Akron flashback: What are the seven hills of Akron?
Here’s an interesting bit of local trivia.
“Did you ever consider an article on Akron’s seven hills?” Mike Flaherty asked. “My mother told me that, like Rome, Akron was built on seven hills. OK, North Hill, West Hill, but what are the other five?”
It was a popular saying when Rose Wagner Flaherty was growing up in South Akron in the 1930s.
Seven hills, huh? We quickly added Sherbondy Hill on Vernon Odom Boulevard to the list, but then drew a blank. Four more hills to go.
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We looked around and found the answer in a column that Beacon Journal legend Ken Nichols wrote July 12, 1976.
“Those who wore beards before the present time liked to say that Akron, like Rome, ‘is built on seven hills.’ But they didn’t say which seven, an awkward oversight,” Nichols wrote.
“North Hill and West Hill are known to everyone but there are others that need an introduction: Brewery Hill (North Forge Street); Sherbondy Hill (the steepest part of Wooster Avenue); Summit Hill (overlooking Summit Lake on the west) and one that, before it was carried away, was variously called King Hill, Oak Hill or the Ash Street Hill. The Innerbelt marks the spot.
“Forest Hill at the top of Glenwood Avenue is still there and so is the school named for it.”
Can we add Cadillac Hill to the list? That would make it eight.
Back to the pack
We received plenty of comments about a Canadian film collector’s discovery of a 1954 home movie that shows Scout-O-Rama at the Akron Rubber Bowl.
Dave Lessem took a look and couldn’t believe his eyes. Nearly five minutes into the film, he saw his younger self in vibrant Kodachrome color. He and his twin brother, Don, are pictured in a scene where Scouts cross a footbridge.
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He expressed amazement that this film turned up so many years later.
“We both went on to become Eagle Scouts,” Lessem said. “Great memories.”
Camp Manatoc historian David Weyrick owns a 1954 program of Scout-O-Rama. That was before his era in Boy Scouts. The Ellet native belonged to Troop 318 in the late 1960s.
Having grown up near the Rubber Bowl, though, it was fun to revisit the landscape.
“I remember the pond and the bridge in the scenes,” he said.
Both were removed in the 1980s for a runway expansion at Akron Municipal Airport.
Sharp-eyed Tim Rasinski noticed something flit past in the final seconds of the movie. In the upper left corner, an Akron-built airplane prepares to land at the airport.
“It has the distinctive wings of a Corsair,” he noted.
Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxJX-V6MGPg (or YouTube search "1954 Boy Scouts Scout-O-Rama at the Akron Rubber Bowl") to see the movie.
Remembering Rotor Man
Last week, I wrote a column about stray memories of random people, including a guy my friends and I dubbed “Rotor Man,” who used to stay on the Rotor thrill ride all day at Geauga Lake in the early 1990s.
J.R. Fauser of Kent and his buddies called him Rotor Man, too. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they had season passes to Geauga Lake and used to watch Rotor Man from the railing around the recessed rotor drum in the ground.
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“I recall the door to the drum opened inward and he would duck behind the door as passengers loaded and unloaded,” Fauser said. “The operator just looked the other way, which in retrospect was pretty cool.”
One time, Rotor Man took out a laminated season pass for the boys to see.
“He held it up to show us, and I kid you not, every single day was punched out of that card,” Fauser said. “You could see right through it like a window. He obviously went to the park every day.”
Movie usher identified
I also shared a childhood memory of a movie usher at Rolling Acres Mall in Akron.
Matt Rice, who worked as assistant manager at Rolling Acres Cinema in the late 1970s, identified the gentleman as Harold Rudy.
“Mr. Rudy was an extremely reliable, conscientious, hardworking employee,” Rice recalled. “He didn’t drive so he took a taxi to and from work.”
A World War II veteran, Rudy had worked in downtown Akron theaters and was known as “the dean of theater ushers.” He died in 1995 at age 81.
We hope to write more about him in the future.
Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Akron flashback: What are the seven hills of Akron?
