Lost Akron movie found: Preservationists discover 1915 film in Los Angeles
Our ancestors are movie stars.
A California film preservation company has discovered “The Portage Trail,” a 1915 motion picture filmed in Akron with prominent citizens in leading roles. The 16-minute photoplay has long been regarded as a lost work.
It’s an extraordinary find for local historians. The black-and-white footage offers rare glimpses of local landmarks, downtown streets, industrial plants, millionaire estates and other points of interest. The cast includes business leaders, local dignitaries, society members, rubber workers, child entertainers and hundreds of movie extras.
Filmed under the auspices of the Akron Chamber of Commerce, the movie presents a fictional tale of romance and drama while showcasing civic pride, local history and “thrilling Akron scenes.”
Periscope Film LLC, a Los Angeles company that provides stock footage for broadcasters, documentary makers and game designers, unexpectedly posted the Akron movie Jan. 6 on YouTube after rescuing it in 2018.
Rare movies saved from landfill
“For roughly 20 years, our company has been acquiring, preserving, scanning and sharing with the world obscure, rare, and in many cases, unique and otherwise lost films,” Periscope co-founder Nick Spark told the Beacon Journal. “Sometimes this happens singly, other times it happens in huge batches.
“Last year, for instance, we rescued two truckloads of 16 mm and 8 mm home movies that had been collected by a single individual in Orange County, California. That person was going to a care home, and if we had not intervened, the films would have ended up in a landfill.”
Spark doesn’t know where he acquired the Akron movie, although it most likely came from a collector or estate, he said. The California company, which releases two films each day online, published this one at random.
Periscope Film’s copy is a 16 mm print, but the original would have been 35 mm on highly combustible nitrate film, Spark said. It’s fortunate, if not miraculous, that the footage survived.
“As far as we know, we have the only existing print, but would love to be proven wrong,” he noted.
“The Portage Trail” was the talk of the town more than a century ago. Director Oliver William Lamb, founder of the Paragon Feature Film Co. in Omaha, Nebraska, approached the Akron chamber about producing “a motion picture with a plot.” Since its incorporation a year earlier, the company had made dozens of films in other cities.
Akron society stars in 1915 movie
The romantic leads of the Akron production are Miriam Good in the role of banker’s daughter Dorothy Donnell and E.O. “Ned” Handy as minister’s son William Randall.
Good, a Juilliard student, would later belong to Akron Woman’s City Club, Weathervane Playhouse and Junior League of Akron. Her father, J. Edward Good, is best known today as the namesake of the city-owned golf course for which he donated 180 acres.
Handy, a Harvard graduate from Cleveland, was a real estate executive who in a few short years would lead the development of Fairlawn Heights. Over a 30-year span, he built hundreds of homes in Akron, Barberton and Cuyahoga Falls, and in his free time, he was one of the region’s finest golfers.
The cast also features Akron banker George D. Bates as minister John Randall, Myrtle Hibbard as the minister’s wife, Hulda Jacobs as William’s sister Lucile Randall, Newton S. Noble Jr. as William’s brother Bob Randall, hardware executive Crannell Morgan as banker Joseph Donnell, Rhea Adam as the banker’s wife, Agnes Kile as Dorothy’s sister Virginia Donnell, Jack Hower and Ray Hemphill as two thugs, the Rev. Franklin Cole Sherman as a clergyman, Dorothy Galt as maid of honor and Jack Knight as best man.
That’s right: John S. Knight, then 20, the future Pulitzer-winning editor of the Beacon Journal, has a bit part in a wedding scene.
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To summarize the plot: Michael moves to Akron for a job at a rubber factory, saves Dorothy from purse snatchers, falls for the winsome lass, accompanies her on a sightseeing tour, meets her father’s disapproval and — spoiler alert — returns to good graces after rescuing the girl from a fire. Wedding bells ring at the end.
Mansions in ‘The Portage Trail’
“The Portage Trail” was filmed in August and September 1915. Among the famous Akron surnames in the cast are Seiberling, Robinson, Saalfield, Albrecht, Manton, Galt, Doyle, Dodge, Commins, Palmer, Jacobs, Wilcox and Christy.
