be interesting. Around the turn of the century and probably a little later I guess, you were telling me about the old street cars that came up Arch Street and when they got so far why the pavement was gone then they had, it was just like being on ties all the rest of the way up here. And then during the wintertime the trolleys were splashed up with mud and I guess the motormen weren't too comfortable in the early trolleys.
TANNER: Yeah, well the streetcar, you see, the streetcar come up Arch Street and down around, oh, about where Jays store is down there, there was a switch or a double track where one car could pass another.
VOGUS: Oh that's where they passed.
TANNER: Yeah. Then the car barns was up this way on the west side of the street a couple of blocks south farther up there, the car barns were. But you took, and the streetcars come up Arch Street they were, originally it was paved, not between the car tracks. Pavement on each side up to, around about to where the car barns was and from there on up it wasn't paved. You had your ties there but you had a place on each side for wagons and buggys and the like to go on but on up it wasn't paved there for oh, quite a number of years, before they paved it on up the street.
VOGUS: Oh I bet that was quite a quagmire during the winter and early springs when there was heavy rains in there.
TANNER: Oh yeah, it was. I used to come up, well when I was in high school and before then I used to come up here quite often. Well I run around, my girl friend lived down here on Arch at the corner of 11th and Arch you know. But it was through, around about that time of year when they paved it more up there. Before that it wasn't paved.
VOGUS: Pretty rough.
TANNER: Then you know, the street car line we had here to Mount Union from Alliance to Mount Union it was considered the second really street car line in the United States.
VOGUS: Yes, and they say it was one of the early ones, it wasn't the earliest but it was amoung the earliest well in the first five anyhow.
TANNER: Well I heard a number of times later way back when I was young it was the second one. And there was, I can't think of the name of the man here in town, a very wealthy fellow that made...
VOGUS: Whitacre was one of them.
TANNER: Cantine was the fellow that I'm thinking of.
VOGUS: Oh, W. W. Cantine, yes.
TANNER: That was the man, he was connected with the artificial ggs outfit that we had here.
VOGUS: Yes, he was the treasurer of the gas company and the light company both at one time.
TANNER: That was really the big financial man in it. He lived out at the conner of Union Avenue and Main Street, right on the corner there, the south corner of Main and Union where that what's its name store...
VOGUS: Yeah, right, right. Oh Myers Funeral Home was there at that place.
TANNER: Huh?
VOGUS: That's where Myers Funeral Home was, his house was right there on the corner.
TANNER: No, no down on Main and what's its name Cantine lived. Kays, lived, Cantine was Mrs. Kay's folks.
VOGUS: Right, right.
TANNER: Charlie Kays folks. And they're the one that built the home where Cassaday and Turkle is now and also Myers is now.
VOGUS: Yeah, right.
TANNER: Kays built that. Charlie Kay built that. But her original, her folks home was down on the corner, right on the corner of Main and Union. On the southwest corner. And they had a nice home there with a steel picket fence around the thing and stone up from the sidewalk was a stone curve all around, just off the sidewalk around their yard and this fence went down Main Street and up over, and that's where Cantine lived. That's Mrs. Kays folks was, lived there, and then Kays built up above there see.
VOGUS: I believe that you were telling me at one time that very close to here where you live on Arch Street now there were coal mines back along over there.
TANNER: Right straight back up here.
VOGUS: Back along, over there. I notice, I seen in the old directories that there were some there.
TANNER: Yeah, when I was a young kid down there, my Uncle August you know, had this draying outfit. We rode with him on his horse and wagon and the like, we come up here and they turned right down over here where this alley is, but that was no alley at that time. That was just a path going back to the coal mine.
VOGUS: Back to the coal mine.
TANNER: And there was apple trees on each side. We used to, then get off his wagon we'd ride up here and go back get off his wagon and get a couple of apples off the trees back there. There were apple trees here. But the coal, the what's the name, was back in there about where, see these other streets didn't run up here. The only street that run through was over at Liberty and Arch here.
VOGUS: Oh. Yeah.
TANNER: Them others didn't run up through here. So this went back in there and the coal mines was down in there. I have an idea under my place here, there's coal coming out of here.
