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Bowling Alley's we didn't know we had
We joked in our initial Letter to the Editor we had five bowling alley’s in town over the years, and maybe one in someone’s basement we didn’t know about. Well, there wasn’t one in a basement, but there were others. As we will see below, there were many other bowling alleys in the city of Tiffin over the years we didn’t know existed. Well, most of us didn’t.
Thanks to Mark Steinmetz and the Seneca County Historical Society – we now know there were more – quite a few more.
Everything submitted below came from Mark and The Seneca County Historical Society. If you do not follow them on Facebook – you should – their articles and images are outstanding. We consider them Mt. Rushmore equivalent historians of Tiffin and Seneca County. We at Tiffin Bowling History can’t thank them enough, and we are honored to have them as one of our all-star cast.
Thank you so much.
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NOTE: All Seneca County Historical Society posts are linked to their original posts on Facebook. Not only on this page, but other bowling alley pages. Not everyone uses Facebook so we copied and pasted the text and images. IF you do use Facebook, we highly recommend hitting the Facebook post for the comments. There are many comments to the articles. Many are very informative and interesting. People love this stuff, which is part of the reason we created this website.
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October 15, 2022 – Seneca County Historical Society Facebook post.
Jack Hagerty – Yesterday, we posted a photo showing the Tiffin baseball team who were the Northern Ohio League champions from 1911. Sadly, the photo didn’t have any names attached to it, so we couldn’t identify who the players and coach were, but the coach looked very familiar and we were able to figure out who he was. Today’s photo comes from a copy of a 1910 “Illustrated Edition of The Daily Advertiser” where they featured Tiffin businesses from that year.
There, we found an article describing an upgrade to the current bowling alley known as “The Stag”, which will be improved and renamed as “The New Stag”. The man in the photo is Jack Hagerty and he, along with Bert Blue, are the proprietors of this business. The article also mentioned that Jack Hagerty had been the “popular manager of the Tiffin Baseball club and has successfully piloted the team for the past nine years”. And based on yesterday’s championship photo, it looks like he was successful once again in 1911.
Link to Seneca County Historical Society Facebook post –> Here
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January 27, 2018 – Seneca County Historical Society Facebook post.
Then and Now – Long before there was Hedges-Boyer Park in Tiffin, there was a place called “Riverside Park”. This Victorian Era park was developed in the early 1890’s by the Yellow Street Car line and it consisted of 25 acres located where the Tiffin Developmental Center is now. The park contained a band stand, bowling alley, snack bar, tennis courts, picnic area, park benches and a large dance pavilion that can be seen in the 1920’s photo on the top. Around the time this photo was taken, Riverview Park was in decline and the park was purchased by the Junior Home. The photo shown below from Google Earth is how the entrance to the Developmental Center looks today.
Link to Seneca County Historical Society Facebook post –> Here
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January 18, 2018 – Seneca County Historical Society Facebook post.
Vintage Photo of the Day – Continuing on the subject of Tiffin’s Riverview Park, today’s photo from 1905 is a summertime view of the park, where we can see visitors strolling among the large trees next to the pavilion. Inside of the pavilion was a bowling alley, a refreshment stand and one-reel movies were shown at night. The developers created an island with bridges and pleasure boats would lazily float around the creek. The streetcar company owned the park and their streetcars brought families, church groups, Sunday School classes, young adults and visitors to Riverview Park from all over the city. By the end of World War 1, more people owned cars and used the streetcars less, so eventually the park was abandoned. Fortunately, when the Junior Home purchased the park, they still used it as a park and playground for the kids and refrained from constructing buildings in that area. There were a few years where the old Riverside Park seemed to return to life again when the Heritage Festival was held there, but the festival eventually outgrew the space and its lack of parking areas. You can still get a feel for the old Riverside park by walking through in the trees, the greenspace and the island that are still there today… but just wait until it gets a little warmer out there! This photo is one of many, many photos that have been included in the book: “Tiffin (Images of America) by Keith & Laura Elchert”, so if you love seeing old photos of Tiffin, this is a book for you. It’s available at local bookstores and online.
Link to Seneca County Historical Society Facebook post –> Here
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March 5, 2022 – Seneca County Historical Society Facebook post.
Vintage Ad of the Day – It looks like there’s not much hope for saving the last public bowling alley in Tiffin. The former Heritage Lanes (Gay Lanes) has been closed for years and now it’s been sold and appears to be destined for the wrecking ball. Bowling in Tiffin has been a pastime recreation for many decades and there were always several around Tiffin at any one time.
Today’s vintage ad comes from September 16th, 1940 Advertiser Tribune and it’s announcing the formal opening of “Recreation Bowling Alleys” located at 160 S. Washington Street in Tiffin. The bowling alley was located in the storefront next to the Gibson Hotel, and the Gibson Restaurant was next to the hotel. We have to wonder if those people renting hotel rooms above the bowling alley could hear the noise from the activity below.
In 1940, there were already other bowling alleys in Tiffin available at the Junior Home Auditorium, at Stag Recreation and at Strand Recreation. We need to remember that today’s bowling alleys are huge and contain 10, 15, 20 alleys or more, when in the 1940’s there might be only 4 or 6 alleys available. Today, the only operating bowling alleys in Tiffin are in the basement of the K of C.
Link to Seneca County Historical Society Facebook post –> Here
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Feburary 19, 2014 – Seneca County Historical Society Facebook post.
Vintage Photo of the Day – Today’s photo is from a 1927 Tiffin newspaper insert showing the “magnificent bowling alleys” from the Stag Recreation Parlor run by Charles Lecrone. This was located at 73-75 S. Washington Street, which was in the old building that was there before the LaSalles Store (now the Seneca County Health Department) in the area where the Hoperoy Shop is today. No automatic pin setters, no automatic score keeping, limited number of ball returns, but hey – the place was sanctioned by the American Bowling Congress!
Link to Seneca County Historical Society Facebook post –> Here
NOTE: All images on this website are collected in several ways. To give proper citation, they come from the following sources; Tiffin Seneca Public Library digital library, various editions of the Advertiser-Tribune, Social Media such as Facebook and Twitter, The Tiffin Historical Society, and random individuals who scanned or photographed what they may have. We will cite pictures as we post them and if someone wants to remain anonymous, we will respect that as well.
This site is
Follow the links on the left to each Bowling Alley. The top link “How we got here” explains how this project and site came about. Under each bowling alley we will document the history of each establishment and add whatever memorabilia is submitted in our History / Records / Scrapbook section, along with what we know we already have.
Anyone wishing to submit a picture, scan, or article please reply to submissions@tiffinbowlinghistory.org. General questions or communication can be done through tiffinbowlinghistory@gmail.com.