See the Sloane House

SANDUSKY — Local residents can visit Sandusky's past by participating in an Old House Guild tour of the Rush Sloane House, 403 E. Adams St., Sandusky. The rare opportunity to visit a restored 19th-century mansion will be from 1-7 p.m. Saturday, April 17, and will cost $10, payable at the door. All proceeds will benefit the effort to restore the storm-damaged Sandusky State Theatre, said Ed Stout, a spokesman for the Old House Guild. The tour will begin at the front door of the home, and participants may want to wear nice socks, as they will be invited to take their shoes off before going through the home. Chris and Roberta Wiedle, the home's current owners, have put the property up for sale. It's listed for almost $3 million. The real estate agent for the sale is Tomi Johnson of Howard Hanna. "I think the tour is an excellent chance for people to view the house much as it was in 1880," Chris said. There's no way to know if the home's next owners will let people come inside and see it, so this is a great chance to see it and help the Sandusky State Theatre, Wiedle said. The Old House Guild normally carries out an annual candlelight Christmas tour of restored local homes but had to call off the 2020 tour because of the pandemic. The late philanthropist Ruth Frost Parker bought the home, intending to turn it into a bed and breakfast. Parker died in 2015. Also in 2015, the Wiedles bought the home for $140,000 and continued restoring it and stocking it with period furnishings. Bio blast: Rush Sloane Rush Sloane (1828-1908) was an attorney and prominent Sandusky citizen who left his stamp on the city in many ways. He was a former Sandusky mayor. He bought Cedar Point in 1865 and took the first steps to turn the land into a vacation spot. He was president of the Sandusky, Dayton and Cincinnati Railroad. Sloane also was a prominent abolitionist who used his home as a safe house for fugitive slaves and defended them in court. Sloane bought the house in 1853 and carried out a great deal of additional construction. "It has seven separate additions on it," said Chris, who has worked to document the home's history. "We know that two are pre-Civil War," he said. "I have determined the order the additions were put on. I do not know the actual years they were done."