VOGUS: Oh yes, there is coal. Quite a bit of coal. Do you remember any mines back of the...
TANNER: We used to come up there with Uncle August in his wagon, he'd come up there to get a wagon load of coal and we'd ride up and back. And we'd always want to go because in the fall of the year we'd get an apple or two off the apple trees back here.
VOGUS: Well do you remember in the west kind of the northwest section of town there's a reference there to a shaft, that went down into a coal mine. It was some thirty feet deep. And this would probably be out where the Grant property is on Sawburg Road. We have been talking, do you remember any mines, or people...
TANNER: They was out in there somewhere, I just don't recall that. But there was one out in there somewhere.
VOGUS: Oh, here's one that we haven't talked about but you may remember something about this. I was reading your father's biography and it, along with the other Tanners he was a volunteer fireman at one time.
TANNER: Oh yeah, both of them were on it, my Uncle August, his brother was head of the Fire Department. Chief.
VOGUS: Right, August was the first Chief.
TANNER: Yeah, Dad was Captain of the Fire Department.
VOGUS: Well in this biography it mentions that he was one of the firemen that fought the Orr explosion which was back February 1, 1884. Did he ever tell you any of the details or describe any of the things. I have never come up with a picture yet of the Orr explosion. And I just wondered if he had ever told you some of the incidents about it or his experience there at that Orr explosion?
TANNER: Oh, I heard him talking about it off and on, I have heard him talk about it but I didn't pay much attention to it. I've heard them, oh a number of times when I was little and the like. You'd hear him talk with other ones about the explosion, they knew all about it.
VOGUS: It's a, I'm still looking, for surely there must be a picture someplace of the Orr explosion. I myself went to the microfilm and I got the paper out from 1884 there that described the explosion. Now this was a semi weekly, so the paper came out two or three days after the accident happened and in it was the survivors tales about this. And they are something else again. It must of been terrible because that building exploded so fast and all together there was seven people died in this and I finally have got this straight on who it was that died in that accident. And I'm hoping yet to find somebody that has a picture of this outfit.
TANNER: I don't ever remember of really seeing a picture of it. But I can remember when I was little, talking, and hearing them talk about it referring to it, you know.
VOGUS: That was about the second worse accident that ever happened to Alliance. The first one being when that train crashed into another train in the old station in 1856. Eleven people died in that.
TANNER: Yeah.
VOGUS: And as a result...
TANNER: Engineer you know...
VOGUS: He came a little too fast with a new engine.
TANNER: They blamed it on him, 'cause he didn't have the right of way. He thought he ought to have the right of way. That they ought to held up the other one.
VOGUS: Well the story I heard about this...
TANNER: The outcome to all of that was the engineer definitely was mad and he crashed in there on purpose.
VOGUS: Oh is that right.
TANNER: Oh yeah.
VOGUS: The way I heard the story was that this man had a newer engine and he wasn't aware of the capabilities of it and when he came down through there and he was traveling too fast. And the other train was just pulling out of the station and he hit the last part of it and rammed the cars right into the crowd there killing eleven people.
TANNER: Well I heard when I was younger, they blamed the engineer for that, mad because he wasn't given the right of way. The one road was through there for the other and they thought that the other road always ought to lay back and let them go through, I guess.
VOGUS: Oh.
TANNER: When I was a young kid yet you heard talk.
VOGUS: Well you can always hear two stories in every tale.
TANNER: I was in on that you know, my Uncle Charlie was...
VOGUS: Oh yeah, tell us about Charlie, he was quite a man.
TANNER: My Uncle Charlie was the head of the railroad police between Pittsburgh and Fort Wayne and also the station helped the ticket, the people that sold tickets and what's his name, he was over that. And then the pay cars that went through he was over that. He was quite an official of the Pennsylvania Railroad, he was. But his title was supervisor I think of the, oh I forget what it was. But that's what he was, he was over the pay car, he was over their police department.
VOGUS: Quite an official job.
TANNER: Yeah, he had quite an outstanding job Uncle Charlie did on the railroad.
VOGUS: He boarded at your home at one time while he was there.
