Cooke-Dorn House Museum
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
Old Picture of Home
New Picture of Home
Front Door of the Home
Kitchen
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
The Cooke house was constructed from 1843-1844 for Eleutheros Cooke and his family. Eleutheros was the first lawyer of Sandusky, Ohio and was an influential leader of the city's earliest institutuions.
Upon the death of Mr. Cooke and his wife, a local attorney purchased the house in 1878. The attorney, Rush R. Sloane ordered workers to take down the house stone by stone and rebuild it in the same location. Sloane then gave the reconstructed home as a wedding gift to his son and new daughter-in-law. Interestingly, the daughter-in-law, Sarah, just so happened to be a granddaughter of Eleutheros Cooke.
In 1922, the house was sold to Roy H. Williams. Williams was a "judge for the Erie County Common Pleas Court, the Ohio 6th District Court of Appeals, and as an Ohio Supreme Court Justice" (http://oldhouseguild.org/cookehouse.html). In the 1950s, the home was sold to Randolph J. and Estelle Dorn. Mr. Dorn was the president of Sandusky's Barr Rubber Corporation and lived in the house until his death in 1965. Mrs. Dorn continued to reside there until her death in 1994.
Following the death of the Mrs. Dorn, the home was left to the Ohio Historical Society. The home looks much the same as it did when the Dorns lived there. The OHS invites you to tour the home.