by Mark Watt
photos by Tanya Ackerman and the Kent Historical Society

- Built in 1836, the brick building at East Main and Water streets (center) was larger than any other edifice in Kent, Akron and Cleveland at the time. The building contained a hotel, several restaurants and office space. It was destroyed by a fire in 1972.

Ghosts of the past often stand unnoticed, quietly lingering in the buildings and landmarks of a town almost two centuries old. As Kent State students wander past shops, bars and restaurants, they may not realize the history that lies beneath the surface of Kent's downtown.

But for anyone equipped with imagination and a little knowledge, a walk into town can become a walk into the past.

- Today's view of the block that burned down 26 years ago.

The past catches up for a timeless moment.

Kent does have a rich history and each building has a notable past. Here is a glimpse into the pasts of some of these structures:

Pufferbelly: the train station that 'built the town'

Overlooking the waterfall in Kent's downtown, the Pufferbelly glows with an elegance from a time left behind. The red-brick structure, which was built in 1875 in a Tuscan Revival style of architecture, served as Kent's train station for nearly 100 years. Known then as the Kent Depot, it was one of the largest train stations in Ohio at the time.

In its heyday during the first half of the century, the Kent Depot was the central source of mass transportation for this area.

"It built the town," longtime Kent resident Ed Beckwith, 83, says. "This was the crossroads, so the railroad brought all kinds of people in."

Trains would barrel into town and stop at the depot where cargo was unloaded and moved. Some of the goods were transported to other trains, some went to one of the four horse and buggy express companies, like Wells Fargo and American Cargo, and the rest went into town: meat, fruit, wooden barrels of whiskey and New York fashion clothes. Sometimes Ford Model T's, loaded sideways five at a time in boxcars, were rolled off for customers in town.

Passengers would debark and bide their time between layovers by perusing a copy of the Kent Tribune in the station's reading room, eating at the dining hall or crossing Franklin Street to have a drink in one of the saloons. Some might take a horse and buggy up to the Franklin Hotel for the night. Others might make their way up North Water Street to catch a vaudeville show at the Kent Opera House.

Kent was a main stop for trains, set at the railway's division point halfway between New York City and St Louis. Huge, powerful steam engines roared through, with names like B&O, Erie and Wheeling lettered on their sides.

South of the depot was the town's train yard, a complicated web of train tracks stretched across the land on which Kent's Post Office now stands. Buildings of all shapes were scattered there, filled with hundreds of busy railroad workers.

Beckwith remembers that the depot's busiest days were during World War II. Some days brought more than 90 trains through Kent during this time period.

But the busy days for the Kent Depot didn't last. With the arrival of commercial jets in the 1950s, the number of train passengers began to dwindle. Over the next two decades, the train industry in Kent slowed to a halt.

The station sent off its last train in the 1970s and was boarded up. But in 1981, the Kent Historical Society was formed and its first major project was to renovate the Kent Station.

Now known as the Pufferbelly, a nickname for an old type of steam engine, the building houses a restaurant on the first floor and the Kent Historical Society's museum upstairs.

The Franklin Hotel: a classy home away from home

The Franklin Hotel, now home to Mooney's Goose and the Cornerstone Grille, was built in 1919 and soon became one of the more luxurious buildings in the area. Unusual for a town like Kent, the five-story hotel was equipped with a ballroom, cocktail bar and restaurant.

Visitors would enter through the double doors facing Main Street and walk straight across a reddish-brown tiled floor to the lobby desk. To their left was the entrance to the restaurant, which is now the Cornerstone Grille. To their right, through another set of double doors was the Pompeiian Room, a cocktail bar (now Mooney's Goose). Up a flight of marble steps, on the mezzanine level, the ballroom was set with a balcony that overlooked the Pompeiian Room.

Modern for its time, the building was built with an elevator to carry patrons to their rooms on the upper floors of the hotel.

Bill Birkner, 71, the first curator of the Kent Historical Society's museum, says hotel rooms were much smaller and bathrooms were shared by patrons. The clientele was varied, but a large number of visitors were traveling salesmen, says longtime Kent resident Francis Kline, 80.

"It would serve as their headquarters while they covered five or six towns around," Kline says. Entertainers visiting Kent also stayed at the hotel. Guy Lombardo and Glenn Miller both slept in the building after playing at "formal hops" at Kent State.

Paul Mosher, 79, worked as a waiter in the Pompeiian Room in the late 1930s. At that time, the building was known as the Hotel Kent. He remembers that wealthier customers would be served food in a private dining area, just south of what is now Mooney's main bar. These folks could close themselves off from the rest of the establishment with a set of French doors.

