I grew up mostly in Bellefontaine, Ohio, about sixty miles northwest of Columbus.
It was a quiet little town. We would get excited whenever Bellefontaine was mentioned on one of the Dayton or Columbus TV stations — that was the Big Time! — and frustrated if they pronounced it Bell-fon-TAYNE. We pronounced it Bell-FOUN-tin.
We were proud of our little town. We had the first concrete street in America — a test of whether concrete made sense as a paving material — and the shortest street in the world. (Wikipedia says the “shortest street” claim is in dispute.)
Bellefontaine is near the highest point in Ohio — which is also the highest point between the Allegheny and the Rocky Mountains. When I lived there, the two local radio stations were WOHP (Ohio’s Highest Point) and WTOO (Top Of Ohio), so you can tell we were proud of that, too.
The Bellefontaine Opera House opened in 1880, and when I was growing up I was told that, in its time, many prominent performers had played there, including the great W.C. Fields.
But maybe I got that last part wrong.
I just got this collection of W.C. Fields movies and watched The Old Fashioned Way. Except for an early train sequence, the whole movie is set in Bellefontaine, Ohio. Fields is The Great McGonigle, head of a theatrical troupe who perform at the Bellefontaine Opera House. I thought it might be a Bellefontaine in some other state, or a purely imaginary Bellefontaine, but the address on a letter delivered to McGonigle at the end of the movie removed all doubt.
What a surprise! What a thrill! I’m sitting on Top of Ohio! This is the Big Time!
I’m only sorry that, through the whole movie, everybody except one Pullman porter pronounced it Bell-fon-TAYNE.
Drat!
treames | 21-Aug-08 at 1:08 am | Permalink
Hi grew up near this small town also and had lots of fun seems like we have something in common. Only thing better would be an even smaller town way up in the mountains of kentucky