Martinsville

Looking up Lockport Avenue
Photo: Courtesy of A. Daniel Bille, North Tonawanda City Historian

MARTINSVILLE IN THE ‘20s — AND EARLIER
by David S. Smith

Martinsville, which is the eastern section of N. Tonawanda, was 135 years old last April.  It was established on April 10, 1842, when a delegation of immigrants from Prussia came to N. Tonawanda and purchased five hundred acres of land on the Tonawanda Creek from William Vandervoort.

The leading men of the delegation were Carl Sach, Erdman Wurl, and Fred Grosskopf. The land was bought for $15 an acre.

As soon as the people were settled, the hamlet was called Martinsville in honor of Martin Luther.  The land comprising Martinsville was divided into three and five acre plots and then sold to individuals.

In 1842, log houses were completed and just as soon as sufficient homes were erected, the residents banded themselves together and organized St. Martin's church.  In 1843 the first church was erected there.

In 1861 a division occurred and the present St. Paul congregation was formed.

The first industry established in Martinsville was a saw mill.  It was started by Joseph Hewitt in 1848, and he operated it for six years, when he sold it to William Dornfeld and Christian Fritz.

In 1860 Dornfeld and Fritz severed partnership and Fritz erected a new mill on the Tonawanda Creek.  When Christian Fritz operated his saw mill at what is now the junction of old and “new” Falls Boulevards the logs would be brought down the lakes to the river and then down the canal to Sawyers Creek and then to the mill.  Christian Fritz didn't live very long.  One day a man stopped at the mill to buy fence posts. Christian took him to the spot where the fence post were unloaded.  All at once the posts began to roll and he was hit in the neck and he died of a broken neck.

William, his son, took over the operation, but business started failing and it was sold.  The timber industry was the life of Martinsville, and as soon as that industry gave out, the Martinsville residents were forced to secure employment elsewhere.

The enlargement of the Wurlitzer Manufacturing Co. plant, which was purchased from the DeKleist Barrel Organ Co. in 1910, gave Martinsville a new lease on life, as did the construction of Niagara Falls Boulevard through Martinsville in 1913.

The electrifying of the Buffalo and Lockport branch of the Erie Railroad and the construction of the state's brick pavement along Erie Avenue in 1915 also added much to the growth of the hamlet.

Martinsville is one of the very few suburbs of N. Tonawanda that had an individual post office.  The office there was established in 1868.  In 1915 the office became a second rate office, having been a third rate office before that time.

The last postmaster of Martinsville was John T. Kopp.  When the post office was consolidated with the N. Tonawanda one, Kopp went out of office.

Emilie (Mele) Dornfeld, granddaughter of Christian Fritz, is still living in the home that Christian Fritz built next to the lumber yard about 120 years ago.  In 1920, part of the old saw mill was added to Mele's house.  She is quite a lady. She is 87, but still keeps up her large, lovely old home, her yard full of flowers, and her vegetable garden.  She loves birds and animals, and all the children in the neighborhood bring injured birds and animals to her to nurse them back to health.  She has tamed many wild birds and made pets of them.

During World War II, Mele was involved in charity work. A few months ago she fell from a ladder and cracked six ribs, but that didn't deter her.  She would still climb ladders if she could find them.  Her brother, Louis, now 90 years old, live next door to her and is quite remarkable himself because he also keeps up his large yard, garden and tends to his fruit trees.

I have to give acknowledgement to Mele and Louis for their supplying me with the history of the beginnings of Martinsville.

There were three homes built on the site of the old lumber mill.  First was Sattelbergs, then Billings, and then Helen Pagels' home.  Helen is the daughter of Louis and her husband was Al Pagels.  He was active in N. Tonawanda politics.

Next to Louis was Edward Kuhn.  He was a retired Army Master Sergeant.  He was proclaimed the official artist for the Army and designed all the insignia and the shoulder patches of the divisions.  Perhaps you will recall an article about him in the NEWS a few years ago when his paintings of the official presidential flags were hung in the White House. They are still there.    After his retirement, he devoted most of his time to his hobby of painting.  He was married to Julia Krull, who was Dorothy Krull Smith's Aunt.  Dottie Krull is my wife.  We have several paintings of Uncle Ed's, of which we are quite proud.

Next to Uncle Ed's home along Old Falls Blvd; my father-in-law, George Krull, built his home.  When Dot was a little girl, she was not allowed to cross the Falls Blvd because it was very busy with traffic then because it was the main road from Buffalo to Niagara Falls.  Consequently, she never did get to know many of the kids on the other side of the street very well.  Her best girl friend, Jean Wardell, lived on Lockport Ave. and Jean's father owned a cruiser, the Lazy Daze.

