The Sebring Six “Thoroughbred Car” made its debut at the Cleveland Automobile Show in March 1910. The National Association of Historic Cars said there was a sporting flair to the “Thoroughbred Car.” After the manufacture of 25 cars, production was discontinued in 1912.
Shown here is an advertisement for the “Thoroughbred Car.”
The modified Sebring Six, driven by Joe Cooper, leaves Beloit in the dust as it travels at a high rate of speed down what is now East Ohio Avenue in front of Bailey Ford, Inc. The stone block house in the background still stands today. Joe Cooper and the “Sebring” participated in numerous dirt track meets in northeast Ohio. In 1915, Cooper and his car gained national fame in the 500-mile races at Indianapolis Speedway and Chicago Racetrack. The August 1915 issue of “Motor Age” discussed the tragic end of Joe Cooper’s life at the inaugural race at Hawkeye Speedway in Des Moines, Iowa, in stating: “Joe Cooper was killed near the end of his thirty-ninth mile. He was in second place and close on de Palma’s Stutz. Both cars were going better than 90 miles an hour, when at the end of the turn into the home stretch the Sebring’s left rear tire blew out. The treads on this tire had been worn off two laps earlier. When the tire blew, the rear end of the machine swerved and skidded toward the inside of the oval. The car was almost at right angles with the track. Cooper fought desperately to hold it to the course and did succeed in keeping it from the inside of the saucer, only to have it skid a distance of 30 feet directly into the outer rail. This crumpled like tissue paper as car and riders went through it.” Apparently, Cooper wanted to avoid hitting people in the inner circle of the racetrack and steered into the wall instead.
Lewis A. Bandy, prominent pharmacist for many years and mayor of Sebring from 1940 to 1942, lies in state at the Church of Christ. Bandy was serving his second term when he was stricken with a heart ailment and died December 1942. The Alliance and Sebring newspapers gave the following tribute to him, “As Mayor, “Lew” Bandy was making just the kind of official people expected him to be. He had his own ideas of what was right and wrong, what was possible and practical and what was not, and while he would always listen to reason, he never swerved by any motive of expediency or favoritism. And because he was true to his own ideals, yet not flaunting his virtues in the faces of others, he was loved and respected by his fellow citizens in all walks of life.” On the day of his death, a new flag was raised at the village hall at half-staff. The flag was draped over the casket during the funeral procession and was placed in the coffin, as shown in this picture.
Before highways and bypasses, the roadside service station, with its small restaurant, was commonplace. During the 1930s and 1940s, Ruth and Red Tuel rented this building on the Alliance-Sebring Road from John Malmsberry. Ruth and Red’s offered the first curbside service in the area. According to Ruth Tuel, “hamburgers with all the toppings was the big hit. When the bridge was out on Lake Park Boulevard our business flourished.” They were in operation for approximately 17 years. In the 1920s, this place was called the “Tea Pot Dome,” named for the scandal during President Harding’s Administration.
Herbert A. Tetlow’s store was built around 1926. According to Vera Tetlow Chamberlain, the store sold tickets for the streetcar, pop, ice cream, tobacco, while Sadie Tetlow sold ham sandwiches after basketball games. Pictured with Mr. Tetlow are, from left to right, as follows: Dean Mercer, Bill Mercer, Charles Mercer, and Lavern.
Margaret and Elsie Tetlow and the Cameron boy stand in front the Stark Electric streetcar station in Beloit. The small-frame structure was located just south of the railroad tracks.
There are several photographers we can thank for preserving the events of our community’s past. While the Dimit Brothers and Schoch Studio are two very important names, one of Sebring’s most recognized is James W. DeWolf. Here we see him with his camera, chemicals, and negatives. How did he take this picture? Well, his wife snapped this shot. She signed it Mrs. DeWolf -’ 15 Sebring - O
As mentioned in a previous chapter, religion played an important part in the development of Sebring, and between 1910 and 1930, evangelism was at its peak. At that time, Ammie Semple McPherson and Billy Sunday were household names. The Dan Shannon Tabernacle was located on the northeast corner of West Ohio Avenue and North Fifteenth Street. Hundreds of people from all over the area frequently gathered here for salvation.
Devotion is the word connected to the name Rose Mary Woods. Born in Sebring on December 26, 1917, Miss Woods graduated from Sebring McKinley High School in 1935. Her first job was as a secretary at the Royal China Company. In 1943, she went to Washington, D.C., to take a position with the Office of Censorship. She worked for the International Trading Administration from 1945 to 1947, when she joined the Christian A. Herter’s Committee on Foreign Aid, which was studying the Marshall Plan. Richard Nixon was a young Congressman on Herter’s committee, and Miss Woods was impressed with Nixon’s honesty and frugality as he was impressed with her competence and efficiency. In 1951, after working as a secretary with the Foreign Service Educational Foundation, she began her 23-year career as Richard Nixon’s secretary. The late President Nixon wrote in his book Six Crisis: “that rare and unique characteristic that marks the difference between a good secretary and a great one—she is always at her best when the pressures are greatest.” A 1973 New York Times article “Women in the News” profiled Miss Woods’s career and dedication to Richard Nixon; however, she was more than a great secretary. In a sense, Rose Woods was Richard Nixon’s link to the past, a person who has been with him through good times and bad. In the White House, where Mr. Nixon’s principal advisors, Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig Jr., were relatively recent acquaintances, she was the exception. She was a staff member who lived privately with the Nixon family and was someone who knew the Nixon daughters since they were children. She officially retired after Nixon left the White House, but she flew to California to help Nixon with his memoirs. She was named one of the 75 “Most Important Women in America” by Ladies Home Journal in 1971, while other distinguished women included Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Betty Friedan, and Barbra Streisand. The Los Angeles Times named her one of the ten “Women of the Year” in 1961.
The family of the late Charles Albright posed for William Louis Koehne of Chicago in the 1920s. Mrs. Emma Albright was the daughter of George E. and Elizabeth Sebring Sr. and was a founder of Sebring, Ohio. Members of the Albright family are represented, from left to right, as follows: (seated) Mildred Albright Lindsey and Emma Sebring Albright Barcley; (standing) Donald Albright, Charles Albright Jr., and Lucille Albright McClure.
This photograph depicts the Oliver H. Sebring mausoleum shortly after its construction at Grandview Cemetery. The immediate family of Oliver Sebring are interred in this tomb, including his wife, Matilda Hume Sebring, son-in-law and daughter (Will and Annie Murphy).
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