TANNER: When we lived down there on North Freedom we had an extra room tight off the living room. It was quite an extensive first floor of the house. We had a special bedroom with a little bath right off of the living room and that
was always kept for Uncle Charlie. Cause he would come in here anytime at night on a train and his main headquarters was here and then the pay car was here a lot. And he would come in on these night trains. He lived over in Canton on Cherry Street and they had no children so Homer and I were in and out. My mother used to put us on the train and send us over there and Aunt Mry would get us off the car and we'd stay there a week or two weeks a lot of times.
VOGUS: Well he kind of adopted you.
TANNER: Yeah, he adopted us. Uncle Charlie didn't have children but this being the headquarters he'd come down from Cleveland or up from the other around and get off here and changed trains and maybe he'd want to see some of these men or something like that here. But he'd come in, he had this bedroom in our home. And when we were little kids, before we was in school, the first thing we'd do in the morning we'd get up and look in the room to see if Uncle Charlie come that night. Because he'd always have a little sack of candy for us and stuff like that. Mother said he had us spoiled for fair. But he always had something for us kids when he come. So we were always looking for him to be there in the mornings. But by him having the job that he had Homer and I were the outstanding kids, the conductors on the railroads had to take care of. My mother would take us up and put us on the train to take us over to Canton or to Wooster where my Mother originally come from, Shreve, outside of Wooster, and had a couple of aunts and uncles in Wooster. And we had them in Canton you know two different Aunts and Uncles in Canton. So they liked to show off these two twins see. Well nobody, only our personal family could tell the two of us apart. Nobody else could, clear up after we were in school we were that way. We looked exactly alike. And so we were quite noted kids. We did get shoved around on a railroad a lot.
VOGUS: Well your father went to Mount Union College with William Henry Morgan.
TANNER: The two of them went to College they did. And they were room mates together, at Mount Union College. When we were young, well even up to when Homer and I were in high school Morgan was still living, he had built this castle over here. We used to come over, we lived down on North Liberty at that time, Dad and Homer and I, pretty near every Sunday evening we used to take a little stroml. We'd come up, walk up and get on a street car down at Liberty and go up to Mount Union square, past here and up there Sunday evening ... Mr. Morgan and my dad were kind of growing up together and went to college there together. Why they were good friends. So we'd come down there and Morgan would be out and we'd go over and talk, Dad and him would talk and he'd talk to us boys. Then he'd take us over and play the organ. You see he had this wonderful organ there in his mansion over there you know. The organ was considered the finest one ever made. It was at the St. Louis Fair, see.
VOGUS: That's right. It was dismantled. It was on display there, then they dismantled it and took it directly to Morgans.
TANNER: Yeah.
VOGUS: And I understand about...
TANNER: It was a beautiful thing and the like, it was a beautiful thing, and wonderful music. And he used to like to play it. He'd ask us sometimes, well do you want to hear a couple of songs. Other times we'd ask him. I'd say at least half of the time when we was corning down there he'd take us in the house for a little while and play us a few pieces. And it made him kind of happy you know, you'd ask him to do it.
VOGUS: I understand that organ when they came and installed it there in the Morgan Castle that they had to change some
of the pipes on it because that organ was so large and they had to change some of the pipes because of the acoustics
in it was not the same as it was in the big hall, in the exhibition hall.
TANNER: What I'd heard, oh just talk there, that they had to redesign it a little bit the way the pipes were and the like to fit into their space that they had there.
VOGUS: Well he used, they have an electric motor on that, wasn't it set up for electric.
TANNER: Yeah, yeah, they had an electric motor on the thing. So that's what, some short in that or something is how it caught fire.
VOGUS: Oh yeah, that's right. I understand that burned the staircase even, and even took some of the skylight out of there when it burned.
TANNER: Yeah I heard that. I never was over and seen it when it happened. See that was after the Elks were in there see.
VOGUS : Oh yes.
TANNER: Now, I lived, when the Elks bought this, got a hold of this and went into that I was living up in Willoughby at that time. And we come down here the Sunday they had the open house you know for everybody to go, after they first got in there and got it. And what was this fellow's name, was quite an organ player, that played the organ here for it. He was noted all over town here.
