Dallas B. Pollock, 1915-2013
Port Clinton businessman competed in midget cars
3/18/2013PORT CLINTON — Dallas B. Pollock, 97, a longtime Port Clinton resident who owned a variety of businesses there, including a taxi service that he operated despite being legally blind, died Wednesday at Ottawa County Riverview Healthcare Campus in Oak Harbor, Ohio.
His daughter, Judith Lynn Pollock, said the cause of death was not known.
Mr. Pollock was born on Aug. 8, 1915, in the Defiance County community of Ney, Ohio and moved to Toledo when he was about 13 years old. Mr. Pollock graduated from Libbey High School.
Mr. Pollock was a driver for Taystee Bread Co., and his route took him to the Port Clinton area, where he moved when he was 30 years old, his daughter said.
He purchased City Bread in Port Clinton about 1945 and ran the bakery for 19 years. During that same time, he also bought the Travelers’ Inn at the foot of the Portage River bridge.
“It was a pretty popular spot right after the war,” his daughter said, noting that the facility had a dining room and dance floor that drew soldiers from nearby Camp Perry.
He owned it for three years but soured on the business because of the hassles from servicemen’s wives.
“He told me he couldn’t stand talking to women who didn’t want him selling liquor to their husbands and using up all of their paychecks,” she said. “He just didn’t want to be put in that position.”
He raced midget race cars and traveled the circuit from Boston to Los Angeles.
“[My parents] told me I was coast to coast before I was even 2 years old,” Ms. Pollock said.
His other businesses in Port Clinton included Madison Recreation, a pool hall that he owned for 10 years, and a golf-driving range.
While he was in his 70s, he operated 3 D Taxi there, providing the community of 7,200 people with their only public transportation.
Mr. Pollock gave it up in 1990 after Municipal Court Judge Paul Moon seized the license plates and registrations for his three taxis after convicting him of driving without a license. The state had refused to renew his license two years earlier because he had failed the eye exam.
Police had ticketed him at 10 p.m. while driving passengers from the Port Clinton ferry to their cars at the Catawba Island ferry terminal, a distance of nearly 9 miles. His 76-year-old wife was called to finish the trip.
Mr. Pollock, who was 75 at the time, said that he’d only had one accident and despite bad eyesight and could still “see well enough that I never run a stoplight.”
His daughter recalled, “He told me, ‘I may not be able to tell when the light changes, but I can tell when the traffic stops.’”
Mr. Pollock tended bar for the local Elks Lodge, of which he was a member, until finally retiring in his 70s, his daughter said. He also played golf. Being an avid dancer helped him meet his future wife; he met the former Evelyn Johnson while dancing in Toledo.
Mrs. Pollock died on April 19, 2012.
Mr. Pollock is survived by his daughter, Judith Lynn Pollock, and two grandsons.
Visitation at the Gerner-Wolf-Walker Funeral Home & Crematory in Port Clinton will be from 5 p.m. Wednesday until the memorial service there at 7 p.m.
Memorials are suggested to the American Cancer Society.
Contact Jim Sielicki at: jsielicki@theblade.com or 419-724-6050.