Boy And The Boot

As reported at this week's Council meeting renovation has begun at the Boy and the Boot along Lisbon Street here in Wellsville, Ohio. No one seems to know the exact history of that statue or when that little island was put in at that location. There's copies of post cards from the early 1900s around that show the boy at the intersection of Lisbon Street & Wells Avenue when there were two bridges. Those post cards show that was before Route 45 went from Highland Avenue to Wells Avenue and long before the floodwall was erected. That was even before the Roadside Park when Lisbon Street & Wells Avenue merged at the Boy and the boot.

Wellsville Historical Society President Robert "Brassy" Beresford recently received a box of photographs donated by decendents of the late Luella Thompson. Among those pictures was an early picture of the Boy.

At that time the Boy faced up-river. It's the original statue shown here that was destroyed when a truck accidentally ran up over the curb and hit it. That is believed to have happened in the early 1950s. There is a history on the statue & who manufactured it. The Amato family went to the trouble of tracking that down and getting a duplicate made. That's the statue you see today. I think Pete & Chuck Amato got a mold and had it made.

Brassy is trying to date this photo. Neither one of us have any idea what the year is of that car in the background. If anybody can tell us it would give an excellent idea on the time. There's a lady standing on the sidewalk in an almost ankle length skirt. Brassy thinks it might have been before the floodwall was erected and the car dates back to the early 1940s. They started building the floodwall in 1938. You can't see any evidence of Katz's junk yard that was at the corner of Wells Ave. & 2nd St. Anybody remember when Paul Katz got started?

At any rate it's an angle of the Boy that Brassy said he has never seen. I got excited and this is the kind of picture we would love to get copies of. It's the kind of picture "hootch2" can add to his video for next years All-Class Reunion and no, Lance, no one recalls statues of ducks at that location! You can click on the picture to enlarge for a better look.

ole nib