VOGUS: It wasn't Oliver was it?
TANNER: No. Anyway he was there and played the organ. We went over there, we come down with, we had another family from Willoughby that we run around with there and we come down that Sunday when they had the open house and went over there. It had been in the paper see, we got the Review mailed to us up there. It was in the paper and we was telling them about this, well I'd told them about see, of course being in there when I was a kid and the like and about the organ and the like and what a wonderful place it was. Well when they had that open house there see when they first started in there we come down here. And we'd come down and visit Ralph, see Ralph lived up here on Rice Street at that time. And we'd come down there and have dinner with Ralph and then went over and saw, took this couple over and saw it there. But I can remember doing that.
VOGUS: Can you, you said, that you used to come down Union Avenue down that way. Can you remember something about the old cemetery that used to be there on Union Avenue? That was the old Burial ground that was given by Ellis Johnson as a burial place and I believe you said that you vaguely remember this being there.
TANNER: Yeah, I can remember that. There was a cemetery there.
VOGUS: Was it a large cemetery?
TANNER: Oh not a real... Well it was, it wouldn't be a large one no. I wouldn't say that, but.
VOGUS: Well they probably had stopped burying in that cemetery then because Mount Cemetery was made in 1889 and then some of the graves were moved, in fact all of them were moved out of there eventually. But I have in mind that there was a period there up to about 1905, but I don't think they buried in that cemetery anymore, that any funerals went on out to the Mount Union Cemetery or on out to Alliance Cemetery.
TANNER: Well, I, it's a little vague about that.
VOGUS: You wouldn't have been very old even in 1905. That's getting on past there. we're kind of getting it straight now, about that cemetery and...
TANNER: I can't remember just exactly where it was there. I remember it was down there.
VOGUS: According to the old maps it was about on the corner of Union Avenue and 23rd Street, about where the Biscuit Company is now. Right in that section of that. Of course Ellis Johnson he had a property he lived on west, his old brick house would have been on west of that burying ground. In fact when Ellis Johnson died and his wife died just shortly afterwards, they were both buried there in the old cemetery. One story that sticks in my mind is about that there was an Indian fighter and I think his name was one of the Wilson's, and that he was buried in an iron casket and it was so heavy that they had to get special equipment in order to move it.
TANNER: Well I've heard that story too about the iron casket. Across the C and P tracks the first building on Main Street was the Chase House built by the father of the Pluchel brothers. The brothers later operated the hotel which had a lunchroom, dining room and sleeping rooms. Now on Main Street we really didn't have anything in Pluchels just a building went up there a little bit. Maybe it spread out along there, but when you come to down to where the railroad tracks was, between the railroad tracks and the building was just a heavy platform walk-that you walked in back there.
VOGUS: That's right, because that's the way the picture shows it, that Chase House.
TANNER: Yeah. And then you wenn around the corner then you had two little entrances in to where they had this here lunch room there, see. Well at the one entrance you could go to the hotel part or start in to where the lunch counter was. The lunch counter set back there and it was the full length of the building there. And it set back I suppose twenty feet from the doors there. And they had a couple little tables you could set there too, and chairs and look out the windows towards the station across the tracks there, but that's the way they were. But they had this lunch counter there that you could get this bun and a wiener sandwich or the kids could go for a penny you got a bun and you put mustard on it. And that was a big thing for the kids, just, they didn't have the meat in the sandwich. And they had the long buns that you could lay a wiener right out in them, but you could buy them you know and just put mustard on them. That was the big thing for the paper kids that would come down there and get the paper and sell it, had the Cleveland Press routes and the like, and they'd get them off of the trains there. That platform would run way back there, went back beyond Webb Street you know that comes down there, stopped you know, but the platform run back there. Then there was a building back there, does it say about that other building that was back along there.
VOGUS: The pictures that I have, showed on the windows, they had their advertisement, on each one of the windows with the price what you were buying. I remember that. And it was awful cheap. I think you could get a meal for close to a quarter at that time.
