From
Albert Kauslick, Class of 1949
The Beacon Journal article LOST SOLDIER WILL FINALLY COME HOME
Sep. 27, 06, took my breath away when I read it. Junior Crater
was my boyhood friend from Johnson's corners. He, along with Gene
Echols, Red Hunsicker, Larry Kotnik, Clyde Dayton, Elmore Yoak,
Tom Madjerac, Bob Freeman, etc. were all my schoolmates from
Johnson School and boyhood friends. We played sports, went to the
Pastime Theater for the Saturday matinees, went fishing at Hudson
Run creek together. I knew that Junior Crater was missing in
action in Korea. His remains being found and being returned to
the family was really something, a tribute to modern science. I
plan to attend the memorial service when they occur and this will
probably be announced in the Beacon Journal. This may be of
interest to the class of 1949 as Junior Crater would have been in
our class if he had not quit and jointed the army like several
other pals, like Tony Troha my best friend in high school.
Posted on Tue, Nov. 09, 2004
CREWS DIG UP HISTORY IN DOWNTOWN AKRON
Hotel Vault unearthed at Musuem Site.
By Paula Schleis - Akron Beacon Journal
Bernie Gnap, a trustee for the Barberton Historical Society,
checks out the
site of the old Hotel Akron which is located in Akron at the
corner of Market
and Broadway streets. This old vault which, was in the old
hotel, was unearthed
during digging on the new site of the Akron Art Museum. Local
historians went
to the site Monday to study the find. Ken Love, ABJ photo.
Was it the basement door of a 19th-century home? A rathskeller
nestled
beneath a commercial building? A gentleman's club frequented by
Akron
industrialists?
From behind a chain-link fence, local historians could only
muse about a
mysterious underground doorway uncovered at the site of the
Akron Art Museum
expansion.
But after hitting the books and then paying a visit to the
construction site
Monday, there was unanimous agreement:
Workers had found the vault of the old Hotel Akron, built in
1917 and
demolished in 1971.
``This is like finding a shipwreck,'' said Barberton Historical
Society
President Steve Kelleher, one of four history lovers who had
pondered the doorway
to nowhere. ``Usually things like this don't get left behind.''
The brick entrance peeking out from a mound of dirt is framed
by a
Victorian-style cast iron lintel and door jambs that seemed to
be in remarkably good
shape for having been buried for 33 years.
University of Akron archivist John Miller is making plans to
salvage the
metalwork. He hopes to see it cleaned up and displayed
somewhere.
The rest of the vault will be reburied once the museum
construction is
complete, left for a future generation to rediscover.
The vault was uncovered weeks ago by the Welty Building Co.,
construction
manager for the museum addition.
Workers were surprised to find any debris on the site, said
site supervisor
Jonathan White. Typically, rubble is removed to a landfill, he
said, so it was
an eye opener when earthmovers began churning up a graveyard of
brick,
concrete and plaster.
Nothing of import was found, and the brick vault hardly raised
an eyebrow,
left in place merely to serve as a retaining wall for an area
that didn't need
to be disturbed, White said.
But then Bernie Gnap of the Barberton Historical Society
spotted the unusual
setup while sitting in his car, waiting for the light to change
at Broadway
and Market Street.
He recognized the leaf motif above the door as being Victorian,
and wondered
if a 19th-century treasure had been discovered.
Gnap enlisted the help of Miller in researching what buildings
occupied the
corner, but the matter wasn't settled until the pair donned
hard hats and took
a trip down a dirt embankment.
The structure was not from the Victorian era. Local
architectural historian
Jim Pahlau confirmed that the style was enjoying a rebirth
during the time the
hotel was built.
But the vault was a fun find nonetheless, said UA board officer
Russell
Sibert, who joined Monday's excursion.
``The past is dimly lit, and whenever you can touch a piece of
it, it makes
it more real,'' he said as he handled a piece of terra cotta
trim he plucked
from the dirt near the vault.
As Welty employee Don Kaufman used a shovel to remove some of
the soil and
debris jammed inside the vault, the historians collected some
souvenirs that
tumbled out, including pieces of glass and pottery.
But site Superintendent John McDermott kept his eye on the
doorway.
``Hey,'' he chuckled, ``we might find Jimmy Hoffa in there.''
I put the time of death at about 2:00 PM on
Monday August 23, 2004. That
was the moment that the last walls of the old Barberton Central
High School seemed to groan for a while and then come crashing to
the ground in slow motion. The cloud of dust was huge from that last section falling and
it quickly covered the spectators in the parking lot.
I think it was appropriate that the 1924 and
1939 additions to the high school were torn down first and then
the demolition crew worked its way down Hopocan and up Newell
Street through the original 1915 building.
I don't remember who said this, but I believe the quote
goes like this, "First we shape our buildings, but then our
buildings shape us.,,
That statement certainly is true of old
Barberton High School.
No one who entered there, left unchanged.
We all have memories of our high school years at old BHS
and as the building came tumbling down the spectators took the
time to openly share those memories with people that before that
day were complete strangers.
I was there at the demoliton site with the
historical society to try and salvage the date stones and the
Central High School stones from above the original front door of
the 1915 building. In
this effort we had amazing luck.
The two date stones from the Newell Street entrance were
saved due to the skills of Steve Bennett of Bob Bennett
Construction and his dedicated crew.
These date stones came down virtually untouched and have
been preserved for future use in an interior wall in the O.C.
Barber Heating House. We
have also saved the "High" and "School"
stones. The
"High" is in great shape but the "School"
stone is a little worse for wear.
However the stone is saved and we can fix it when we mount
it in our wall. The demolition company is still looking for the
"Central" stone, but if our luck holds out they might
find it yet.
The purpose of this letter is to thank
everyone who was instrumental at the demolition site in helping us
preserve these important Barberton artifacts.
Of course a big thank you goes out to Steve Bennett and his
entire crew. They
were more than supportive of our efforts and they even took the
time and expense to hand out souvenir bricks to all those that
asked for them. I
would bet that through the Bennett's generosity that literally
thousands of bricks have been taken off the site and preserved a
few at a time.
Thanks go out to the members of the
Historical Society who took time out of their busy schedules to
help with this back breaking but very important work.
A special thanks goes to Philip McGuire who was there every
day during the demolition and never faltered when asked to do
anything. Philip said
to me today that it was an honor to him to help preserve the
memories of his high school.
At one time we even had to call on Rich Muller of the
Herald, who was good enough to set down his camera for a minute
and help push an extremely heavy stone into the truck.
A special thanks to Alan Canfora who kept an eye on the
artifacts when they came down and was there to help lift them into
the truck.
Finally thanks to everyone who helped load
these big stones at the site whose names we don't even know.
They only identified themselves by their first names and
the year they graduated. These
were the real heroes of the day.
The people who took the time to help preserve the memories
of the old high school, not because they had to, but because they
wanted to.
Come to think of it maybe in their hearts,
these people had no choice but to help try and preserve these
artifacts. After all,
old Barberton High School did positively impact all of it's
graduates in one way or another.
Maybe this was their way of saying thank you to the old
high school, for one last time.
