Local history: Five Points? The Chuckery? Taystee Bread? Reader get answers to questions

You have questions. We have answers.

Beacon Journal readers have asked us for help in solving a few history-related mysteries. We love mysteries. Let’s put on our deerstalker caps, grab a magnifying glass and search for clues.

First up: How did a famous intersection get its name?

Name the Five Points

Stow resident Susan Babb, 78, has great memories of growing up at Five Points in Akron. From 1946 to 1956, she lived at 412 Douglas St. with her parents, Charles and Ruth Chapman, and sisters Linda and Carol.

“What are the ‘five points’ of Five Points?” Babb asked. “Maple and Exchange, of course. But we can’t figure out what the other three points are and it’s making us a little nuts!”

The bustling intersection of South Maple and West Exchange streets has been nicknamed Five Points since at least the 1880s, when horse-drawn carriages filled the thoroughfares. Old articles describe it as “a busy place,” “well built up” and “heavily trafficked.”

There also was a fair bit of mischief.

“There is considerable complaint made concerning children playing about the water trough at Five Points,” the Beacon Journal reported in 1890.

Another article noted: “Two young fellows mourn a lap robe stolen from their buggy at Five Points yesterday.”

And then there was this one: “Burglars or safe crackers were at work last night at the Five Points. Whichever class they belong to, or if to both, the job shows them to be amateurs of the most amateurish type.”

Grace Elementary School opened on the northwest corner in September 1891 with eight rooms, eight teachers and 262 pupils. The brick building remained a local landmark until being demolished in 2002.

Modern maps show a maze of streets at the border of West Hill and West Akron, but when we look at an 1891 map, we see “five points” formed by the intersection of Maple, Exchange and Portage Street (two to the north and three to the south).

The city later converted Portage Street into Bell Street but reconfigured the road so it ended at Exchange instead of the intersection. Cedar Street didn’t extend to Maple until much later.

We asked for confirmation from Akron historian and former Deputy Mayor Dave Lieberth, who endorsed our theory.

“I’d never considered this before, but as I look at 1891 compared to 2024, it’s clear that over the years the intersection was completely re-made,” Lieberth replied. “It looks like Bell Street replaced Portage Street, and the exact joining of five points that was present in 1891 is essentially gone today — unless you close your eyes a little and count Bell Street as the fifth point.”

What’s a Chuckery?

Lancaster teacher ​Jonathan W. Becker, who earned his master’s degree in English language and literature at the University of Akron in 1996, has long wondered about The Chuckery, the former dining area at the old Gardner Student Center.

“As a student there, I never understood its meaning or its geographic reference,” he wrote. “Isn’t Chuckery an area north of Akron? What does it mean?”

We can thank Dr. Eliakim Crosby (1779-1854), an Akron industrialist, for inspiring the nickname. In the 1830s, he built the Cascade Mill Race, which supplied water from the Little Cuyahoga River to power the Stone Mill in downtown Akron, the reason we have Mill Street today.

Less successful was Crosby’s 1840s project to dam the Cuyahoga River and divert water 4 miles to provide power for factories near the present-day intersection of Cuyahoga Street and West Tallmadge Avenue on North Hill.

He planned to build a town there called Summit City.

When asked to estimate the population of the North Akron community, Col. John Nash, a skeptic from Middlebury, replied sarcastically: “About 10,000. That is, one man and 9,999 woodchucks.”

The area became known, facetiously, as The Chuckery.

After the Chuckery Run produced only a trickle of water in 1844, investors abandoned the project, and a flood destroyed the 20-foot dam years later. The city never materialized.

In 1958, the University of Akron dusted off The Chuckery name for its Student Center grill room. In 1967, UA spent $2 million to remodel and expand the building, which was dedicated as the Gardner Student Center in honor of Donfred H. Gardner, a dean who served from 1924 to 1962.

The new, improved Chuckery, a 500-seat dining area in Old English decor, served as a gathering spot for 35 years. UA replaced the building in 2002 with a $41 million Student Center later named for Jean Hower Taber.

The Chuckery name continues today as an area at Cascade Valley Metro Park off Cuyahoga Street — just up the street from Crosby’s failed city.

After learning the answer to his question, Becker quipped: “To think the UA mascot could have been the Fighting Woodchucks.”

What’s that building?

Brian Hatfield, a clerk in the Akron Municipal Clerk of Courts office, wonders about things when he’s driving.

“Do you know anything about the history of the building near downtown Akron at 701 S. Broadway St.?” Hatfield asked. “It currently houses the Jones Group, an interior design firm, but I wonder about its previous life.

“These are the things I think about everyday while stopped at the light at South Broadway and Thornton on my way to work.”

Long story short: It was a bakery.

The brick structure, which is more than 100 years old, used to be on another street, and yet it has never moved. How is that possible?

The Summit Baking Co. opened its headquarters at 701 S. High St. about 1915. Within a decade, it produced 50,000 loaves a day under such brand names as Taystee, Butter Nut, Luxury and Butter Krust. A fleet of 35 white trucks made deliveries throughout the city.

The Purity Bakeries Co., later known as American Bakeries Co., acquired the business in 1927 and produced Taystee Bread there until 1971.

The building escaped demolition during the Opportunity Park urban renewal project but had to change its address after the city renamed that section of High Street as Broadway in 1973. So that’s how the bakery switched streets without moving.

A Taystee thrift store operated there for nearly a decade, rebranding as Millbrook Bakery for a couple of years in the early 1980s.

Over the years, other businesses in the complex have included General Medical Corp., City Laundry & Dry Cleaning, Sentry Fence, Business Interiors & Equipment, Jones Group Interiors and Superior Staffing.

And that’s the short-but-taystee history of a century-old building.

Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com

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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Local history: Five Points? The Chuckery? Taystee Bread? Reader get answers to questions