{"id":1007,"date":"2012-10-19T19:59:28","date_gmt":"2012-10-19T17:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spookymarion.com\/?p=1007"},"modified":"2023-12-14T22:17:13","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T20:17:13","slug":"rockys-cyclery-and-ghosts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spookymarion.com\/?p=1007","title":{"rendered":"Rocky’s Cyclery and…Ghosts?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rocky\u2019s Cyclery and Fitness, located at 239 East Church Street, is a Marion institution. Like the Jer-zee or the OK Caf\u00e9 or the Palace Theatre, it\u2019s one of those places that seems like it\u2019s always been there, and it would be hard imagining Marion without it. The building, however, has been home to a few different businesses over the years, one of which might be an explanation of sorts for the stories I recently heard while interviewing a few of the bike mechanics who work up there. But more on that in a minute\u2026<\/p>\n

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Rocky’s Cyclery and Fitness has been at this location for nearly forty years.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Viewed from the side, one is struck by how big and rambling Rocky\u2019s actually is. Just off of the sales area in the front of the building is owner Carol Poston\u2019s office and a well-equipped workshop, both of which most regular customers have wandered into at one time or another. There\u2019s also an apartment on the second floor. Anyone venturing a bit deeper into the building to, say, the dimly-lit rooms in the basement or the squeaky-floored rooms behind the workshop will most certainly find a great number of bikes as well as the parts needed to service them.\u00a0 And just maybe, one might also come across a ghost or two.<\/p>\n

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The tire room where, according to bike mechanic Jessie Greene, the tires have a habit of moving by themselves.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jessie Green, a Tri-Rivers student who\u2019s been working at the shop since the beginning of the year, has a tire problem \u2013 specifically, they don\u2019t want to stay put. On the day I was at Rocky\u2019s, he took me down into the basement where the tire room is located. Jessie said that often and without explanation the tires move. \u201cI\u2019ll leave the tire room with everything where it should be and when I go down there again, the tires will be scattered or in piles. I\u2019ll come back upstairs and be like, \u2018Who moved the tires?’ And nobody’s been down there.\u201d Another mechanic, Thaddeus Smith, says the door leading to the rooms behind the workshop routinely opens and closes by itself, though whether it\u2019s just a draft or something more ethereal is something he wouldn’t speculate on. Annette Stark, a former tenant in the apartment over the store, says that while she was living there she and her daughters always felt as if someone were watching them in the hallway leading to the apartment. \u201cI would [also] hear what sounded like footsteps coming from the attic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rocky Rhoades, the shop\u2019s namesake, opened his first bike shop in 1972 in downtown Marion before moving to the current building in 1974. In 2003, having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Rocky sold the business to Glen Poston, himself a passionate and devoted bike rider, and Glen\u2019s wife, Carol.<\/p>\n

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Rocky’s was once home to a funeral home, as evidenced by this 1929 Marion phone book listing and advertisement.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before Rocky bought the building, the property had been, according to Stuart Koblentz, the private residence of a family named Miller and, according to Carrie Hutchman, Indoe\u2019s, which was a store offering “heating, appliances and televisions.” More interestingly, according to Hutchman, \u201cBetween 1929 and 1931 it was the Hess, Markert & Axe Funeral Home. From 1934-1938 it was known as the Axe Funeral Home, L.A. Axe, director.\u201d*<\/p>\n

Naturally, it would be convenient to argue that it was during the building\u2019s years as a funeral home that a few restless spirits settled there. For her part, Carol remains skeptical. However, she says that, \u201cif there are a few ghosts, I like to think they\u2019re friendly ones.\u201d Or maybe just mischievous ones who delight in unnerving bike mechanics by hiding their tires or shutting doors on them.<\/p>\n

*For those readers who are members of Facebook and are interested in Marion’s history, I recommend becoming a member of the “Growing up in Marion, Ohio” Facebook group. The nearly 14,000 members have a wealth of information about our hometown as well as a willingness to share it. They were certainly helpful in the development of this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rocky\u2019s Cyclery and Fitness, located at 239 East Church Street, is a Marion institution. Like the Jer-zee or the OK Caf\u00e9 or the Palace Theatre, it\u2019s one of those places that seems like it\u2019s always been there, and it would be hard imagining Marion without it. The building, however, has been home to a few […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,11,8,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-little-less-serious","category-all","category-ghosts-and-hauntings","category-landmarks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spookymarion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spookymarion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spookymarion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spookymarion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spookymarion.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1007"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.spookymarion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3008,"href":"https:\/\/www.spookymarion.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007\/revisions\/3008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spookymarion.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spookymarion.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spookymarion.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}