Dot was invited out for a ride many times and remembers many happy hours on the Lazy Daze.  Which brings me to mention a coincidence.  About 20 years later; Dot married me and we bought a house on Robinson St.  A year or so later Russ Ebling, a chiropractor, bought the house next door and moved in. One day the Eblings invited their neighbors over to their summer home at Morgan's point, Canada.  During the afternoon, Russ said, “Come on and I'll give you a ride on my cruiser.” So we all boarded the boat, and you guessed it - it was the Lazy Daze.  Russ had bought it from Barton Wardell.

Sawyers Creek and the canal were the favorite places for the kids of the neighborhood to go ice skating. And nearby Bull Creek also provided good ice skating in the winter, and in the summer on a quiet evening, the neighbors would get a regular concert from all of the bull frogs that inhabited it.

Dorothy Smith's great-grandfather started a lumber mill, Krull and Dornfeld, but it was destroyed by fire. Her grandfather was a farmer but he was not well, so her grandmother ran the farm while he went around with a Merry-go-round with carnivals.  He died at forty years of age, leaving Dot's grandmother with seven children to raise.  After her children were grown, she sold the farm and built a house on the Old Falls Blvd.

When Dot's father, George Krull, finished high school, he went to Bryant and Stratton Business Institute and graduated as an accountant.  He then went to Philadelphia and got a job.  While there, he was riding a street car and was introduced to the gal who was to become his wife.  They married and he brought her to Martinsville.

Think about that for a minute — a girl who had lived all of her years in a big city like Philadelphia with everything going on, the street lights, and the fashions, and always some place to go.  For instance, she and George would go to listen to the band concerts in the park down there where John Philip Sousa and his band would be performing.

Well, anyway, a girl who was used to all of this got married and came to Martinsville.  What a let down it must have been to come to a place that had been referred to as a “cemetery with lights” because it was so quiet.  Anyway, George came home and got a job at the American Radiator and Boiler Co. as Chief Accountant.

Well, things were going along fairly well for him and he got the idea that an extra income would be nice. There was a coal yard business for sale on the corner of Niagara Falls Blvd. and Ohio St., so he bought it in 1926.

However, when the Great Depression hit in 1929, American Radiator folded and he was out of a job. The coal business was a huge debt around his neck.  However, he added ice to his business and he and his son, Bob, delivered coal in the winter and ice in the summer.

It was a struggle but they eventually built it up and finally bought a larger yard on Payne Ave. and moved up there.

Dot's father was very active in politics and was an Alderman and served as president of the Common Council.  He also served as a Niagara County Supervisor.

Every summer one or more of Dot's mother's relatives from Philly would come up and spend the summer in Martinsville.  Dot's father always had a large garden which was his pride and joy.  One summer, a cousin of Dot's was staying at their home, and decided to help out by weeding the garden.  When Dot's father came home that night, he went out in the garden to look things over, and immediately a large yell came from the backyard.  There he stood where once had been an asparagus bed.  It had taken him three years to get it to where it was yielding, but the cousin in his ignorance thought the asparagus ferns were weeds and pulled them all out.  Needless to say, he never weeded the garden after that episode.

To get back to the Boulevard, next to George Krull was the home of Ezra Goerss, who was the father of Seymour, who married Jean Wardell. Now they live in Tulsa, Okla.

Julius Stolzenburg was next, and he and his daughter, Dorothy, had a stand on the new Falls Blvd. and sold flowers that Mrs. Stolzenburg raised.

Emil Schnell lived next to the Stolzenburgs, and then came the home of Agnes and Amanda Krull. This home was build by their mother after she sold her farm.

Next to Agnes and Amanda Krull was Fred Kopp, then Bill Stuermer, then Albert Stolzenburg, Julius Fritz, Arthur Fehrman, then the lot of the present St. Paul parsonage, then Emil Richert.

Next to him were Pagels, and then Millers, Alfred Jaenecke, the Wendts, the Ziemendorfs, and Millers.

Then came the old St. Paul parsonage and the old church,  Ewalds, and next to them was Jaenecke's saloon.

Across Lockport Ave. were the Sacks and the fire hall; then came Kuhns and Frey.

Then there was Ferdinand Ziehl‘s hardware store, which later moved across the street and was both a grocery and hardware store.  Louis Ziehl, his son, took over.

Next to Ziehl were the Hermanns, Bellings, the St. Martin church and the St. Paul parochial school.

The line up of the neighbors was given to me by Emilie Dornfeld and by my wife, Dottie.  As stated before, Dottie was not allowed to cross the street when she was a child so she didn't get to know the people on the other side very well.  However, I know a couple of them at least.  Living across the street from Mele Dornfeld was the Wilke family and Oscar Muck married their daughter, Dorothy.  Oscar and Dorothy still live in the old homestead.

They, too, have a large back yard and I can remember years ago Oscar got tired of mowing the lawn, so he rigged up a lawnmower with a cord attached to a stake.  Then he would start up the motor and go sit down in the shade and watch the lawnmower cut ever decreasing circles until the mower had reached the stake.

