WHAT I KNOW ABOUT 424
By: Stan Jordan
I sit here at my desk in the West Bend News and look out my famous window over onto 424, that used to be federal highway US 24 from Detroit to somewhere in Colorado. US 24 had been dual lane and moved to the south side of town. That road is history to no end. I’m going to tell you what I know and remember about old US 24 and it’s history to Antwerp.
When Antwerp was laid out back about 1840, that was called River Street and it was the path or trail that General Wayne and his boys used to go from Toledo to Fort Wayne. Now that right there was miserable, as it was all big timbers and mud and slush about ankle deep, because the sunshine never hit the ground.
River Street was paved with big brick in May of 1917. Now, some time after that, sometime in the late 1920’s, it became a state road. That road was designated a federal highway and was made a federal highway US 24 and was straightened out in a few places. It was paved with cement all the way to the Indiana state line.
In Antwerp, it no longer followed the Shaffer Road north around the cemetery. It went east as it is now and all those businesses were added later, after 1950.
After it passed Zuber cut off, it ran beside the Maumee River for a mile or so and they moved the road over to the south where it is now. They put a big, long curve in it and that was later called Dead Man Curve. It became infamous and has been changed twice to make it a little safer. That curve got its name in the late 1930’s and it earned that moniker too.
In Detroit, Henry Ford was paying $5.00 a day for factory workers. A lot of men from Indianapolis would use that highway on the weekend, as that $5.00 a day was good wages, but they did get home on weekends. A lot of those men would drive there 1933 or later Ford v8s and they would run like a scared rabbit, but they were light in weight and would not hold the road in that long curve, so they would roll over and crash and I remember of at least seven men that were killed in separate wrecks there. Yes, that road was named correctly.
About 2009, the US 24 was made 4 lane and moved south of Antwerp. On east of Defiance some of it was already 4 lane and some was done later.
A while back, before the highway was moved, we counted the traffic on 24. From 7:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. there was 1600 trucks and 2650 automobiles. That is a busy road.
See ya!
FALL, I LOVE IT!
By: Stan Jordan
This is fall and we had a good frost yesterday. I don’t think it hurt the farmers at all because this is October 17th and the farmers are shelling the early corn or combining the soy beans.
I think all the crops here in the tri-state area have done well. We had plenty of rain all summer. Like that old country song says, “Summer is almost gone and winter is coming.” But fall is beautiful, the leaves turn color and seem to get brighter, and don’t forget the fall bonfires. Maybe you are burning leaves and dead limbs that the wind has brought down during the summer; Oh, smell that smoke, it has an odor of its own.
Maybe you’re having a party with a bonfire and a cook out with hot dogs, burgers, marshmallows and all that goes along with having a good time with family and friends, and I will do my thing, I just love to sit and stare into a bonfire and maybe snooze a little, eat a little… that is having a good time.
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FACTS ABOUT THE PUMPKIN
By: Stan Jordan
In America, the pumpkin goes hand in hand with the fall holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving.
It is an orange fruit that is very nutritious, edible and is made into pies, soups, bread and is almost a must for the table at Thanksgiving, about like cranberries. Now that might only be here in the United States because the pumpkin is indigenous for 500 years to the Western Hemisphere as in the gourd group and native to America and Mexico.
Back in 1584 the French explorer, Cartier, found in the Saint Laurence region, gross melons. The name translates into English as pompion, but later evolved into pumpkin.
Pumpkins are low in calories, fat and sodium, but high in fiber and a good source of vitamin A & B, iron, potassium and protein.
Some pumpkins have reached the weight of 2200 pounds.
Carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns is a popular tradition at Halloween time originated hundreds of years ago in Ireland. They didn’t have pumpkins so they used turnips or potatoes, but when the Irish came to America they discovered the pumpkin would make a better jack-o-lantern.
The powers that be, estimate 46% of the people will be carving pumpkins for Halloween and the calculated expense will be 575 million and the bill for Halloween will reach 9 billion this year. Now that is for Halloween and doesn’t take in Thanksgiving.
