So, you think you know your city?  Maybe you do.  And maybe you don’t know quite as much as you had thought.   

Most likely, you know why Electric Boulevard was named as such.  It was, of course, the route followed by the Lake Shore Electric Railway.  And the numbers that appear at various points along Lake Road identified the stops for riders.  Where were they going? Some were off to Lorain to shop (a great variety of inventory could be found in that city), many Senior High School students were commuting to Lorain High School (believed to offer a better education that Avon Lake’s school), and summer vacationers were headed for Avon Beach Park – an amusement center and favorite picnic location.  

While the electric railway was undeniably a boon to city economic development, the railway was also perceived as a threat to life, limb, and property by many Avon Lake citizens. In 1897, the Lake Shore Electric Railway (LSER) Beach Park car barn was built, and in 1898, Beach Park Resort was opened to the public by Lorain & Cleveland Railway. 

Stops were numbered, with the easternmost stops in Avon Lake beginning with the 40’s.  Stop numbers increased as the railway traveled west, with the Miller Road stop being number 69. 

Loved by many, the electric railway was also despised by many.  The railway claimed easements across farmland, much to the chagrin of local farmers, and was responsible for injuries and casualties among unsuspecting locals and visitors. 

Selden Payne, a veteran who had returned to his home in Avon Lake following the Civil War, was killed by a LSER car in 1898.  He had lost much of his hearing during the war, and did not hear an oncoming rail car when he unwittingly stepped into its path. A local newspaper reported that he was LSER’s first casualty.  Selden’s wife, Laura, was struck two years later when she stepped off a rail car when en route to visit her daughter.  She was injured, but survived. 

 In 1919, a LSER car inflicted several broken bones and a permanent spinal injury on Mathias Mawby, Sr., a local fruit farmer who had immigrated from England.  Mawby did not fully recover from his injuries, and remained disabled for years after the incident.  In 1928, another townsperson, John Aslaksen, was instantly killed when the automobile he was driving was struck by a LSER car in front of his home on Cove, just west of the county line. 

In 1927, a collision between an auto and the LSER claimed the lives of two Lakewood men, left nine others injured, and derailed the interurban car at the west end of Avon Lake.  The auto had stalled when crossing the tracks, and the vehicle was unable to escape impact with the oncoming rail car.  Ten years later, on December 3, 1937, LSER car number 171 plowed into a husband and wife operating a laundry truck at a grade crossing, and instantly claimed the life of the couple.  Theirs was one of the last local casualties, as the railways were facing their own imminent demise.  With affordable automobiles, paved roads, and economical bus fares, the LSER was dealt its death knell.   

On May 15, 1938, LSER car number 167 left Public Square in Cleveland for its final run.  It arrived in Lorain just after 2 a.m., then turned around, and made its way to its final destination- the car barn in Avon Lake.  The LSER’s glory days had ended.  The Greyhound bus lines appropriated the LSER route, but moved it north along Lake Road.  It maintained the stop locations and numbers initially put into place by LSER.  Now, those black numbers painted on yellow backgrounds are the last vestiges of the LSER’s heyday.