From hobby to Blaze
By Greg Hoersten - For The Lima News
A cutout of the Reams is included in the display. The couple started making and painting lighted cutouts for their yard in 1938, thrilled by electricity coming to the farm the year before.
Courtesy of Paula Scott
Courtesy of Bluffton Icon
Courtesy of Allen County Historical Society
Harry and Dorothy Ream’s display of wooden cutouts has been a part of Bluffton for decades.
The Lima News file
Courtesy of Allen County Historical Society
Children peer in a downtown shop window in Bluffton with a display piece inside in 1992.
Ever wonder who owned the first motorized vehicle in Bluffton? Or, who had the first radio?
How about, who had the first running water hookup, electicity in a house? And, when was the first airplane spotted over Bluffton?
These obscure fact have answers. For the record, here goes:
• Frank Scott, a Bluffton banker, owned the first automobile in Bluffton. The exact date of the purchase is not known, but when he traded it in on his second car in 1904, it was mention in the Bluffton News of his having owned a car for “sometime now.
Scott’s new car arrived two weeks ahead of one ordered at the same time by G. W. Combs. Scott’s car was an Elmore. Combs’ owned a Currier.