How the Maritime Museum set sail

Editor's note: This story was featured in the April 2023 edition of Sandusky Living magazine. If you're interested in purchasing a copy, call the Register at 419-502-2130 while supplies last. The Maritime Museum of Sandusky, which uses two different buildings to show off its exhibits and boat collection, is a top downtown Sandusky destination for tourists. But the creation and growth of the museum didn't just happen. It took leadership and determination from key local citizens. In the space of about three decades, the museum has gone from being a good idea to being a modest storefront operation, to becoming today's full-scale museum, one that draws thousands of visitors a year. Two insiders who have been with the museum from the beginning — Jim Miller and Bob Runner — and the museum's current director, Molly Sampson, sat down with the Register recently to explain how the museum came out. Miller, a retired Civista Bank president, and Runner, the retired Sandusky police chief, have been board members at the museum for years. How it began The beginnings of the museum go back to about 1989 when discussions began about a museum that would feature Sandusky's maritime heritage. The idea is credited to Dennis "Denny" Wieber, a retired Sandusky Police Department sergeant. Wieber died at age 64 in January 2000, shortly before the museum's current home opened, and his grandchildren performed the ribbon cutting when the building opened in 2000. Wieber was the owner and operator of the city of Sandusky Boat Line, Cedar Point ferry boats, a former owner of K&W Marina and a captain for the Kelleys Island Ferry Boat Line and the Kellstone tugboats of Cleveland, according to his Sandusky Register obituary. A Sanduskian through and through, Wieber had been born in the city, graduated from St. Mary Central Catholic High School and served 20 years for the city's police department. Early in the 20th century, Miller notes, Sandusky's economy was dominated by lake-related jobs such as fishing and ice harvesting. "We were the largest freshwater fishing port on the planet at one time," Miller said. "Denny was afraid we would lose that kind of history. That was the underpinning," Runner said. The modest beginnings The museum's original home was in a building at 279 E. Market St. And as with many other cultural and charitable endeavors in Sandusky, the late Ruth Frost Parker had a hand in the effort. Parker died on Feb. 14, 2015, at age 92, after doing many good turns for the local community. Parker provided the museum's initial home on East Market Street. "That was Ruth's building. She let us use the building. We paid token rent," said Runner. The fledgling museum opened at the end of July 1994 with 900 square feet of display space and at first only open on weekends. It gathered together donated artifacts, including material from a defunct group, the Friends of the Boeckling. It also borrowed a display of Lyman boats from a museum that used to be located in Vermilion. The G.A. Boeckling was an historic ship that transported people to Cedar Point until 1951. Efforts by a Sandusky group during the 1980s to restore the ship ended when the ship was destroyed in an apparent act of arson in a Toledo shipyard in 1989. With their plans in ruins, the Boeckling group gave their assets to the new Sandusky museum, including about $35,000 in cash. The artifacts on display in the museum's early days were "odds and ends" donated by local supporters, Miller said. The museum was staffed by volunteers. "Basically, everybody just volunteered to be there," Miller said. How the museum grew Once the museum was set up, and the people backing it knew they had an established organization, the museum's supporters had bigger dreams. They wanted a bigger, better location, and they began to raise money. The Sidney Frohman Foundation provided critical early help. Sidney Frohman was a prominent Sandusky businessman, the president and chairman of the board of the Hinde & Dauch Paper Co. When Frohman died in Sandusky in 1964 at age 83, the New York Times ran an obituary, explaining that Frohman was "a leader in the corrugated box industry in the United States and Canada for more than 50 years." Miller said the fundraising effort also got help from three local philanthropists: Gordon Wendt, George Mylander and Ruth Frost Parker. An amazingly brief meeting with the trio raised $300,000, Miller said. "We sat down for coffee. (Wendt) said, 'Jim, tell us how much it's going to be.'" Miller launched into his sales pitch, but Wendt cut him off. "He said, 'OK, that's enough,'" Miller recalls. Turning to Mylander and Parker, Wendt declared, "I'll give a third if you give a third." "It was $100,000 apiece," Miller said. Gordon Wendt's hobby was Sandusky's maritime history — he published three books on the topic. Wendt, a former Hinde & Dauch executive, died in 2009. He had been a past commodore of the Sandusky Yacht Club and past president of the Erie County Historical Society. George Mylander, a former Sandusky mayor and a Bowling Green State University graduate who aided the development of BGSU's Firelands campus, was 83 when he died in 2016. The fundraising efforts were a success, and the museum's permanent location at 125 Meigs St. opened on July 4, 2000. The new location, with 7,750 square feet, has much more space than the old location. And it has an addition of 5,626 square feet, used for displaying the museum's boat collection. "We own some real estate next door," Miller said. "We still have the ability to expand if we want to." Even when the museum opened in a bigger location, it continued to rely on volunteers. It finally acquired the first paid director a couple of years after moving in. The current director is Molly Sampson, a Findlay native and Bowling Green State University graduate who worked in other museums before coming to Sandusky. While the passion of volunteers remains a key component for the museum's success, a paid director adds industry knowledge, including best practices for museums and nonprofit management. "A lot of what I do isn't museum specific but nonprofit specific," Sampson said. "No one who is a volunteer has the time to be here every day." One huge breakthrough that helped make the museum viable was when museum officials hit on the idea of doing the annual Big Splash Raffle. This year's raffle is set for August 18-19. Information on prizes and raffle tickets for the event available at bigsplashraffle.com. The new source of funding helped tremendously. "Initially, we had a building, but we really didn't have a source of regular income. It was all volunteer work," Miller said. In fact, Ruth Frost Parker put up the money for the museum's first director. The idea for the Big Splash Raffle came from Dean Howman, a former Sandusky fire chief who died in 2022, and Tom Federkiel. The idea came from a fundraiser for a volunteer fire department in West Virginia. The worriers when the idea came up included Miller, a conservative bank president, who was concerned the money raised would not cover the cost of buying the raffle prizes. When the first Big Splash Raffle was a success, gleeful, and possibly relieved, fellow board members set a plate with a taxidermied crow on top in front of Miller during a meeting, and everyone laughed. "They did a wonderful job," Miller said. The museum hopes to continue adding exhibits and attractions and to expand the number of visitors it attracts. The museum plans to add an exhibit soon on microplastics in Lake Erie, drawing attention to an environmental problem. There will also be a presentation on Lake Erie microplastics at the museum at 9 a.m. on April 22. The museum will also will add an exhibit on the Battle of Lake Erie, a local battle that was arguably the most important American victory in the War of 1812. It had 3,700 visitors in 2022, bringing it back up to the numbers it had before the pandemic. Sampson said she often hears people say, "I didn't know this was here." "I view it as an opportunity for growth," she said. Maritime Museum of Sandusky Location: 125 Meigs St., Sandusky Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays through Sundays; Closed Mondays through Thursdays Admission: Adults, $8; Seniors (62 and older) $7; Children (12 and under) $7; Family, $19; Group (per person for groups over 10) $5; Museums for All cardholder, $3 (up to four people); Free for museum members.