Monroe County history: Toledo Beach Amusement Park was popular destination

Some time ago, I wrote about the Monroe Piers beach and amusement park that were located near the U.S. Shipping Canal.

As I discussed, the Detroit Monroe & Toledo Short Line Railroad (DM&T) purchased the beach area in 1901 with plans to “make this beach located four miles to the east from Monroe the finest on the lakes,” as reported by Toledo’s Joseph A. Galloway in the publication, “Interurban Trails” (sponsored by the Eastern Ohio Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society) – written in the mid-1940s.  These plans also included creating a trolley park at Monroe Piers.

Another interurban amusement park was the Toledo Beach Amusement Park – owned and developed by the Toledo Rail Light and Power Company on property which was originally the Ottawa Beach Resort – a 400-acre property which today is the site of the Toledo Beach Marina and has a LaSalle Township address.

Local Monroe historian David Eby profiled the Toledo Beach Amusement Park on these pages back in October, 2020 and mentioned that the interurban brought riders from Toledo through Lakeside, Lakewood, Allen’s Cove and the Luna Pier.  He mentioned many riders didn’t even know they traveled across the Ohio state line into Michigan.

The Toledo Rail Light and Power Company’s interurban line – the Toledo, Ottawa Beach, and Northern Railway – was said to run from Summit Street in downtown Toledo through Point Place and along the east side of what is now I-75, into Luna Pier (on present-day Harold Drive) and ended with a turnaround stop at Toledo Beach, as described in a blog profiling Southeast Michigan attractions from the past.

My investigation into the Toledo, Ottawa Beach, and Northern Railway interurban line was prompted by a message I received from The Honorable James Gardner, Mayor of Luna Pier, who shared with me the following piece of history about the community he leads: “People seem to be fascinated when we tell of how the old inter-urban line played a vital role in the early development of Luna Pier. We had a neighbor who passed away in 2004 just shy of 100 years old who told of how her father was a prominent business owner, society man and charter member of the Toledo Museum of Art in what is now the Old West End of Toledo.”

Mayor Gardner continued: “To escape the oppressive heat of the city before air conditioning, families lived in Luna Pier during summer, relying on the trolley car as the men commuted to work while the women and children enjoyed the cool breeze on the lake. In the fall, everyone moved back to the city. I suspect the pier which opened in 1923 also relied on the inter-urban line even though it was declining by that time because of Henry Ford’s growing automobile business.”

He adds: “Today, we have an original bridge span across Whitewood Creek (LaPointe Drain) and the walls of the powerhouse are still standing on the Toledo Beach Marina property. The original rail line running through Luna Pier to the Toledo Beach Amusement Park is now Harold Drive with my front yard being the old road bed from when the car line and the road ran parallel. All of our longtime locals know of the car line but only a few realize it is what originally made our city an attractive summer resort. “

Mayor Gardner’s interesting story is well chronicled in interurban park lore, including how the Toledo Beach Amusement Park’s development led to the demise of the Lake Erie Amusement Park and Casino (1895-1910). Fires and pollution at Lake Erie made Toledo Beach more desirable for visitors.

Tom Adamich is President – Visiting Librarian Service, a firm he has operated since 1993. He also is Project Archivist for the Greening Nursery Company and Family Archives.