Sandusky’s American Crayon Company

A CHAT WITH JOHN KROPF, AUTHOR OF COLOR CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

In his book Color Capital of the World: Growing Up with the Legacy of a Crayon Company, Sandusky native John Kropf weaves together personal memoir, family history, the social and economic rise and fall of blue-collar Sandusky and the story of the American Crayon Company, which traced its roots to Massachusetts in 1835 and made familiar brands such as Prang until 2002. Tim Feran talks with Kropf about the American Crayon Company, his family and his book.

The Voyage of Understanding

WARREN HARDING’S TRIP WEST AND UNTIMELY DEATH

On June 20, 1923, President Harding climbed aboard his private train car to start an ambitious eight-week trip. The “Voyage of Understanding,” as Harding called it, would take him across the nation by train, to Alaska by ship, down the West Coast by train, across the ocean by ship through the Panama Canal, with a brief stop in Puerto Rico, then back to Washington, D.C. It was a huge physical and emotional undertaking for any president. Six weeks into it, he died of heart failure.

Soothing Breezes and Gentle Waves

Celebrating 150 Years Of Lakeside Chautauqua

S ince 1873, generations of Ohioans and Midwesterners have made their way to Lakeside on the Marblehead Peninsula. One of the first communities to form out of the Chautauqua Movement of the 1870s, Lakeside has a rich heritage. Now the second-largest continuously operating chautauqua in the United States, it continues to offer a robust schedule of religious, educational, cultural and recreational programming during the summer season from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

I Wish I’d Been There

When Sheriff Maude Collins Made The Arrest

In 1926, Sarah Stout, second wife of wealthy Vinton County landowner Bill Stout, was bludgeoned to death, then doused with kerosene and torched. Next, Bill Stout turned up missing. Luckily, Maude Collins—named Ohio’s first woman sheriff in 1925 after the death of her husband, Sheriff Fletcher Collins, and elected to the office in 1926—was on the case.

From Our Editors

Do you, like us, keep a stack of books on your nightstand to be read … eventually? Our stacks are a foot high and include titles that have waited patiently for our attention for more than a year. “Trust us,” we say, “we’ll get to you!”

In the last issue of Echoes, we wrote about An Odd Book: A Biography of Odd McIntyre by R. Scott Williams. It had been on our shelves since 2017, before we’d even published the first issue of Echoes Magazine, but the story was fascinating, new to us and evergreen. On page 50 of this issue, you’ll find words about another such book , Disaster on the Mississippi: The Sultana Explosion, April 27, 1865, by Gene Eric Salecker. Moving forward, our reviews will feature not only new titles to do with Ohio history, but also some chestnuts from the past. The only requirement: the subject, new or old, must captivate us.

On page 24 in this issue, you can read about Sandusky’s American Crayon Company. It was one of the nation’s leading manufacturers of chalk and crayons, with roots going back 167 years, before closing in 2002. Readers of a certain age will recognize one of its best-known products, Prang Crayons in the iconic black box, and some may recall the sign with a big 3D pack of crayons that used to greet travelers through Sandusky, too.

Speaking of traveling, 100 years ago this summer, President Warren G. Harding traveled by train west across the country and then north to Alaska on a “Voyage of Understanding.” The ambitious journey allowed him to meet with Americans from all walks of life and shed light on government policies designed to help them. By any measure, the voyage was a resounding success until Harding fell ill and eventually died. The train that had carried him west became a funeral procession on the trip back to D.C. See page 30.

Lakeside Chautauqua on the Marblehead Peninsula was observing its 50th anniversary then and is celebrating its 150th anniversary this summer. (See page 34.) For the past several decades, we’ve spent a week there most summers, relaxing, playing (specifically, flying kites from the dock and making ice cream) and learning, just as its founders—Rev. Richard P. Duvall, Samuel R. Gill, Adam Clark Payne and Bernard “Barney” Jacobs—intended. It’s always been a place “dedicated to nurturing mind, body and spirit,” a timeless endeavor as you’ll see in the photographs.

In every issue of Echoes Magazine, we feature the stories of Ohio History Connection members and other Ohioans to stoke memories and shed light on our shared past.

For this issue, we asked, Did you or anyone in your family ever work in a steel mill or another tough job?”

Here are some of your responses:

Lake Freighters

Ohio is a Great Lakes state and many Ohioans have shipped out on the lake freighters hauling bulk commodities to and from Ohio ports including Toledo, Lorain, Cleveland, Ashtabula and Conneaut. In the 1960s, I worked on four different boats, just like the Edmund Fitzgerald, to pay my tuition at The Ohio State University. As an ordinary seaman, then a watchman and finally a wheelsman, I sailed from Duluth, Minnesota, to Port-Cartier in the St. Lawrence Seaway, and everywhere in between. It could be beautiful sailing through the Thousand Islands on a sunny day or nasty in high seas on Lake Superior. It could