The Fels girls lived down the block and I got to know them pretty well because Ruth married Robert Krull.  I can tell a little story about when Bob was inducted into the Army.  He went with a group down to port Niagara.  He and a friend of his, Glen Lockhart, sort of hung around together.  One day an officer came into the barracks and asked Glen where Krull was.  Glen didn't know.  The lieutenant said Bob must have gone AWOL because he wasn't at roll call that morning and he hadn't seen him since.

Now, anybody who knew Bob would know that for Bob to go AWOL was an impossibility.  This was proved later in the day when Glen spotted Bob and told him that they were looking for him.  “Where were you anyway?” Glen asked.  Bob's reply, “I've been on KP since 4:30 this morning.”

Also, there is a story about Grandpa Frey.  He was my mother's grandfather and at one time he made a trip back to Germany.   Well, his overcoat was rather threadbare so he fixed it up to look pretty good by using black shoe polish.  However he was out on deck one day in a rainstorm. His coat got wet and wherever he walked, he left a trail of black on the deck as the polish dissolved in the rain.

One time my father and mother went to Martinsville to visit Grandpa Frey and they paddled down in a canoe.  When they got there, my father steered it into the bank of the canal, told my mother to get out and pull it up onto the bank.  So she did, but she grasped the canoe by the top and bottom and without realizing it, she twisted the canoe far enough that my father found himself swimming in the water with his good clothes on.  He had to swim around and get the pillows, paddles, their hats and whatever else was in the canoe.

St. Paul and St. Martin churches were very important in the lives of the Martinsville people, and most of their activities revolved around the church.

When I married my wife, I joined St. Paul Lutheran Church when Pastor Frederick Runners was the minister and I found that he was one of the best liked ministers I nave ever encountered.  He led the flock for 35 years.

The young people at St. Paul enjoyed singing, and many get-togethers ended with harmonizing the good old songs.  Bob Krull sang in a male quartet and at many weddings.  My wife sang in the church choir, the Niagara Lutheran Chorus, and the Lutheran Motet singers of Buffalo, who gave concerts in Western New York.

One time I went along to hear them sing in a church in Lockport at Christmas.  I expected to hear the familiar Christmas carols, but all of a sudden I couldn't believe my ears- it was music I never heard before. They sang well, but Bach was too “high class” for me; my taste runs to band music.

In 1946, Dot and several of her friends, Millie, Lois and Phyllis Broecker, went on an international tour to the Annual Walther League Convention which was held in Portland, Ore., via the Rockies and San Francisco.  There were special tour trains for the Walther Leaguers and they stopped along the way at various cities to pick up additional passengers.  This trip was also a sightseeing tour and they stopped at Denver, Colorado Springs, Pikes Peak, the Royal Gorge, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Muir Woods and Glacier Park.  Many new friends were made on that trip.

There were a number of fine musicians in the Martinsville area.  For years a mixed quartet composed of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Jaenecke, Clara Fritz (now Mrs. Clara Gombert) and Abby Stolzenburg sang for church services.  Esther Mueller Strehlow was an excellent pianist and gave lessons in the 1920s and ‘30s when my wife studied with her.  Think of all the sour notes she has listened to.

Her daughter Marie Wienke, inherited her mothers talent.  She is the organist at Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in Wurlitzer Park Village.  Marie's daughter is following suit and accompanies her mother on the piano.

Gertrude Ruggles was an excellent harpist and Marion Ziehl Gau was an accomplished violinist who played for many church affairs.  She was a music teacher for many years in the N. Tonawanda school system.

There was the Dornfeld trio, composed of Helen at the piano, Louise, cello, and Marie, violin.  Louise is now professor of music in Texas.  Then there was Bob Krull who sang in a quartet with Jack Emmett, Harold Nuoffer, and Bob Jaenecke.  And, of course, there was Merritt Goerss, who played the bass horn with a number of bands, including the post 24 American Legion Band, and his brother, Kenny, who played bass with the Gratwick Hose band, and Jimmy Goerss, who played with the Post 264 Band.

You don't talk about Martinsville much without hearing the names of Dornfeld, Goerss, Stolzenburg, Fritz, Wilke, Krull, Maerten, Graf, Peter, Sahr, Wurl, Thiel and Kopp.  For instance, let's talk about the Goersses for a bit. As far as I know, there were seven brothers and two sisters.

There was Ezra, who worked at the Wurlitzer plant.  Then there was Gerhardt Goerss.  He bought a milk business from DeGlopper in 1925.  In 1948 he built his dairy store on Oliver and Robinson St.  It is the last of the local dairies that still delivers to the houses in the Tonawandas.  His two sons, Jimmy and Don, now run the business with their mother.

