Administrative/Biographical History
In 1917 the first director of the Physical Education Department for Women at Oberlin College, Delphine Hanna, scouted Lake Erie beachfront land to develop an open-air physical training and swimming program for Oberlin College women. Her plan was to defray the costs of the program through the sale of lots to College faculty members for summer cottages. After locating a farm with suitable lakefront access, she persuaded the College to consider its purchase.
On March 8, 1917 the College purchased the 213-acre farm with frontage of about 2800 feet on Lake Erie, located three miles east of Huron. The farm was purchased to provide recreational and instructional facilities primarily for the Physical Education Department for Women, and to provide cottage building sites for officers and professors interested in having a summer home near Oberlin, as Hanna had envisioned. The funds used to purchase the farm land was received from Jacob Dolson Cox by way of a reimbursement to the College of the proceeds of the insurance of the chapel that burned in 1905, for the monies used to partially pay for the erection of the Cox Administration Building. Cox wanted the entire cost of the Administration Building to be borne by him personally. The property and buildings were called the Oberlin Beach Colony.
The property was subdivided into 32 building lots and two out lots. Twenty of the lots were purchased and on all but three, cottages were erected, most of which were built shortly after 1917. In 1924 the College purchased a large cottage erected by Professor Samuel R. Williams for use by the Physical Education Department for Women. The cost of the cottage, dubbed the Hanna cottage, was charged to the balance of a gift made by J.D. Cox for certain unspecified uses of the College.
When the College deeded lots to the original lot owners, the deeds prohibited the owners from selling the properties to any party other than the Board of Trustees of the College. By 1951 the list of lot owners did not include a single active Oberlin professor or officer, and only four owners were retired professors or officers. For several years leading up to 1951 the Physical Education Department for Women was no longer using the so-called Hanna cottage for summer camps, and the College had built an indoor swimming pool for women in 1931. Large increases in maintenance costs forced the College to consider disposing of all real estate holdings at Oberlin Beach, and to provide outdoor facilities for the Women’s Physical Education Department in the Chance Creek tract.
In 1952 the Board of Trustees decided to sell Hanna Cottage and withdraw from participation in the Oberlin Beach Colony. In a letter to the president of the Colony, the College treasurer asked the lot owners to form a legal entity, to which the College would deed all its right, title and interest with respect to the restrictions in the deeds held by the lot owners, and stated that it wished to retain only five lots for sale. Thus the Oberlin Beach Association was formed and the College withdrew from participation.
Sources Consulted
Treasurer Davis to President Stevens, November 1, 1951, from the William E. Stevenson Presidential Papers, RG 2/8, SG III, Series 4., Box 17, Treasurer’s file, 1948-51.
Mildred Locke Chapin, “History in the Making” (manuscript), Oberlin Beach Association Records, RG 31/31.
Author: Anne Cuyler Salsich Administrative InformationFrank Cooke Papers, RG 30/287 (photographs of Oberlin Beach), 1916-22, ca. 1950s.
Records of the Department of Physical Education for Women, 1886-1963, RG 9/15.
