Historical Bluffton

  • /

The Icon has posted these three photo previously, but it's summer and let's go back to the Buckeye.

Here's three views of Buckeye quarry, where swimming was once a Bluffton summer experience. Paul Diller snapped these photos.

The pool was on the east side of the Buckeye. It is included a bath house, baby pool, larger pool going to 5 or 6 feet, and the Buckeye quarry for persons who could pass a swim test. The Buckeye had three diving boards.

  • /

You've passed this house on State Route 12 in Pandora many times. Did you know it was once called the "Commercial House?"

Look closely at the photo. We spotted seven people.

Here's a view from a 1907 post card written to Sidney Hauenstein of Bluffton. The message on the right side reads:

"Am going to Cedar Point today. My mother's (cousin?) and I. Come over to Pandora Thursday or Fri. evening if you can. Bessie."

Sounds like an text message 110 years later.

  • /

Just when you think you know everything there is to know about Bluffton, a photograph like this shows up.

Ask your grandparents to explain this.  If they can’t help, keep reading.

It’s a photograph of the "floating" pool that served swimmers in Bluffton as early as the mid-to-late 1920s (based upon the style of swim suit in the photo) to the early 1950s.

It was constructed on the east bank of the Buckeye and then was moved to the quarry where it floated to allow swimming.

  • /

Here's a scene from the 1961 Bluffton centennial. It's Blanche Roberts creating a rug on her loom. Her exhibit was in the elementary multi-purpose room.

  • /

Here's members of the Bluffton High School Varsity B during the 1963-64 school year.

  • /

Let's swim in the Buckeye. Here's a photo of the earliest Bluffton Buckeye swimming area taken some time between 1910 and 1920.

Imagine that you are on the south bank looking north on the Spring Street side of the Buckeye. That's location of the pool.

You'll see a rope. It separates the deep end from the shallow end. The deep end includes a diving board.

The man on the deck is Steiner Geiger, who gave swim lessons. It is possible that his two sisters are on the diving board.

Pages