Once upon a time in Ada
Things you didn’t know about your own hometown
By Lee Crouse
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December 1904 the foundation for the Rail Road tower to pneumatically operate protective gates at Main and Johnson was started. The tower was torn down in 1960.
The station was a center of activity in the early 1900’s. In April 1904, 1300 freight trains and 555 passenger trains passed through Ada. A second track had been added in 1900. This great rush of railroad activity gave life to the village but also presented danger as the town had developed on both sides of the tracks. In January of 1903 a serious wreck at the Main street crossing and several other accidents and “close-calls” at other crossings were enough for the citizens to petition for safety actions. The railroad stationed O.W. Doling as a watchman at the Main street crossing. Isaac Altenberg of Upper Sandusky and Michael Voelker followed him. In 1904 the railroad began to erect a watchman’s tower beside the Main street crossing and in January of 1905 Micharl Voelker was the first man to sit in the tower. Inside the tower were the gears which would “pneumatically operate gates at Main and Johnson.” Not only did this make the Ada residents feel safer when the trainss went through the center of town, the tower became a landmark. Like our depot the tower was unique. Unlike other towers which were box-like structures, ours was balanced on a graceful support. It soon became part of the downtown landscape as familiar to us as the cannon, the depot, and the water tower. As we moved in and out of the stores on north and south Main we listened for the clanging of the big bell on the side of the tower knowing that the watchman would soon lower the gates. On a February weekend in 1960 it was still there; the next weekend it was gone. An Ada Herald reporter snapped a picture of the stripped, windowless watchtower and asked the question, “is this progress?” The next morning the controls were disconnected and the bell removed. The automatic gate controls took over and the tower was dismantled.
The removal of the watchtower seemed to affect all town residents. They recalled the sound of the crossing bell and told stories of old watchmen – Vance Botkin, Newt Cornish and all the others- who had watched over our safety. The Ada Herald reporter concluded: “Now there’s only a vacant place against the sky.”
