It's ThrowBack Thursday, Presidential election edition! We recall some of the candidates/presidents who've visited Middletown through the years
It’s ThrowBack Thursday in Election Year 2020!
With a November 3rd U.S. Presidential election approaching, we recall several visits to Middletown (up to 1964) by presidential candidates and presidents. Our source is a full page of articles written by local historians George Crout and Wilfred Vorhis that appeared in the November 1, 1964, “Middletown Journal” (*). By the time of its publication:
“...Nine of the 36 successful candidates for the Presidency [had] campaigned in Middletown as well as many of the runners up. From the first local visit by Gen. William Henry Harrison to that of John F. Kennedy was a span of 120 years...”
“In 1920 both candidates for the Presidency campaigned actively in Middletown. One of them, Ohio Governor James M. Cox, born in Jacksonburg, was almost a native Middletonian...Cox made a major political speech ... from the stage of the old Sorg Theater...Following Cox’s visit, the other candidate, also an Ohioan, Sen. Warren G. Harding of Marion, came here Oct. 30...with a crowd of 4,000 gathering, a platform in red, white and blue bunting...was hastily put up in the Big Four Lot near Central Avenue...”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, as the Democratic Presidential nominee, stopped at Middletown on October 20, 1932 …"His special train rolled into the city at 9:25 a.m. to be greeted by a crowd of 6,000 local supporters...As the train rolled up to the Big Four Depot between Manchester and Central Avenues, the crowd followed...Eyewitness accounts say that the crowd extended for 300 hundred feet on both sides of the train...”
On September 23, 1952, the campaign of General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower ... “stopped just north of Manchester Avenue. A [Middletown] Journal reporter wrote: ‘Ruddy face, sparkling eyes, broad grin – the familiar Eisenhower trademarks – were on display for a crowd estimated at 7,000 gathered at the Big Four Railroad...’”
On October 26, 1960, “...despite rainy weather, a crowd of 7,000 turned out at 8 in the morning to welcome candidate Richard Nixon, the Vice President of the United States whom they hoped would succeed [President Dwight] Eisenhower as president...” Middletown was one of his train stops.
John F. Kennedy is believed to be the first president to have stayed overnight in Middletown. He arrived at 1 a.m. October 17, 1960, after a late-night flight...” having landed in Vandalia. “The Rose Room” of the Manchester Motor Inn was set up as a communications center, which included TV coverage. An estimated crowd of 6,000 gathered at the Broad [Street) and Manchester [Avenue] intersection, even occupying the roofs of buildings, to hear Kennedy as he emerged from a brunch attended by 1,000 local Democrats...”
In 1964 Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater “included Middletown on his campaign tour. President (Lyndon) Johnson made appearances in Cincinnati and Dayton...”
President Gerald R. Ford was in Middletown on four different occasions. As the House Minority leader from Michigan, he attended a fund-raising reception in September 1972 at the home of Elliot Levey. He was in town in 1966 speaking at the Manchester Motor Inn at a Butler County Lincoln Day dinner. On June 6, 1976, President Ford also visited Middletown...As a former president, he visited Middletown on May 17,1978. A Middletown Journal reporter observed that "he was definitely politicking."
Above : Presidential candidate / Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy arrives in Middletown (Photo from the October 17, 1960, Middletown Journal).
Carousel photos of presidents and/or presidential candidates: President William Henry Harrison (draped in black neck piece), James M. Cox, President Warren G. Harding, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, President Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, President Gerald Ford
Photos of several of the above presidents/candidates during visits to Middletown can be found in MidPointe Library’s Digital Archives:
www.midpointelibrary.org > eResources > Digital Archives