Tales From The Negatives: Canton Actual Business College…

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#Team, calendars, Canton Actual Business College, Canton City Treasurer, classes, classroom, dream, enhancing, Google Maps, high resolution, Market Avenue, New Vicary Building, November, photograph, Photographs, Photoshop, principal, scanning, Sears Building, secretary, Tales from the Negatives, treasures, vice president

While my wife and I were cleaning out our attic we came across a box that could have been easily tossed in the trash.  The treasures that were hidden in the seemingly worthless paperwork that most of us keep proved to be a gem from 1922.  In the box we found photographs of my grandmother and grandfather from the 1920’s.  My grandmother, Myria Madeline (Studer) Rice, attended the Canton Actual Business College in 1922. She subsequently went on to work as a stenographer at several well known businesses  in Canton before she married Raymond Clayton Rice and worked for the business, Rice’s Drugs, he started in 1927. 

Scanning this photograph at a high resolution, and enhancing it in Photoshop helped me to reveal the date. There are at least two calendars in the classroom of the Canton Actual Business College. One of them did not have the year, but thanks to Miss Pearl Warburton pinning up a calendar at her desk, she “told” me it was November of 1922. Going to the 1922 Canton City Directory, I found the Canton Actual Business College was located in the New Vicary Building that would become known to most as the Sears building at 424 North Market Avenue Canton, Ohio. J.J. Krider was the president of this business college, while S.E. Hedges was the vice president, and J.E. Bowman secretary, and principal.

It has always been a dream of mine to see the inside of the “Sears” building on North Market Avenue because my Dad worked there in the 1950’s dressing the displays in the windows on Market Avenue. After contacting several people I found out Canton City Treasurer, Kim Perez and his team are located where I think the Canton Actual Business College was located. Counting the windows in the photograph and using Google Maps I surmised the college was on the fourth floor in the back of the Sears Building. My Grandma Rice is sitting at her desk along with ten other students attending the college.

Thank you to Canton City Treasurer, Kim Perez and his team for their time in allowing me to visit this special place in Canton, and the chance to photograph a part of the space where the business college once conducted classes. 

Mark G. Holland

Archivist

McKinley Presidential Library & Museum

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Tales from the Negatives: WandL.E. Tower What…

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archive, Canton, communication points, freight train, history galleries, keys, main line, Massillon, MN Tower, Museum, negatives, ohio, photograph, railroad, scanning, Stark County, Street of Shops, switch tower, switchman, track, tracks, trains, Wandle, Wandle Tower, Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad Company

While scanning an archive of some 1400 negatives I found an interesting image of a switch tower. 

John Taylor at MN Tower

A switch tower is a building where railroad personnel monitor track switches.  Towers were placed near switch locations into order for the railroad personnel to manually “throw” the switch to direct trains to a different track.  A switchman possessed keys to unlock/lock a switch so that someone just walking along could not “throw” the switch and cause an accident.  These towers also served as a communication points along the rails passing along information to trains as to the status of the tracks ahead.

The MN switch tower in this collection was near a passing siding.  Passing sidings utilized switches in order to allow two trains on the same track to pass one another.  As these opposing trains approach one another, one train is switched from the main line onto a passing siding to wait for the other train to pass. Once the train with the right of way has passed, the train waiting can move back onto the main line and go on its way.  The average freight train can be one to one and a quarter miles in length or 90 to 120 rail cars and therefore this passing siding must be long enough to accommodate these large trains. 

The photographs in this large archive were shot by amateur photographer William Ward Lowery in the early twentieth century. Mr. Lowery worked for the Canton City Water Department where he retired in 1955 having served the City of Canton for forty-two years.

William Ward Lowery

While cleaning the history galleries in our museum last Friday I noticed a tower in the model train set up we have in our Street of Shops. This tower looked like the switch tower in Mr. Lowey’s photographs.  As I walked around the set up I noticed more towers in more cities in Stark County. 

The two towers we feature today are the MN Tower, and the Wandle Tower.  We have found evidence that the MN Tower was East of Massillon, Ohio. The Wandle Tower in the model represents a tower that once stood in Canton, Ohio. The word Wandle is an amalgamation of the initials of the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad Company W. and L.E. Wandle.

Stay tuned to our museum’s Facebook, YouTube Channel, and our blog Archivist’s Attic for more Tales from the Negatives…

McKinley Presidential Library & Museum