Sandusky historical timeline

Sandusky was a port first and a resort second, and both still show.

Founding

Laid out in 1818 on a plan attributed to Hector Kilbourne, the first master of the local Masonic lodge, who incorporated the square and compasses into the street layout — a genuine oddity, and still visible on a map in the diagonal avenues and the pattern of public squares.

Port and railway

The bay made the town a shipping point for grain, coal, limestone and fish, and the first railway in Ohio ran from here inland from 1835. For a period Sandusky handled a very large share of the freshwater fish caught in the United States, and its ice houses supplied the trade.

The Underground Railroad

As a lake port with regular sailings to Canada, Sandusky was a final crossing point for people escaping slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe set Eliza’s escape here, and several buildings connected with the network survive.

Johnson’s Island

A prison camp in the bay held Confederate officers during the Civil War; the cemetery remains.

Ice and fish

Before refrigeration, ice cut from the frozen bay was stored in insulated houses and shipped south by rail through the summer, and the same railways carried fresh lake fish packed in it. Both trades collapsed with mechanical refrigeration, and the ice houses are gone.

Cedar Point

A bathing beach opened on the peninsula in 1870, with a dance hall, a hotel and then rides. It grew into one of the largest amusement parks in the world, and its coaster-building programme from the 1970s onward made it an international draw.