Paul F. Laning was a teacher at Sandusky High School for thirty years. He had previously worked for the Nickle Plate Railroad and taught at Kirtland, Ohio for five years. After retiring from Sandusky High School in 1968, he served as bailiff in the Erie County Court of Common Pleas for six years. Though Mr. Laning had been the head of Sandusky High’s English department, he was extremely interested in history, particularly the history of railroads. His Master’s Thesis at Ohio State University was: The History of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway in Ohio.
Mr. Laning was a popular guest speaker for area clubs and organizations. In 1953 he unearthed an original account of the May 1838 trip of David Campbell, founder of the Sandusky Clarion newspaper, on the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad, to and from Bellevue, Ohio. Campbell was amazed that the return mile trip of fifteen miles from Bellevue to Sandusky took only forty five minutes by rail (about 20 miles per hour). This story of the first commercial trip of the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad appeared in the June 19, 1953 issue of the Sandusky Register Star News.
Featured in the Twin Anniversary Edition of the Sandusky Register and Star News, November 24, 1947, is an article about the History of Steam Railroads in Erie County, written by Mr. Laning.
He wrote that Eleutheros Cooke and other Sandusky leaders had been quite upset over Cleveland becoming the northern terminal of the Ohio and Erie Canal instead of Sandusky, but these civic leaders felt that Sandusky being chosen as a terminus for the the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad compensated for the loss of the canal. General William Henry Harrison broke ground for the railroad at the corner of Water and Meigs Streets on September 17, 1835.
The sketch map below, drawn by Mr. Laning, shows Sandusky’s Railroads and competing routes in 1854.
A rough draft of a speech Mr. Laning gave, entitled Sandusky and Cleveland: Railroad Rivals in the 1850s, is on file in the Transportation Collections of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center. Mr. Laning had a deep understanding of the history of Ohio Railroads, and he enjoyed sharing his knowledge with others.
Paul F. Laning died at the age on 90 on August 30, 1991. He had been a charter member and president of the Erie County Historical Society. He was also a member of the Firelands Historical Society, Ohio Historical Society, Mad River and Nickle Plate Railway Society, Erie County and Ohio Retired Teachers Associations and the Senior Men’s Fellowship Club of the YMCA.