TANNER: Oh yeah. 15¢ or io¢ would get a meal. But I can remember the boys that carried the Press routes, pretty near everyone of them kids would go get a penny bun and put mustard on it. And you could buy I think for 2¢ extra something like, a wiener to put on it. But most of the kids just bought the buns and didn't get the wieners for them. It was a little extravagant that the kids done for themselves that they'd buy it with the wiener. But I can remember that. Oh, all, I suspect when I carried papers there on the route, there was about, oh there must of been four or five different paper routes in the town. They throwed that many bundles of papers off, besides the papers that I transferred around to the different, sent them -on the street cars. But the train would come in
there see, and the, all the baggage, off the train and the like was put off on the other side but they'd open the doors of that baggage car on along where that platform was and throw the papers out. Just throw them out of the cars and you had to pick papers up and the like out there. They throwed just a pile of them out of the car right where the car, the baggage car stopped that the papers were in. And you got your papers there and took them along. But that was, oh I suppose it was six to eight feet wide, wooden platform that went directly down along there. That was really what everybody had to walk on when you went down there. And then you got back there, the two streets the one that come down back of the stores there and then the other one that come down Webb Street there. You just kind of swung around and went up there.
VOGUS: What's, where does he go now?
TANNER: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
Went to the Chase House and Welch's Saloon, north to Welch's, Frank Akins operated a Barbershop. Oh this Welch's Saloon
was on Main Street right up from the Chase House around the corner. And just before you got to the viaduct that come through there, then you got under the viaduct was this barbershop.
VOGUS: That was Frank Akins wasn't it?
TANNER: Yeah. Akins. He was a barber until he was 82 years old. And he relocated on South Liberty just up from Main Street.
VOGUS: There's several...
TANNER: I can't think of the fellows name that had the men's shop there.
VOGUS: Judd, Judd the tailor.
TANNER: Judd.
VOGUS: Judd, the tailor. That was his block, yeah I remember that.
TANNER: Back on the back end of his what's it name was where they had this here...
VOGUS: There's a couple of pictures in the Museum files of Frank Akin's barbershop as it was when it was under the, under the viaduct.
TANNER: Yeah, uh huh.
VOGUS: I guess it was quite an experience when the trains and trucks went over, down the viaduct when they were in
that shop.
TANNER: Yeah, he had a barbershop. You could always figure on about 5:00 and Frank Akins barbershop would be, oh had the lumber yard down on North Webb or on Broadway there...
VOGUS: Weybrecht?
TANNER: Weybrecht. Ben Weybrecht would be in there to get shaved.
VOGUS: That's interesting.
TANNER: When he was through work for the day he would walk up the railroad track, go in there and get shaved and he was all ready for evening.
VOGUS: Well the Akins family run a Livery for a long number of years in there.
TANNER: Yeah, on Liberty Street there just up from...
VOGUS: A block up behind there.
TANNER: Yeah. Up on, where that street run down there.
VOGUS: Ash Street.
TANNER: Ash Street run down there, they were just beyond that there barbershop there. And then over on Seneca Street was another Livery Stable who was that? Right straight through on Seneca Street.
VOGUS: Ah, Shidler.
TANNER: Shidler.
VOGUS: Shidler, yeah. Yeah, they had, I remember...
TANNER: Yeah, there were two livery stables there...
VOGUS: It's a good thing I looked at some of these pictures. I remember some of the items that come up. Who is up next here?
TANNER: Well we're going into a restaurant here and getting a meal. 15¢ a meal.
VOGUS: 15¢.
TANNER: There a quarter and the like. They had short order for 15¢. Then Gows confectionary, that was an outstanding
place in town. Just a lot of people in the evening come down town, before they went home they would walk down to Gows.
VOGUS: That was the gathering place.