The average price of a pumpkin has dropped to $3.89 compared to last year @ $4.12.
The world largest jack-o-lantern was carved and in the Guinness Book of Records on October 31, 2010 by Scott Cully in New York and weighed 1810.5 pounds.
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JUAN VALDEZ
By: Stan Jordan
Here is a little something about Juan Valdez. He went with me to Boston to see Ben Franklin back in 1775.
He is a fictional character who has appeared in advertisement for the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Columbia since 1958, representing a Columbian coffee farmer. He is usually shown with his mule, Conchita, carrying bags of Columbian harvested coffee beans.
He has become an icon for Columbia as well as for coffee in general, and they are very touchy about people who mimic Juan and Conchita. The National Federation of Coffee Growers of Columbia is entirely owned and controlled by Columbia’s coffee farmers, which number about 500,000 people.
Juan Valdez was first portrayed by Jose’ F. Duval in advertisement and television until 1969. He died in 1993 at the age of 72. Carlos Sanchez had the job from 1969 until he retired in 2006. Now a grower of coffee has been selected as the new face of Juan and his name is Carlos Casteneda.
I am a good friend of Juan Valdez and what he stands for.
*Thanks to wikipedia
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MEMORIES, MEMORIES
By: Stan Jordan
Here is a column that has bounced around in my head for years. It is 99% true. That, that isn’t true, isn’t true because I forgot over the years.
I call this area the tri-state area from the Michigan line all the way down into Mercer County. I know more about Van Wert and Mercer Counties than you think. Let me ramble through my early years with you.
My mother, Dollie Woods Jordan, was born in Sugar Tree Ridge, Ohio in 1899. That little town is down south of Springfield. Her parents were James F. and Clara Woods and that family moved into Van Wert County on Walnut Grove Road about a mile south of Ohio City. Down east where the road crossed US 127 was the Walnut Grove Church and it was destroyed by high winds in 1964.
The people who lived up on the corner west of Grandpa Woods farm was named High and they were in the farm and cattle business. The people who lived east of grandpa was named Scheid. I met one of their grandsons a few years ago at the Paulding County Hospital, as he was a doctor there. It think they sold the farm and moved to Ohio City about 1930 or 1931. I was six but I remember a lot about the farm and that family as we were there a number of times. They had one boy named Halder, he lived in Ohio City and worked at the elevator. I remember playing on a ball diamond there in town close to the city water tower. There was two boys in that family and three boys in our family.
I remember quite a bit about the town of Wren, because I had Aunt Mary and her husband Ed Giesler, they had one son, Von, who became a minister.
There is another brother, Harry Woods, then one of mom’s sisters lived over in Bluffton, Indiana. Mom had another sister, Dicia, and she lived in Van Wert. Her husband worked at the Marsh Foundation.
As a boy and a teenager, I spent a lot of time in Van Wert, I liked the town. If I remember right, now this would have been in the late 1930’s, there were three movie houses down town, the Ohio, the Schines and the Strand. We always went to the Ohio as they had a western and weekly serial.
We also went to the Peony Festival parade. That was a big affair. In 1941 the winners of the big Indianapolis 500 race were Mauri Rose and Floyd Davis with an average speed of 115 mph. Floyd Davis, and his car were in the parade because at that time the race driver would have a riding mechanic with him during the race and this man was a native of Van Wert, it was a big attraction. We also went to the Peony Farm out on Lincoln Highway.
All of the town here in those Ohio Counties that had a Masonic Lodge, I visited a number of times over the years. I am a member of The Blue Lodge of Hicksville, a good bunch of fellows. I visited the Celina Lodge a number of times.
I had a cousin who lived in Convoy. I remember playing softball in Convoy against a team sponsored by Don Dawler. We played Ohio City and Rockford in football before WWII along with the towns in Paulding County.
The school in Van Wert called Vantage, is a fine institution and I am glad and proud of the fact that I was on the Antwerp School Board when the plans for that school were agreed upon.
In looking back, I’m sure lucky to have lived here in the tri-state area.
See ya!
