LORAIN, Ohio — There’s a new effort to collect and preserve the rich and often untold history of the city.
Longtime resident Dennis Jones has been researching his family history for years. William and Julia Brantford and their children were one of the first families to settle in Lorain.
“Growing up in Lorain, many of the families have migrated from all over the world, but a lot of Black families migrated from the south,” he said. “One of my grandfathers [Brantford] had interesting backstories; he was born in Amherstburg, Ontario, so he was Canadian.”
Jones said learning this information triggered his interest in finding out more about his grandfather.
“Back in those days, the Blacks in Amherstburg were sailors on the Great Lakes, and they worked on the ore boats that traveled to different ports of call, delivering iron ore from Minnesota to Duluth and to and from Duluth to Cleveland to Lorain, because Lorain had the steel mill back in the early 1900s, and so it was a port of call for him.”
Jones said his grandfather wanted a better education for his children. “Even though Canada was a little bit more progressive in terms of race relations, of the problems that they had, there was segregated schools, and he did not like the fact that the [Black] school system in Canada was very inferior to what the white children were receiving.”
Lorain had an integrated school system, said Jones. “They got on the boat, got off in Lorain and that’s how we ended up setting our roots here in Lorain,” he said.
“I don’t know whether he actually became a legal citizen because I think he just simply moved here, found a rooming house and started living here…there was no official paperwork to show that he actually became a U.S. citizen.”
These are some of the stories being captured through the Lorain Black History Project.
“We’re not trying to find out any hidden family secrets, we just want to know good material of why Lorain,” said Lorain Historical Society Board Member Tamika Bonilla. “What made your family come here and settle, and for people to sit down and do the interviews and share pictures or just different artifacts from the family.”
One of the biggest pieces of history Bonilla learned in her research was on Erie Beach, which was located on the city’s West Side. “It was an African American beach here in Lorain; it was stop 110, I believe, on the train,” she said. “It was an area owned by African Americans; it was set up as a summer vacation where people could purchase cottages…it was a vacation destination for African Americans.”
Jones said history isn’t just the books we read, “we all have history…we’re living history.”
The goal of the archive is to have a point of reference for future generations.
“[Lorain] was once a thriving community, even for African Americans,” said Bonilla. “The social clubs, the sororities, fraternities, the churches, all of those, you know bases that we had that once it may not be here now, but we had it and you can come in and you can research it.”
