The glow over Bath Township was so bright that the Three Wise Men might have been tempted to take a detour.
Bumper-to-bumper traffic clogged streets for blocks as family automobiles crawled to a stop along a dead-end road north of Summit Mall.
A dazzling light display became a public spectacle every Christmas in the Vesper Lake housing development. When Dr. Dean Jones, a West Akron dentist, decided to brighten the holidays for local children, he went the extra mile.
In 1969, Jones decided to set up a Christmas display on 1.25 acres at his home off Hilen Road. He started with a mere 3,000 electric lights and expanded to 10,000 the following year, finally topping out at 12,500 bulbs decorating his house and more than 100 trees.
“I guess I just like lights,” he sheepishly told the Beacon Journal in 1971.
Families gaped in awe at the outdoor scenery. The colorful wonderland featured a life-size Nativity scene, a 50-foot Christmas tree and electric lights shaped into wreaths, snowflakes, stars, bells, candles and other patterns.
Jones used more than 12 miles of electrical cords, nearly 100 junction boxes, a transformer, timer and other equipment to run the $20,000 display, which operated 5 to 11 p.m. every evening from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. His electric bill was $450 a month — about $2,500 today.
“Just seeing the children’s eyes popping was worth it all,” Jones said.
More than 250,000 vehicles drove past the exhibit each Christmas season. The display was so vast that it could be viewed from Hilen Road, Vesper Road or Knollwood Drive, all of which backed up with traffic during peak hours.
Jones gave out candy and gifts to kids and furnished doughnuts and soft drinks to youths from the Summit County Children’s Home. If motorists offered monetary donations, Jones turned over the funds to local charities for the purchase of Christmas gifts for needy families.
“I’m doing this strictly for the children,” he said.
The nightly traffic jam caused troubles in the housing development near Smith and Ghent roads. Residents often couldn’t get home because automobiles blocked driveways. Litter was found strewn about streets and yards.
The dentist thanked everyone for their patience and understanding.
“I have a lot of good neighbors,” Jones told a reporter.
After a couple of years of holiday mayhem, though, grumbles grew louder.
“The problems caused by that lighting display have taken all the joy out of our Christmas,” one neighbor fumed. “Traffic-wise, we are prisoners on our own street.”
Public officials began to see the Christmas light show as a local hazard.
Bath Township Fire Chief Larry Hershey expressed concern that traffic would impede emergency vehicles if they needed to get into the neighborhood. A firetruck would require an extra 15 minutes to weave in and out of cars.
However, he hesitated to complain. “Nobody likes to be a Scrooge to a Santa Claus,” he said.
Summit County commissioners approved a plan to turn Smith Road into a one-way street at night to better handle the traffic. That did little to control the logjam on the dead-end street, though.
Jones considered donating the display to the Akron Metropolitan Park District in December 1972.
“Those lights would be beautiful strung up in Sand Run Park,” he said. “It would be one of the most beautiful displays in the entire country.”
Park Director John Daily appreciated the gesture, but said the district already had its hands full.
“We have trouble replacing the burned-out bulbs in one spruce tree we have in front of our Goodyear Heights office,” he said.
During the 1973 energy shortage, neighbors won a reprieve when Jones decided not to put on his light show. He returned the following year, though, with his biggest, brightest display.
Bath Township trustees passed a nonbinding resolution in 1974 urging Jones to move the decorations to another site where they wouldn’t be a problem. The traffic was too much for Bath’s five police officers.
“We can only try to express the fact that while we favor putting up lights to entertain little children, we cannot condone the problems it has caused,” Trustee Floyd Crile explained.
As a last resort, Trustee Frank Gaffney proposed a measure to shut down the street to all but local access.
“There are about 25,000 cars who try to go down that road every night,” he said. “That’s three times the entire population of Bath Township each night.”
Jones refused to unplug his Christmas display, defiantly telling trustees: “Halloween has been cut out, and unless someone tries to hold the line, five years from now, everything else will be cut out, too.”
In 1975, he surrendered. He put up a sign on his street, notifying motorists that the gaudy display had moved.
Jones donated the lights to the Cathedral of Tomorrow on State Road in Cuyahoga Falls.
The Rev. Rex Humbard thanked Jones for his generosity to the church.
“We want to brighten everyone’s Christmas and put as much beauty as possible into it for them,” Humbard announced. “But most of all, I want to let everyone know the real meaning of Christmas, which is the birth of Jesus Christ and that God gave his only begotten son so that we might have eternal life.”
In 1977, the cathedral staff pulled the plug on the outdoor display, saying it was too costly to continue operating. That was the end of the light show.
Dr. Dean Jones, who had a history of heart problems, died in January 1980 at age 51, forever dimming a Christmas tradition in Bath Township.
The memory still shines.
Beacon Journal copy editor Mark J. Price is the author of The Rest Is History: True Tales From Akron’s Vibrant Past, a book from the University of Akron Press. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.