The Hower Store

The Hower Store

Friday October 26, 1951

The Wooster Daily Record

Hower Store, Run By Three Generations, Is Nearly 100 Years Old

By E. H. Hauenstein

BURBANK - This northern Canaan township village spills over into Medina County just a bit, and its western edge is in Congress township. The 1950 census gave its population of 393, a healthy expansion from the 340 mark of ten years previously. In this growth, it falls in line with other Wayne county villages which seem to share uniformly in the general tendency of families to live in small communities from where their bread-winners drive to work in more populous centers. Burbank men and women commute to Medina, Lodi, Akron, Wooster and even to Cleveland. David Baker, who came to Wayne county in 1830, and who was a citizen here when the town was just a cluster of pioneer cabins, is credited with having had a hand in the selection of its early name – “Bridgeport. '

Baker married Melinda Cockrell, a member of another pioneer family. William Cockrell of Lodi, a descendant of this family, says a group of men. including Baker, decided the town should have a name. There were two crude crossings over Killbuck, not far from today's bridges, and Baker suggested its early name of Bridgeport. And Bridgeport It became, a name which continued until 1868 when it was incorporated, and probably about the time the post office was established. There was on Bridgeport post office, now a sizable town on the Ohio river, near Martins Ferry.

Oldest residents in the vicinity are unable to put a finger on the exact reason for choosing the name of Burbank. It is definitely a coined word, for no person named Burbank ever lived there

There are several versions, all are based on the town's location, on the "banks" of Killbuck. The "burr" may brave come from the prevalence of burdock along the stream, or from chestnut "burrs" which grew In profusion in the area. A third clue goes to the old Naftzger mill, an early day industry and combines "burr" used In the mill with the "bank" of the stream.

Charles Gast says that when be first knew Burbank about 1890 the letters "Bridgeport" were still legible in faded letters on the depot, which was put up in 1864 at the time the Erie railroad, first known as the Atlantic and Great Western, was built.

A Mercantile enterprise that has been operated by successive generations by one family for a century is the Hower store. Present owners are Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Frary and Mr. and Mrs. Emmett Edgar. Mrs. Frary and Mrs. Edgar were formerly Mary and Nellie Hower, granddaughters of William B. Hower, who established the business.

William B. Hower' first store was at Friendsville, but It was soon moved to Burbank. One of the brothers of William B. Hower was John Hower, who became a partner in the firm of Hower and Higbee, in Cleveland, establishing the business which Is now the gigantic Higbee store In that northern Ohio metropolis. ,

Henry Hower, another brother of William B. Hower, established a second store in Burbank on the location of what is now the Burbank Hardware store.

In 1872 N, W. Hower become associated with his father William B. Hower replacing the latter's partner, Simeon Kerns, the store being located where the present Hanna service station operates. In 1880 William B. Hower went to Kansas and N W. Hower continued in Burbank, operating the store until his death in 1939, a total of 66 years.

N. W. Hower and his brother, James, under the name of Hower Bros., established the business in the present location. In 1890 the brothers started the store in Lodi using the Hower Bros. name. James went to Lodi as manager, and this store continue in operation now being the property of N. W. Hower's grandson, William. In 1905 James Hower, because of ill health, sold his interest in the Lodi store to N. W. Hower, who took his two sons, Harry C. and Charles, as partners, Harry going to Lodi as manger,

After 1905 the Burbank store was operated by N. W. Hower and his son Charles. The two sons, Charles and Harry, both died In 1937 and the father in 1939. Following N. W. Hower's death. William and Harry, grandsons of N. W., became owners of the Lodi store, and the Burbank store became the property of the two daughters of N. W. Hower, Mrs. Frary and Mrs. Edgar, and their husbands

Both Mr. Frary and Mr. Edgar had been employees of the store before they assumed the management. Mr. Edgar's Father was Charles Edgar. During its long history the lines of merchandise handled In the Hower store have been largely the same groceries, dry good and shoes, with some clothing, although the latter plays a lesser role than in former years.

The Hower store has featured In the news on several occasions during its long history because of robberies, although none of a major nature have occurred for many years.

On one occasion the management obtained a large and savage looking dog to guard the store at night, but after apparently frightening off at least one attempt at robbery, the animal was poisoned. After that a man was employed to sleep in the store