summer homes. Within a few years he and his associates had achieved their dreams. What Disneyland and Kings Island are to today's generation, Gordon Park was to as many as 60,000 people on July 4, 1925, when Saxi Holsworth's orchestra filled the pavilion as hundreds lined up to ride the wildest roller coaster and other rides. Disaster in the form of two fires, one tornado and the Great Depression of the thirties removed this park. The Villa Nova residential area has grown, however, and the State of Ohio now has the entire lake front site of Gordon Park as a recreational area.

Bill Jasperson was another man of vision and action. He found an area on the lake front that was heavily timbered with virgin forest. Here he established a more exclusive development which he named Northwood. A neighboring farm was laid out as a golf course between the highway and the lake. At the shoreline was erected an eighty foot replica of the famous Eddystone light house. The stately white column by day and the twinkling light by night still serves the hundreds of boaters, hunters and fishermen who visit Ohio's largest water recreational area.

The State of Ohio was keeping pace with the demand for changing canal lands to public recreation areas. At the constant urging of the local Fish and Game Association, the State fish hatchery grew from a quite humble beginning into what once became the world's largest hatchery. On down through many years, this growth has continued as The East Bank Park, the goose refuge near Montezuma, and the Trailer Camp at Saint Marys will testify.

The downtown area blossomed in these "beautiful years." Charlie Koch opened his new cafeteria where the tradition of fine food has endured and Tom Broad opened one new movie theatre called the Regent and then took over and modernized the creaking old "Grand Opera House."

America was changed in these few short years from its small town personality into a nation seeking a better life. The black folding top of the Model-T emerged as a sleek and powerful V4, and the horse barn became the garage. Every home had a radio tuned at 6 00 P.M. to Lowell Thomas and the problems of Amos and Andy were the talk of Spring Street. Flappers wore skirts above their knees, danced the Charleston, bobbed their hair, smoked a cigarette in seclusion and a few even drank a slug of bathtub gin. We "returned to normalcy" with Harding, "kept cool" with Coolidge and asked "who but Hoover" as we rolled merrily along through the most Beautiful Years.

Few, if any, could see the dismal disaster that lay ahead. No, none but the sour-puss, the skinflint, the blue-nose could see that these times were not forever—that this was the new America—that this was our world and that it was going to be even better.