His brother, Wilmer Goerss, also had a milk business.  They had located right across from each other on Pierce Ave.  Wilmer had four sons and a daughter, Merritt, Kenneth, Dennis, Eugene and Marie.  When I would go down to Merritt's house with him, Dennis and Eugene were just a couple of pesky kids about eight years of age, and now Gene recently ran for alderman in N. Tonawanda.

Surely time marches by, Jerritt and I played in the Walter Koch Concert Band together, and we held our summer stag outings at Edison Stieg's farm on Schultze Rd.  We would have our corn cooked by Merritt's father in the dairy.   We would strip the silk from the corn, then put it into a 10 gallon milk can and fill it up with milk and then put in the live steam hose and cook the corn.  It is utterly delicious when prepared in this manner.

The fourth brother, Richard, was a missionary in India.  Then there was Dan, a minister in Pittsburgh; Art, who is a farmer in N. Tonawanda; Waldimar, who lives in Cleveland, and two sisters, Maybel, who married Ed Wendt, owner of a dairy in LaSalle, and a sister who married Gust Reichert of N. Tonawanda.

Going way back, after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Nepokroeffs moved to Martinsville and started a little gas station and built the Boulevard Motor Works- the second Ford dealer in N. Tonawanda.  Lampe was a salesman for Nepokroeff.  The Nepokroeffs owned the Ford Agency in the building that later became the Pivot Punch and Die Co.

They were bought out by Lampe, who moved the agency to Main and Tremont St.  He, in turn, was bought out by the people who changed the name to Colonial and moved to their present location.  This is quite a coincidence, because as I sit here typing this, it wasn't but an hour or so ago that Dottie and I just returned from Colonial Ford where we ordered a new Ford Grenada.

In the early 1900s, Dr. Helwig came to town.  In the winter time, cars were jacked up, and he would hitch a horse to a cutter (sleigh) and he went as far as Wendelville on the canal ice to tend to the people who were ill.  His first office was built at 512 Falls Blvd.

The German American Mutual Fire Insurance Co. purchased the building from Dr. Helwig and moved it to Lockport Ave. and at that time Dr. Helwig moved to his home and office at the end of Lockport Ave. and Falls Blvd.

Dr. Helwig ran a farm behind his home.  He had a couple of cows, he thrashed, and he raised cabbages and other vegetables.  His sons, Ray, who later became a druggist, Herb, Glen and Don worked on his farm.  Don is now living in Florida.  There are now about five apartments in his original home.

At one time, 402 Falls Blvd. was a grocery store run by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Dornfeld and then Maerten's Tavern, run by Franklin Stolzenburg's grandfather.  Next to it was a cider mill.  Incidentally, Franklin Stolzenburg gave me a lot of history of Martinsville.  He was a mailman in Martinsville for many years.

Alfred Jaenecke had a grocery store on Lockport Ave.  He slaughtered calves and skinned them.  Later Heiman and Toellner started their grocery store in that building.  They had previously worked in Louis Ziehl's grocery store.

Arnold Nuoffer was the principal of St. Paul's parochial school.  He also was the organist and choir director. He was very conscientious and took time from a very busy schedule to coach singers for solo singing in the choir.  He also had a printing business that he ran from his basement.  He also composed a song for a skit that was given by students of the school in the school auditorium.  It went like this:

“Those little rats and long tail cats
No more they will be seen
For they were ground to sausage meat
In Jaenecke's machine.”

Mr. Wiedeman lived with his sister across the street from the church.  He was a bachelor and was the shoe repair man for the community.

Martinsville had one of the first playgrounds before the city provided them.

One of the ministers of St. Paul's Church, Reverend Jacobs, and George Krull were two of the principals who started the Martinsville Community Club.  It was one of the pioneer groups in creating playgrounds.

Rev. Jacobs son was killed playing football on the playground field.  He died of a broken neck.  Mrs. Jacobs and Dottie's mother were watching the game when it happened.  The Martinsville people kept up the playground themselves.  It had a beautifully kept tennis court.

And there was the “Marshall Fields” of Martinsville.  Miss Emma Luttmann had a dry goods store in a little store on Lockport Ave. in the group of buildings next to Jaenecke's saloon.  The building where Harry's Delicatessen is now located was originally a large boat house built by DeKleist, and he had a big yacht at one time.  It faced the canal behind the Rescue Fire Company.

About 1920 that building was moved to its present point on Lockport Ave. and remodeled by Fred Zebulske, a carpenter who built many homes in Martinsville.  Emma Luttmann moved into the remodeled building.

Her store got its nickname of “Marshall Fields” when Rev. Jacobs' daughters went to Buffalo and spent the whole day looking for something they wanted - without luck.  They returned home and happened to spot exactly what they were looking for in Emma Luttmann's store.  They said that thereafter they would do their shopping at the “Marshall Fields of Martinsville” and the name stuck.