He says he remembers the hotel had a classy ambience.

"It was a flashy joint," he says. "It was really a place to be proud of for the community."

Mosher remembers that the hotel's bar became a lively gathering place for college students too.

The basement to the hotel held a number of businesses over the years. A barbershop, a bakery, a jewelry store and several bars have all been situated in the downstairs area, with an outside entrance just west of the hotel's front doors.

Over time, the hotel's business slowed down. And in 1978, after serving as a boarding house for several years, the building was condemned, leaving only the first level open for other businesses.

"It was really quite a centerpiece for the town in its day," Mosher says. "But it fell on hard times and was left behind."

- Ray's Place, one of Kent's most frequented bars, was once a hotel

The Central Hotel: "a place right out of the old westerns"

The red-brick building that houses Ray's Place is rich with a history that reaches back into the last century.

In the late 1800s, the building was known as the Central Hotel and enjoyed a steady flow of business because of its prime location across the street from the Kent Depot.

John Cheges, a 71-year-old volunteer at the Kent Historical Society's museum, says the building had three floors back then (the top floor has since been removed). The first floor held a restaurant and saloon, while the two upper floors were lined with rooms for overnight visitors.

"It was a place right out of the old westerns," he says.

Mosher, whose grandparents owned and managed the Central Hotel from 1900 to 1909, says he remembers two huge windows that were set on the west wall of the restaurant and bar. A customer could sit at the bar and enjoy a drink while watching trains chug by outside.

"There would be a lot of traffic passing through," he says.

"Traveling salesmen would stop into town to sell their wares and then spend the night in hotels like my grandparents' place." In addition to traveling salesmen, the hotel also attracted trainmen and visitors from out of state. Sometimes, entertainers spent the night as well because the Kent Opera House was a short horse-and-buggy ride away.

Mosher recalls a story of one of these entertainers, whose name is still remembered today.

In 1894, a fellow named Whitey Dukenfield, better known as W.C. Fields, came to town. He performed as "The Boy Wonder Juggler" at the Kent Opera House to a less than enthusiastic crowd, and the show flopped. Short on cash, he and his crew found themselves stranded in town. Fields reached an agreement with the Central Hotel's owner that he would leave behind some of his valuables in two luggage trunks in exchange for a ticket back to New York City. Once he arrived, Fields would send back enough money for the ticket and for his valuables to be sent East.

The money never came. Fields never did repay his debts and when the trunks were opened, they contained only some old handbills.

In 1937, the hotel became Ray's Place under the management of Ray Salitore. A college-geared bar called Mother's Junction was eventually housed upstairs.

Charlie Thomas took over the business in 1978. And in 1991, he restored the building so that it looks quite similar to what it would have at the beginning of the century.

As one of Kent's most recognizable historic buildings, the Marvin Kent home, now known as the Masonic Temple, stands on East Main Street overlooking downtown. The house was constructed by Marvin Kent over a span of four years and was finished in 1880. It stands 2 1/2 stories with a three-story tower in front that faces Main Street.

In the 1800s, Marvin Kent was instrumental in developing the town that was then known as Franklin Mills. His accomplishments included operating and maintaining several of his father Zenas Kent's businesses, including flour mills, glass factories and grain mills, as well as a tannery and the town's first bank.

His most challenging feat, says Kent curator Birkner, was chartering and building of the Atlantic and Great Western Railway. Kent was responsible for creating a link between existing railroads to the east and west. Because of this link, cargo and passengers could be transported from New York City to St. Louis without switching trains.

The citizens of Franklin Mills were grateful for all the Kent family had contributed toward the growth of their town, and in 1867, they renamed the town after them. Franklin Mills was rechristened Kent.

After Marvin Kent died in 1908, his family continued to live in the house.

The building became the home of Kent's Masons in 1923 and has since been referred to as the Masonic Temple. In 1974, the Kent home was added to the U.S. Department of the Interior's National Register of Historical Places.

The house features ornate woodwork, with handmade fireplaces built into nearly every room, a grand curved staircase and carefully carved window frames. The main entrance is decorated with etched glass windows on a set of double-doors. One of the arched door frames on the first floor was taken from a covered bridge that once stood where the Main Street bridge does today.

A dumbwaiter also remains in the house, its shaft reaching from the dark basement some say is haunted to the third floor where a spacious ballroom was located.

On the second floor is a guest bedroom in which former Presidents of the United States William McKinley, William H. Harrison, William H. Taft and Warren G. Harding each stayed the night when the home belonged to the Kent family. The bedroom is still decorated as it was when the men visited the town.