TANNER: That was the gathering place, it definitely was. Well I remember when I was -well clear up after I was married, and younger than that yet, I used to go after I married and joined the Christian Church my wife sang in the choir there and the like, and I went down there, they had church at night. Always had church at night, and I was one of the ushers there - four of us was in there. And we always had church at night, and after church we'd walk down to Gows. And there was a man and his wife, well my wife, well that's before I was married, and my wife was living with her sister up there on Liberty up there by Summit just the second house, well the house next to the corner and on the corner of Summit and Liberty on the northwest corner was Tussi lived there. Mr. Tussi and his wife, he directed the choir in the Christian Church and his wife sang in it. And my wife sang in it and the Tussi's and my wife and I that's before we were married, we'd walk down after church to Gows and get ice cream and the like and sit there and talk and a lot of other people would come in and then we'd walk over to Liberty Street and up to where...
VOGUS: Yeah. What year were you married in? Married in? I knew you'd have to think back.
TANNER: I've got it right here in this little book.
VOGUS: Oh, that's a great idea, I think I'll have to do that pretty soon. My memory's getting bad.
TANNER: Oh yeah.
VOGUS: Slipping some. The older you get the worse it gets.
TANNER: I've got that right in here, I remember putting it in here one day. I hunted it up then. A lot of stuff in here. Oh there it is. I was married on October 11, 1916.
VOGUS: All right. How many children did you have Frank?
TANNER: Two. A boy and a girl.
VOGUS: Two. All right. What is your boy's name?
TANNER: Donald,
VOGUS : Donald.
TANNER: He's been dead for about oh, six years.
VOGUS: Oh, I'm sorry to hear this. Was he married at the time.
TANNER: Yeah.
VOGUS: And the girl's name?
TANNER: Dorothy Jane, Dorothy Jane Renard is her name.
VOGUS: She lives here in town doesn't she?
TANNER: No, she lives in Westchester, Pennsylvania.
VOGUS: Oh. Westchester, Pennsylvania.
TANNER: She runs the radio station down there, she's got a wonderful job.
VOGUS: Oh, that's wonderful. All right, let's go on with our Main Street and see where we're at now? Let's see we were down, we were down to Gows Confectionary.
TANNER: Yeah.
VOGUS: All right, where does he go from here then?
TANNER: Well we went to Gows in the evening then that's where I got married see. In, but I was going with my wife then. And went with the Tussi's who lived on the corner up there and my wifes sister and her husband who she lived with, lived right next door to Tussi's up there on Summit and Liberty Street.
VOGUS: What was your wife's maiden name, I don't know that I...
TANNER: Barnes.
VOGUS : Barnes.
TANNER: Mamie Barnes.
VOGUS: Oh, was she any relation to Charlie Barnes?
TANNER: No. No relation. She, her folks come from down in East Rochester.
VOGUS: All right, where do we go now from Gows?
TANNER: Well, that's generally what we done on Sundays and some other night too we would. But we'd come down at that time you know, well in them times they had a roller rink and we had the basketball games. You know the shop leagues and the like.
VOGUS: They skated down there too at one time.
TANNER: Skated down there and played basketball and the like. Two nights a week you know they had basketball there, Tuesdays and Thursday night the city league played there. And then we went through all the routine of going to Gows and the like after the game and before you went home in the evening. Homer and I played, and after the game why generally the ones that we run around with they'd go down to Gows and it took us a little while to go in the dressing room and take a shower and the like and dress and then when we'd get dressed we'd tear dawn there and here was the rest of the gang we run around with. We'd meet them at Gows.
VOGUS: Well where does Frank go from Gows. What's, where did, what's the next one?
TANNER: _____________________ occupied the prominent spot in the first block on Main Street, then next to Gows was the old Alliance Liquor Store. Huge barrel stood on the side walk in front of the establishment and inside were many walk in front of the establishment and inside were many barrels which you passed between to get to the bar, and I can remember that.
VOGUS: Can you remember that?
TANNER: Then going west in this block was Charlie Pearsols cigar store. Pearsol Cigar Store. I don't remember that one. This was a combined cigar store and novelty shop. Then on the southeast corner of Liberty and Main Street there's Barth and Muntz.
VOGUS: Yeah, Barth and Muntz.
TANNER: I can remember that because it was right on the corner there.
VOGUS: I always understood they...
TANNER: They had groceries and the like there...
VOGUS: They had real fancy produce and things, they had a lot, I understood they went to Cleveland a lot and bought. Got their...