Miss Luttman had to make frequent trips to Buffalo to purchase stock for her store and this meant a trolley ride with a couple of transfers.  She tired of this and went to an automobile agency and said, “If you will teach me how to drive. I'll buy a car from you.”  So they did and she did.  This was at the time when very few women drove ..., much less owned a car.

Mrs. Roge was the midwife in Martinsville and helped Dr. Ludwig deliver many children.

The old timers in Martinsville can no doubt remember the square dances that were held at the Rescue Hose Co.

Speaking of dances - the Fels girls, Verna, Ruth and Helen, liked to dance and they were good dancers, too, at least Ruth is, ‘cause I have danced with her so I know whereof I speak. Anyway, they would go down to Olcott Beach and attend the dances every Saturday evening.

They had a little trick that I got a kick out of when I heard about it.  When they would come home, one would drive the car while the other would snuggle up and lay her head on her sisters shoulder so if some men went past them in another car, they would be led to believe it was a fellow and his girl, so it would be less likely that some unwanted fellows would try to stop them.

Verna met her husband at Olcott Beach.  He was Doug Ryan from Lockport.  He was foreman at the Heat Treatment Dept. of Harrison Radiator.  They are both deceased, but their children live on, with Michael Ryan a professor at Niagara County Community College and Bonnie Ryan a secretary at the University of Buffalo.  Helen married a N. Tonawanda football star, Norman Prohaska.  They have one son, Joseph. Norm is now retired.  Ruth married Bob Krull when he came home on furlough from the Army in World War II.  When I married Dot Krull, Ruth became my sister in law.  Bob and Ruth had one boy, Jeffrey.

The public school on the Old Falls Blvd. on the canal just past the old St. Paul parochial school is now an apartment building.  Later the Wurlitzer public school was built on Ellwood Ave.  However, the Wurlitzer School outlived its usefulness and was closed several years ago.  It is now the Wurlitzer Community Center, a recreational center for both young and old.

In order to go to grammar school and high school, it was first necessary to walk to the railroad at Erie Ave. and the Blvd. and take a trolley to school.  At that time the high school was located in the building which later became Felton Grammar School when the new high school was built on Payne Ave.  When my wife went to Felton Grammar School, there were buses, but she and her friends would walk from school to Zimmerman St. to save a nickel.  The city did not provide buses at that time.

Bill Stuermer was the RFD route mailman.  He had a horse and buggy.  He carried his mail out of the Martinsville Post Office into the outskirts.

The boys years ago played real pranks on Halloween.  Some of the older gang one year took apart an old dump wagon and placed it on top of the trolley station on the corner of Erie Ave. and the Blvd.  They put it together on the roof.

Arthur Stolzenburg, better known as “Abby,” was superintendent of the St. Paul Sunday School for 37 years.  He worked at the Wurlitzer plant, as did the majority of men in Martinsville.  Abby had two daughters, Norma and Ruth, and a son David.

The women of St. Paul Church would hold fish dinners periodically.  The attendance would be about 1000 people and they were so well organized that no one had to wait long for his meal.  The women of the church enjoyed the fellowship while preparing the meals and serving them.

Article: Transcribed from a collection of "Try To Remember" articles developed by the Historical Society of the Tonawandas, which appeared in the Tonawanda News from 1976 - 1978, by Melville J. Batt. This collection was provided by Melville's son, Douglas Batt.

Martinsville and Environs
   ~~ A Nickel Tour ~~

Now, to locate Martinsville, mentally position yourself on the campus of UB looking north, down the reddish brick boulevard, past the very large old houses, now converted to sorority and fraternity houses.  The vista is a long, very straight road, occasionally punctuated by traffic lights, fading into the horizon.  Located on a slight rise, this is the generally accepted, Center of the Intellectual Universe (for Western New York).

Traveling north, the first traffic light is Kenmore Avenue.  My grandfather Mountain lived three blocks north of Kenmore Avenue, three blocks west of the boulevard.  That light was visible from the campus.  Eggert Road is the next light, a couple of miles, or so.  Another 100 yards up is Sheridan Drive, both very busy intersections.  This area represents why the word “congestion” was coined!  Eggert Road ran diagonally, NW to SE, to further complicate matters.  Within 3/4ths of a mile, the road necks down to narrower  4 lanes.

The next light is Ellicott Creek Road.  It follows Ellicott Creek from where it branched off from Tonawanda Creek.  About a mile north, a small road veers off to the left, this is the Old Falls Boulevard.  The diagonal cut-off leads to “Bushes Bridge”, an entry into far SW Martinsville.  This bridge looked like it was rusty when it was erected.  It had a wooden floor that was reinforced with wooden planks arranged for the width of car tires.  It was a one-lane bridge that made crossing this an adventure!  Between the noise and shaking, the desire to see it in your rearview mirror is great.

