“Before they started doing any of the work, dad took me through the factories, and the vertical man belts were still working. You could still smell the oatmeal,” recalls Mark Smith, 68, son of F. Eugene Smith, a Quaker Square developer. “Mom and dad put their own store in called Run of the Mill, and that store sold Quaker Oats memorabilia, Akron history memorabilia and oatmeal cookies. They used the oatmeal cookie recipe that was on the back of the original Quaker Oats can, tweaked that just a little bit. … They bake them right there, and it would just fill the whole place with the smell of oatmeal cookies. … They made so much money off selling these damn cookies.”
Mom and Dad did silkscreen T-shirts of Ferdinand Schumacher and [General] Simon Perkins. … John Brown was another one. … A lot of people bought that stuff.
It was magical. It was crowded. It was jam packed. … Those mom-and-pop stores were doing crazy good business. … There was Barnhill’s Ice Cream, Legendary Leather … there was a flower store.
There was an REA — Regional Express Agency— building behind Quaker, by the railroad tracks back there. They began adapting a railroad theme. They brought an old steam engine, which I think is still there, and a couple of cars. They took a couple passenger cars and hooked them up to the back of the building, and you could go through them.
They took [collector] Mack Lowry's [model] train layout. … They reset the train layout up in the second floor. … It was beautiful, amazing layout. I bet he had 20 or 30 different steam engines. God knows how many cars. … It was a real attraction.
The first five or six years, it just takes on a life of its own. And especially, during the holidays, there were carolers running around and everything was all decorated with lights. It was a really wonderful place to be.”
Editor's Note: A local group is under contract to buy the Quaker Square complex to turn it into a hotel, retail, restaurant and office complex and retain the Quaker Station banquet facility.
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Ott Gangl, Summit Memory / Akron-Summit County Public Library
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Ott Gangl, Summit Memory / Akron-Summit County Public Library
