By Emily Rinaman, Technical Services Manager
When you see a white and red checkered tablecloth, do you immediately envision a picnic basket full of watermelon, sweet corn, and other delicious summer treats? Do you conger up the smells of hot dogs or hamburgers cooking over a grill?
The look and feel of picnics may have drastically changed over the years and decades but it’s still a very popular pastime among families and friends. In this month’s Seneca Strolls blog post, we look at the history of picnicking and what special picnics have been held in the county throughout its 200-year-plus history.
Picnics have been enjoyed by many, but historically, it was only the rich who could afford the leisure of them. The help staff would arduously cook the food and prepare the baskets but remained behind while their employers galivanted. The word picnic developed in the very early 1800s when a group of wealthy French friends formed the “Pic Nic Society”. “Each strove to outdo the others in luxury in expense.”
Over time, however, picnics continued to evolve and as aristocratic society crumbled, it became a popular past time for the rest of the social classes as well.
A photo from the 1956 Junior Home picnic shows these annual reunions were family affairs. This photo (and many others from the Junior Home picnic reunions, can be seen on the Seneca County Digital Library.
About a mile southwest of Melmore, there was once an area in Shooter Woods known as the Pioneer Picnic Grounds, “an important place of the people of Crawford, Seneca and Wyandot Counties.” The first recorded picnic at this area was a group of “young folks of the Honey Creek neighborhood” on September 7, 1871. It was such a success that another was held the following September. Three years later, a crowd of 250 locals gathered. It kept on growing until in 1882 they formed the Pioneer Association to organize the annual picnics. It’s reputed that by the late 1880s, upwards of 5000 people were attending from Seneca and the surrounding counties.
By this point, the railways had connected previously scattered towns. If a picnic was being held or someone who lived in town wanted to travel to a more peaceful nature setting to enjoy their picnic, the railways made it possible.
Some local street car companies actually purchased land on the outskirts of cities and developed them into parks (and prime picnic areas). In Tiffin, the Yellow Street Car Line owned 25 acres along Ohio Avenue on the north edge of town and turned it into River View Park in the 1890s. Locals had been traveling there by horse and carriage, but the street car line profited by charging five cents per ticket (and a faster trip). At its peak of glory, River View Park held a dance pavilion, band stand, tennis courts, bowling alley, playground equipment, and snack bars in addition to its picnic-friendly areas.
Myron Barnes, a noted historian from Tiffin, wrote weekly columns in the Advertiser-Tribune in the 1970s of his memories growing up in Tiffin in the early 1900s. He recalls that excursion trains from the Big Four (connecting Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and St. Louis, Missouri) would drop off “large groups of passengers carrying picnic baskets.” These tourists would often make a pit stop for lunch in Tiffin when they look trips to Cedar Point in Sandusky.
A collage of children’s activities that were just some of the many things that made for lively annual picnics for the National Machinery employees and their families every August.
This phenomenon of picnicking as part of a mini-vacation started when Victorians desired as much time in nature as they could. National (and state) Parks were developing and people of this era believed a picnic was an “essential part of a daytrip”. Picnic baskets were an easy thing for anyone to pack and transport. “Stopping to eat and soak up the scenery during an excursion became an integral part of the experience,” describes Sam Butcher in an article about picnics from the Hampshire Cultural Trust.
It was for this reason that picnic areas were honored with landscaping to make the area attractive. In the early 1930s, the island of Pioneer Mill was developed by the Tiffin Garden Club as a Public Works Project. They built a shelter house on the foundation of old stone bins, two outhouses and four picnic tables. Now owned by the Pioneer Mill restaurant, the island continues to be a seasonal hotspot for summer gatherings (with a restaurant reservation).
While families and small groups of friends, perhaps a family reunion, often plan a picnic, picnics in modern times have again became an organized affair. Employers may host a celebration picnic like the many that both the National Machinery and Hanson Clutch & Machinery Company held at Meadowbrook Park every August for its employees and their families.
Graduates from the Junior Home in Tiffin would plan a reunion picnic every year bringing their entire families with them. Some were held in Kentucky, which was a centralized location for those who had branched out and settled in different areas of the country. Most, however, were held in Tiffin as the graduates sought to reminisce and show their families their old stomping grounds.
Works cited:
Abbott Cinema. Penthouse Club Picnic Video, 1971. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/71233
Bacon, Roger. Pioneer Mill History. 1977. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/43423
Barnes, Myron. Seneca Sentinel Bicentennial Sketches. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/33669
History of Melmore. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/29665
Junior Home. Homecoming 1956 Photo Album. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/74976
League of Women Voters of Tiffin. Tiffin Parks, Past to Present. https://www.ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/34925/rec/6
National Machinery. National Employees’ Review, Christmas 1951. Seneca County Digital Library. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll27/id/64354
Lee, Alexander. “The History of the Picnic.” History Today, July 2019. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/historians-cookbook/history-picnic
Butcher, Sam. “A Brief History of Picnics.” Hampshire Cultural Trust. June 2022. https://www.cultureoncall.com/national-picnic-week-a-brief-history-of-picnics/