The next intersection is Tonawanda Creek Road.  Turn right to go to “Scout Island" and a roadhouse/bar of some repute; turn left to go to Bushes Bridge.  Straight down the road is a large, silver-colored trestle bridge over the canal.  The bridge seems like a speck in the distance.  The bridge doesn't look big from a distance of about a mile and a half.  Actually the bridge is one of the more massive structures in the immediate area.  Until now, we have been in Erie County. Anything south of the canal, in North Tonawanda, is in Erie County.

By my definition, Martinsville starts at the center of that bridge.  The Boulevard goes into a wide sweeping curve to the left.  The curve takes about a mile.  The small bridge, at the end of the curve, crosses Sawyers Creek.  Immediately to the left is Old Falls Boulevard.  This is another portion of the same Old Falls Boulevard that was encountered back in Erie County.  The Old Falls Boulevard crossed the canal at Bushes Bridge.

There is no street named “Main Street” in Martinsville.  If there were one it would surely be named Old Falls Boulevard.  It was a stately street of large houses, lined with large maple and chestnut trees.  It is a four-lane brick street with curbs and sidewalks.  It necks down to a 2-lane, country road between Lockport Avenue and Feck‘s Food Store.  With the parked cars it is effectively a two-lane quiet street.  It IS “Main Street, USA”.  The Old Falls Boulevard turns left at Bushes Bridge (or changes names) but the same street continues on as Sweeney Street, to downtown North Tonawanda.

Traveling up the Old Falls Boulevard, you encounter Filner Avenue, off to the right, about 3/4 of a mile.  Filner Avenue turned into a small lane or alley, and turns to right, to the playground and ball field, and then onto Pierce Avenue.

One hundred yards further on the left side of the street is St. Martins Lutheran Church.  Martinsville was named after Martin Luther. So it should come as no surprise that Martinsville was a very, very Lutheran little town.  So Lutheran, in fact, that there were only two churches: a Lutheran, and a Lutheran.  This was probably the best landscaped property in Martinsville (very reminiscent of a Wurlitzer property) - (hmmmm).

One church was obviously endowed, the other, meager in comparison.  One was Wurlitzer-like brick, one was wood framed.  One had services in German, the other in English. Go figure.

Up ahead another 200 yards was the “central business district,” the intersection of Lockport Avenue and the Old Falls Boulevard.  Approaching the intersection was Han's Grille, Zimmerman's Filling Station & Garage, and the largest house in Martinsville (Dr. Helwig).

Lockport Avenue sported a grocery/general store (specializing in local-grown produce, eggs, fresh poultry, and local specialties), Louis Ghise Bar, a delicatessen, and a barber shop.  Lockport Avenue starts there and follows the canal, oddly enough, to Lockport.

The heavy-duty commercial section was west of the intersection.  The businesses were: Koch Industries, the Rescue Hose Co. #5 Firehouse, Pivot, Punch & Die, and Feck's Grocery Store.

The small road to the right (north) is Wall Street.  It runs to the cemetery, then turns east to dead-end into Filner Avenue. The only thing separating the back door of Doc Helwig's house and the cemetery was an old outhouse.  Talk about German efficiency!

The next mile and a half went gradually from urban to suburban to rural.  At Bushes Bridge, the Old Falls Boulevard turns left over the bridge, Sweeney Street starts (straight), and Martinsville ends. Interestingly, there is a commercial flower farm, a turn around for the Carpenter Bus Lines, Nick Ghise Restaurant & Bar, and a hog farm.

Whew - back on the Boulevard again!  The next 1.5 miles define Martinsville in respect to Niagara Falls Boulevard.  An eighth of a mile further (to the left) is Belling Place, a very short dead ended street with about four houses total.  Looking like an oversized driveway; if you weren't looking for it, you would surely miss it!  It heads in a general westerly direction.  It was like two cooperating neighbors opted to sacrifice some of their side lots and some of their deep lots to create two additional small lots each.  These lots/houses could have been good “starter” homes for the kids or for “old, crazy Uncle Hermann”.

Drive another 200 yards to Shawnee Road jutting off to the right.  It is easy to spot, it is the corner with the small diner/coffee shop squeezed between the Boulevard and the creek.  The view from the diner is the merging of Bull Creek into Sawyers Creek. After turning, the first place on the right is Thiele's Dairy.  A small lane along the creek provided walking and bicycle access to the north side of Bull Creek, long regarded by the Martinsville pre-teens as the premier fishing spot in the area.  It was generally regarded by parents as a “safe place”. Further up Shawnee Road was “Butch” Siegfried's meat market, Thiele's Coal & Feed, and way out, Shawnee Airport.  It was also designated as state highway 429.