TANNER: Barth and Muntz, where housewives would find delicacy of the grocery line. There was no question about that. They had the outstanding one. After years of partnership the firm split, both partners going into grocery businesses different locations from Main Street. That's right. In fact the Barth and Muntz Grocery across the street on Arch, across the street on Arch and Liberty, that's a mistake there...
VOGUS: I think he crosses...
TANNER: Oh on Ashe and Liberty, Les Akins run Akins Livery Store. They specialized in renting cabs for funerals as well as all the social activities for the area. Later he went in the taKi business. Then across, you have to cross the street from Akins Livery was the Criss Souers and Rich Saloon, they had, that's right. Known as the Souers and Rich. There was a back door to this place which made an ideal place to go to if you didn't wish to be seen in a bar. That's what, that was noted for that. They got three fourths of their business through the back door. There were plenty, both men and women who did not wish to be seen going in from the front door of a drinking establishment.
VOGUS: That sounds like the Prohibition days don't it?
TANNER: I'd say three fourths of their business, they done a good business, but three fourths of their business was that side door. The Star Steam Laundry was next to Souers and Rich and it has only been the past few years that it hasn't been in operation, yeah that's right. Segals Shoe Repair Store was north of ·the Laundry. See Segal Shoes was right around off of Main Street, just went up there, just right up a little bit you went into this shoe repair. Now Segal, he had a, I had one of his sons Abe Segal graduated from. high school in the class that I did. Then he had, that was the oldest one of his sons he had three sons, Solly Segal was one, Abe and Solly and what was the younger one, I can't remember right now. Well anyway that's Segal, and I'd forgot about that for a long time. Going west on the east side of Main Street Don Klein the clother, small office, north door was the Industrial Savings and Loan. And they much later moved to the corner of Seneca and Main where is the present home of the square, yeah. Another old time between Liberty and Seneca was Bowdeds Shoe Store. Right on the alley corner down there. You come right up from Liberty on the first alley corner was Bowden's Shoe Store.
VOGUS: I think I asked you once, the Industrial Federal there, they were in that old memorial block where they used to have a post office, used to be in there. In the old pictures, I mention this because in the old pictures you can see the high tower that was on top of that building. And I believe you said that in later years that it was struck by lightning or something like this and they had to tear it down. But in the old pictures that tower stands out pretty strong on Main Street but then in the later years then you don't see that tower no more.
TANNER: They had to tear that down. I remember when they done that. A lot of people went down to tell, they let them know when they were going to do it a lot of people went down there to watch them tear that tower down.
VOGUS: Sidewalk superintendents.
TANNER: A couple of saloons, Schwinns and Eyers were also in this block. Then there were Harsh's Grocery, the north door and then the Post Office at the corner of Seneca and Main, and the Odd Fellows Building. That is the Post Office moved to the Odd Fellows Building.
VOGUS: Yes, uh huh.
TANNER: Other blocks west of Main Street, the Post Office was taken over by the Industrial Savings and Loan, that's right. Directly to the rear of the Post Office was a well known eye, ear and throat doctor, G. L. King Sr. Correct. Across the alley was Shidler's Livery Stable which occupied two buildings. One where the present Western Union Office stands and the other directly across the street. Yeah, they were on both sides of the street, of Seneca Street there, Shidler's. They had a big business.
VOGUS: Right. Well his son, wasn't it that became, Smidler became a surveyor or County Engineer or something like that.
TANNER: County Engineer, yeah. On the north side of Main Street the first building was the Stark Electric Station and next to it was the Alliance Leader. The Alliance Leader, the building is still there yet where the Alliance Leader is. That's that brick building down there, the last building on Main Street you know, there now, is on the north side of the street that was where the Alliance Leader was.
VOGUS: Did the Alliance Leader burn down? I have a picture of the Alliance Leader but they were up on Arch Street, on North Arch just behind where the bank building stood. Well the old Concordia building was on the corner and then the Leader was down there, just about the first block there. I often wondered what happened that they made a move, did the building burn down, or...
TANNER: I don't think...
VOGUS: I'm going to let Frank tell the story about his meeting and his acquaintances with Jim Williams the famous cartoonist.