The Peninsula community is mourning the loss of a well-known historic building in the village’s downtown.
Eddy’s Bike Shop burned to the ground overnight, the shop posted on its Facebook page Friday. The business owns several bike stores across Northeast Ohio.
“It's been a long, incredibly heartbreaking night,” Eddy’s wrote in its post. “A historic building that lived many lives, this property was a staple for Peninsula and the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We'll keep you updated as we can.”
Originally built in 1893, the property has a storied history and was a mainstay in the Peninsula community, said Karen Walters, director of the Peninsula Foundation, which owns the building and other historic properties in the town.
Walters is a lifelong Peninsula resident whose family has been there for six generations.
“It’s a building I have literally looked at my entire life,” Walters said. “It’s just so strange to go down there and it to not be there.”
Walter lives near the building and was on-scene during the fire, which started around 1 a.m. Friday.
“Within, like, 15 minutes, the whole building was engulfed,” Walters said. “It was pretty surreal, really, to see it.”
The building was originally a tavern, Millie's Inn, she said. At one point, it was a bar called Scotty’s, owned by Scotty Ingram, a professional baseball player from Peninsula, according to the foundation’s website.
The building survived a devastating flood in 1913 that wiped out most of Peninsula’s downtown, Walters said.
Most recently, it was Century Cycles, a bike store. Eddy’s moved in last year, Walters said.
Located in the midst of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Peninsula is a hotspot for biking, she said.
“If you’re a cyclist, you’ve been down here," Walters said. "Whether you’re on the roads or the Towpath (Trail,) you’ve gone through the Valley here.”
Eddy’s was in the process of renovating the building, she said. They were planning to open next month.
“They’re going into their busy season here. In a month and a half, the Towpath is in full swing,” Walters said.
She hopes to work with Eddy’s to find another space in town to use temporarily, if owners are interested, she said.
In the coming weeks, Walters and other stakeholders will decide whether to rebuild the structure. Many community members would like to see it rebuilt, Walters said.
“You can rebuild it, but you can’t bring back the history. I mean, the building had a lot of character to it,” she said. “It was kind of a lot of Peninsula’s character of a small canal town, a canal-era town.”
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