A minor hiccup up the Boulevard, on the left, is Pierce Avenue. This street had houses on only one side; the other side was the playground of the Wurlitzer Elementary school. This street was the archetype of the small sideline residence/businesses.  A few doors up was Frank Dellinger's Barber Shop (operating out of the back porch), a few more doors up was Gardei Printing Company (operating out of the basement), and at the end of the street was the G.V. Goerss Dairy (operating out of a modified and enlarged garage, facing an alley).  Just before the dairy was an alley leading to the playground, ball field, and the dairy.

Erie Avenue was the main artery between Martinsville and North Tonawanda.  It was also the main route to several industrial areas.  It was about another 1/8 miles further up the Boulevard from Pierce Avenue.  It was also, state highway 429.  It ran between the Boulevard and to where Nash Road changed to become Division Street.  There was an old style German beer bar mixed with a strong Irish flavoring.  Located on the SW corner, the name was Morgante's.  It was a place for workingmen to have a beer after work.  It was also a forum for labor-management issues and political dialog.  Even with these topics it was not raucous or offensive in any way. Barely 50 yards up Erie Avenue a street jutted off to the SW, named Strand Avenue. Wurlitzer School was the main feature.

Paralleling Erie Avenue were railroad tracks that provided service to the Erie Avenue industrial complex.  There were no lights or crossing arms at this crossing, only the road markings and the standard railroad crossing signs.  A very stout railroad trestle crossed Sawyers creek at this point, and the tracks ran beside Siegfried‘s Meat Market and Thiele's Coal & Feed on Shawnee Road.

Another 1/8th mile brought you to Kingston Avenue; a truly unremarkable street of nice homes, inhabited by Wurlitzer middle managers.  Maybe the nicest employee parking entrance I have ever seen was next up, another 1/8th of a mile.  It was a small boulevard, with ornamental street lights (typical of most of Wurlitzer property) and a manicured flower garden in the center median.  This was the south parking lot entrance to the Wurlitzer plant.

The main entrance to Wurlitzer was up another 200 yards.  It was breathtaking!

Somebody at Wurlitzer was a strong advocate of first impressions!  The entrance angled off to the west (left), with a generous opening to the Buffalo direction.  A more complete description of the Wurlitzer plant will be found later in this section.

Across the Boulevard, and across the creek were four rows of pine trees that ran from the creek all the way to Shawnee Road.  I believe the land was controlled by Wurlitzer and operated by various local farmers (probably Thieles Dairy).  What was remarkable were the 4 lines of pine trees that acted as wind breaks.  They may have been a Christmas tree farm, or very cleverly planted years earlier.  Each row was maybe 50 yards wide and ran about 1/4 to 1/2 miles long (all the way to Shawnee Road.  The tree rows were separated by cultivated fields.  This pattern was repeated four times.  Those individual fields were about 100 yards wide, give or take.  Regardless of the agricultural value, the spectacular Norman Rockwell-like image of Middle-America was presented to the Wurlitzer Tower.

Looking out the back windows was a shock back to reality.  The plant inner yards, roofs of the less glamorous parts, the railroad tracks, a quarter of a mile further down the Boulevard was visible from the tower. Sandwiched between the tracks and Ohio Street, another 1/8 of a mile, was the massive coal pile, and the very large, often smoldering, Wurlitzer dump.  These days were well before the EPA.  All kinds of things were burned.  The burns were weather dependent, (no nasty fumes over the plant, ever). Demler Road was a small dirt road that is 1/8 mile from Ohio Street running east over Sawyers Creek.  The homemade wooden bridge was an adventure to cross.  The road was barely a farmers' lane.  At that time all that was on the road were a couple of shacks.  The road headed east to the tracks; then turned abruptly north to run into Klemer Road, after the last house.

Ruie Road runs in a generalized east-west direction from the boulevard to Ward road. Along the way it crosses Nash Road, and is the start of North Avenue.  There are a cluster of houses at each of the intersections, but the majority of the land is agricultural use (Demler was the principal farmer).  It starts about 1/8th mile past Demler Road.  A city playground and ball field is located about 3/4 mile west of the boulevard.

The northern boundary of Martinsville is Klemer Road.  It runs east off the Boulevard, about 200 yards north of Ruie Road.  It is the only street/road in Martinsville, east of the creek that is purely residential (excepting the home businesses/sidelines).  Klemer Road is maybe 2 miles long, ending at Shawnee Road.

Several older maps show the existence of another small community named Sawyer, located about 1/2 mile north of Klemer Road.  This little town included portions of the Boulevard, Demler, Ruie, and Klemer roads. There were no commercial establishments, churches, post office, fire or police protection, meeting halls, or anything else that would indicate any kind of geopolitical entity.  There is one exception to the Sawyer story, there was an abandoned one room schoolhouse, way off the road. Abandoned in the early 1940‘s, supposedly as a wartime belt tightening effort.  I do recall, as a preschooler, the ringing of the school bell.

