The Marblehead Mile (Article 11) - Lorrie Haublaub

Feb 18
2 min read

In this series we are taking an historical look at an area that covers approximately a mile of Main Street in downtown Marblehead. Heading east from the Village limits, we will discover the facts and the stories of how Marblehead became what it is today. [This is the 11^th article.]

Heading east on Main Street from the corner of Main and Frances Street, the first building is a private home. The next area on Main Street is a public parking lot. Note there is a small unpaved road that goes from Frances Street past the home and north of the parking called Limestone Drive. There stands a garage and a beautiful two-story stone house that was built by a man named Frederick Roesling (1830-1909). He emigrated from Bavaria, Germany and came to Marblehead in 1870. At first, he built a store on the corner of Main Street and Alexander Pike, which later became Mutach’s Market. He also began quarrying. He started with a small quarry, then bought up other small quarries and consolidated them. He built a dock to move the stone by water. Frederick ran the post office from this house for a time. He also had the first telephone on the peninsula and ran the early telephone exchange. Most importantly, he was the first person to sell out his quarries in 1887 to Kelleys Island Lime and Transport Company (KILT,) the forerunner of the quarry we know today. KILT purchased Roesling’s stone house along with his quarries, and used it for employee housing.

Next to the Roesling House is a yellow brick building that started out as a hospital. Quarrying was a dangerous business. So, KILT contacted Dr. A. B. Jordan and proposed that if he would come to Marblehead, they would build him a hospital. The building was built in 1914 and many local people remember going there for care. In 1941, the hospital closed and the building was used during World War II as a barracks for the extra Coastguardsmen who patrolled the lake. After the war, it was used as offices for KILT, then for the new quarry owners, Chemstone, and then Standard Slag until 1993 when they moved their main office to Quarry Road in Danbury Township. Since then, the hospital has stood empty.

The first picture of the hospital is a view of it from the side facing the lake that you don’t see from Main Street. The second picture shows the start of the hospital being built and on the left is the Roesling house. To the right of the Roesling house in this interesting photo, are some of the homes that were moved or torn down when the James Park was created. The next building to the right was the station of the Interurban Railroad on Frances Street. That station was torn down when the motorman misjudged the turn and crashed into it. The motorman was killed in the accident and after that the interurban train used the steam train’s station on Main Street. The last building to the right is the Marblehead Lifesaving Station which was the start of the Coast Guard Station that is located at the north end of Frances Street today.