Three estates on West Market Street are the setting for key scenes: Elm Court, the home of B.F. Goodrich Vice President Arthur H. Marks and his wife, Florence; Braeside, the home of Columbia Chemical Co. general manager Hugh A. Galt and his wife, Annie; and Rockynol, the home of Goodyear Treasurer Frank H. Adams and his wife, Frances.
Today, Elm Court is the convent home for Our Lady of the Elms and Braeside is the manor house for Akron First Assembly of God. Rockynol, which was torn down in the 1960s, is the site of Ohio Living Rockynol.
Other locations captured on film include Quaker Oats, the Flatiron Building, the Portage Hotel, the Hamilton Building, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Akron, First United Methodist Church of Cuyahoga Falls, Summit Lake and Lakeside Park, the forerunner to Summit Beach.
The lead characters visit Perkins Woods and stop at a Daughters of the American Revolution tablet marking the Portage Path, the Indian trail between the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers. The movie flashes back to dozens of American Indians — Akron residents in costumes — carrying canoes and walking the path.
Another standout scene is a parade of 200 vehicles traveling from Akron to Lake Rockwell near Kent to celebrate the opening of a $5 million water plant. That complex, the source of Akron’s drinking water, is still in operation today.
There’s a children’s pageant with drumming, dancing and archery. There’s a round of golf at Portage Country Club. There’s a canoe excursion at Summit Lake. There’s a foiled robbery on Furnace Street.
Fire rescue is standout scene
The show-stopping sequence is a simulated fire during a party at the Marks estate. Dark clouds rise from smoke pots as panicked guests flee the home. Akron firefighters race to the scene with a hose and use nets to catch women leaping from a second-floor window. William rushes inside and carries Dorothy to safety.
While processing the film in New York, director O.W. Lamb wired the Akron chamber that “the pictures were unusually good.”
The silent movie premiered Sept. 14, 1915, at the Grand Opera House, a North Main Street theater that stood near where the Akron Public Schools administrative offices are today.
Tickets cost 10 cents. Actors attended a private screening at 10 a.m. The audience oohed and aahed as familiar faces filled the screen. Violinist Charles E. Guth provided music.
A Beacon Journal reporter jotted notes in the dark auditorium, paying close attention to the budding romance between the lead characters.
“They stroll through the gardens at Dorothy’s home,” the unnamed reviewer wrote. “ ‘Friendship Ripens Into Love in the Moonlight,’ announces the screen. Dorothy’s hand rests on the gazing globe. So does Bill’s. They clasp. Words are spoken in the moonlight. Love lights gleam. Hurray, she has accepted him.
“But, oh, the stern and angry father. William is rejected …
“But love will find a way. For the house catches fire. Right at a house party, too. Excitement and racing back and forth. Smoke, excitement, show of ankles, brave firemen, daring rescues, the leap for life.”
Wedding march at St. Paul’s
The movie nears its conclusion with a triumphant wedding march from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. The Rev. Franklin Cole Sherman presides over the procession, which includes choir boys, the bridal couple, in-laws, best man, maid of honor, bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girls and guests.
“The Portage Trail” ran for a week at the Grand before hitting the road for a 180-city tour, including 60 Ohio towns. It was screened in such far-away places as Galveston, Spokane, Baltimore, Kansas City and Minneapolis.
That was probably the last time the general public saw it. Now Akron’s movie can be viewed around the world.
Periscope Film doesn’t sell copies of the film but offers it for free at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJkDBXli7AM. The company funds its activities by licensing clips of films as stock footage for content creators.
“Who knows, perhaps in the future there will be a museum or other entity in your area that would want to do a screening of the film for the public,” Spark said. “That's something we would consider as we often make films from our collections available for museum events, screenings and exhibitions.”
For more information, visit https://periscopefilm.com/
Make some popcorn. Grab a beverage. Akron’s film is no longer lost.
“I’m glad we were able to find it and share it with you and everybody else,” Spark said.
Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: 1915 Akron movie ‘The Portage Trail’ found in Los Angeles