Schultz Road was to rural as Kingston Avenue was to urban; truly unremarkable! It starts about a mile north, off to the right. The land was almost 100% agricultural, and very sparsely populated.   It meandered generally east and north and ended at Shawnee Road.

The next major road is Nash Road.  It is located about 2 miles north of Schultz Road, where it crosses going SW to NE.  The large, wooden, barn-red structure on the SW corner is Wiegand's Hotel, Restaurant-Bar. This was no longer a functional hotel, per se, but rooms were let on a per week basis.  The same was true for the structure at Ward Road (St. Johnsburg).  As a safety measure, the volunteer fire department is adjacent.  If you turn right, it will take you to Lockport Road. If you turn left, you will cross Ruie Road. Continue on and Nash Road becomes Division Street in North Tonawanda.  The Nash-Division transition occurs where Erie Avenue ends. The general area where Nash Road and the Boulevard intersect was called “Nashville”.

St. Johnsburg is the next little community that is encountered, about 3 miles north of Nashville.  It is where Ward Road crosses the Boulevard.  Like Nash Road, turning right takes you to Lockport Road, turn left and it changes into a major street in North Tonawanda: Oliver Street.  Ward Road also had a large wooden hotel on the same SW corner and the volunteer fire department is next to the corner.  In both cases adequate water supplies for fire fighting purposes is available from Sawyers Creek across the Boulevard.

St. Johnsburg is the largest of these two communities, and arguably, Ward Road is the more important of the two roads.  Ward Road is where Ruie Road ends, Payne Avenue crosses, and ultimately bends to the south to become Oliver Street.  Division Street, Payne Avenue, and Oliver Street are all parallel and are major north-south thoroughfares in North Tonawanda.

Witmer Road, north of Ward Road by about a mile and a half, is a “straight as an arrow“, two-lane road, running between the Boulevard and River Road that runs along the Niagara River.  It was a truck route and had no intersections (of consequence), except Payne Avenue ends there and could serve as a feed point for most of central North Tonawanda.

Over the next 3 miles, or so, are several small roads, off to right, that lead to Burgholz and the headwaters of Sawyers Creek. Burgholz is located on the Old Falls Boulevard; the same road as which wound through Martinsville.  This information is presented as general information just to show the similarities: both are located on the same road, both are small German towns, both of the same general vintage, and both have the commonality of the creek.  The Old Falls Boulevard is also known as Niagara Road, in Burgholz.  Head north on Niagara Road and it ends at the Boulevard and Walmore Road.  Also at that corner was Bell Aircraft Corporation, busy supporting the war effort.

That was quite a marathon! That 26 mile stretch was what the Greeks had in mind to show endurance. It was necessary to paint a picture of the general geography and some of the relationships.  The people in Martinsville were a macrocosm of Ohio Street plus a mix of other skills.  All with the same Germanic mindset, discipline, and cultural influences.  It was very much self-policing and rigid.

Martinsville had it's own elementary school (Wurlitzer), volunteer fire organization (Rescue Hose Company), Supermarket (Feck's Fine Foods), butcher shop (Butch Siegfried's), medical facilities (Dr. Helwig), 2 dairies (Thiele's and  Goerss), car care (Zimmerman's), fuel (Thiele's Coal & Feed  Company), several neighborhood beer gardens (N. Ghise, Wiegands, L. Ghise, Han's), and two Lutheran churches.  The town had all of the names, smells, flavors, attitudes, morals, and social structures of Germany.  With miles of woods and farmland surrounding, Martinsville was an island populated by people with names like: Kaufman, Nieubauer, Grawe, Kolbe, Swartz, Wendt, Witkop, etc.

The ethnic mix of Martinsville was 80% German, and 20% “other”.   More specifically, there were few Poles, a few Hungarians, and virtually no southern Europeans, Middle Eastern, Orientals, and definitely, no blacks from any subculture.  A precious few Englishmen and Irish were tolerated as long as they “knew who they were”.  English was often the second language in the 1940's, with German used by most adults in common interchanges.

  It was also an attempt to acquaint the reader with a variety of the influences that affected nearly everyone in this little, almost-closed, society called Martinsville.  Speaking of marathons, you should try writing this!

Martinsville had been annexed by North Tonawanda as soon as they had the legal authority to annex.  The good city fathers of North Tonawanda realized the tax base expansion potential of the Wurlitzer plant, made annexation a no-brainer.  The drain on the city resources was minimal; the society and the relative openness of the area made policing an easy task and the local volunteer fire department kept the services cost at a minimum.  Again, Martinsville was an island, metaphorically.  It was largely a rural agricultural area, dominated by the Rudolph Wurlitzer plant and the smaller support businesses.

Article: Copyright  2004 by Kelco (Ken Mountain is an Honorary Charter Life Member of the Museum, and volunteer researcher/writer.)

Photos: courtesy of North Tonawanda City Website