Wilhelm: Helena could have been called Elkhorn

A few months ago, this column included some information about the village of Helena, including the belief — based on Basil Meek’s “History of Sandusky County — that it was named for the daughter of a prominent doctor in the area.

That prompted an interesting and enjoyable call from Ray Clayborn, area historian, who tipped me off to a series of article written by Mrs. Herbert Garn, Helena correspondent for The News-Messenger, in March of 1960.

Helena actually was the youngest daughter of area pioneer Joseph Garn (apparently no known relation to the writer), who was instrumental in the early development and growth of Helena.

The name was chosen by a general vote of the residents and was selected over “Elkhorn” by which historian C. Gene Long says the community was unofficially known previously.

That vote didn’t take place until 1885 and the village wasn’t incorporated until 20 years after that.

Long’s book, “Conquering the Black Swamp,” says the community was known as “Elkhorn” from its earliest days. Early settler John Ickes apparently had a collection of elk trophies.

Mrs. Herbert Garn, by the way, was one of several community correspondents for the then “Fremont News-Messenger.”  Others were in Old Fort, Bettsville, Castalia, Vickery, Gibsonburg, Woodville, Lindsey, Oak Harbor, Port Clinton, Green Springs, Clyde and Ballville Township. 

They kept readers up-to-date on the social type things in their communities and several of them covered major news, including school board and council meetings for the newspaper. I worked with them for a short time as the newspaper’s “area editor.” One of those correspondents, who probably was more in-tune to the social goings on, refused to keep going to the community’s council meetings because “there was too much cussing going on.”

That left me to call the village mayor, who reminded me more than once that he was “not the reporter for the newspaper.”

But, back to Helena. Another of the early settlers in the village was John Fairbanks, a carpenter by trade.  He built a grain elevator for Joseph Garn, 19 homes, the Odd Fellows building and the old school building.  In his spare time, he served as justice of the peace and a notary.

By the way, in 1960, when Mrs. Garn wrote her stories, Helena had “three groceries, a hardware store, barber shop, elevator and two lumber companies … two roofing and sheet metal companies” as well as a service station, insurance agency and machine shop.

Roy Wilhelm started a 40-year career at The News-Messenger in 1965 as a reporter. Now retired, he writes a column for both The News-Messenger and News Herald.