FOWLER AVENUE

The next time you pull up to the 4-way stop at 5th Street and Fowler Avenue, traveling north towards 16th Street, imagine this:

1. Look to your right and you'll see the Salem branch of The First National Bank. Years back, this entire block from 4th & Half Street to 5th Street comprised the Davis & Arndt Florist shop and greenhouses. The greenhouses stretched east towards Central Avenue and covered about three-fourths of the block.

2. Next look at the Albertson Eye Clinic building across the street. In that lot was the Berwick Pool. It was already closed and beyond repair when I was haunting the area as a kid. I'm guessing the pool was about 40 feet by 20 feet in size. The deepest part (towards Front Street) was probably about 8 to 10 feet deep. On the North side there was a large concrete section with openings leading down and into a couple of dressing rooms. We had to use a small ladder but once you got down there it was possible to walk completely around the sub-structure of the pool. It would seem like walking in a spooky long tunnel. During the 50's & 60's and before it was covered over, it was filled with an assortment of junk. There was also a large structure on the upper side of the pool used for storage and it belonged to the Multiplex. That building burned in the 70's.

3. Look to your left and to the west. The brick home on the corner belonged to Oliver E. Smith. He sold insurance and it's very easy to visualize his office on the 5th Street side of the home. His wife Mary was a 5th grade homeroom teacher at the Market Street School. Sometimes she would fill in as a substitute music teacher.

4. Next is Fifth & Half Street. Or as it was known to me, "The Alley". To your left and on the right side of "The Alley" there were single car garages running from Fowler Avenue towards Walnut Street. I believe there were about eight, built together in one long building. Today, If you turn left towards Walnut you can see where the structure ended at the end of the lot. At one time there was a small home on the corner. It was more like a little shack than a house and had brown asphalt shingles like many of the homes did back then. Though before my time, they say a lady once lived there that made different types of salves. Because of that, it was known as "The Salve Factory". Today, there’s a white garage in its place. Towards Sixth Street a doctor's office and parking lot fill the once empty lot.

5. The Multiplex lot on the other side of Fowler Ave. looks about the same except for the fence. In the 50's-60's there was no fence and scuffed out in the grass and down to the dirt you could see home plate, base paths and bases. This was one of many places to have a good baseball game after school or in the summer. Although every now and then a ball would find a window in the plant, we were never told to leave and not play there. And if you’re wondering about my swing of the bat, no I never could get a ball to reach a window but I did hit a foul ball over my head and into Fowler Avenue a few times!

6. Next at 7th Street and to your right about 500 yards east was a large empty building that at one time the Multiplex used for refrigeration. The first time we tried to get in and check it out, it wasn't too hard to get open and imagine our surprise when we found the walls were made of cork! The street turned into only a dirt path and farther on was "The Sandpit", but that could be a full chapter and I'll save that for another time.

7. Another two blocks at Eighth Street is Laubach’s Gas Station and Sporting Goods store. With the exception of an addition built on the North side, I believe everything else has been there and looks the same as when Columbus stopped for a pack of smokes, quart of milk, jerky strips and a few arrows.

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