A 1915 movie shot in Akron, Ohio, that was considered lost more than century has emerged online via a California film preservation company.
According to a report in the Akron Beacon Journal, the 16-minute drama “The Portage Trail” was produced under the auspices of the Akron Chamber of Commerce and featured local residents making their first ”“ and, presumably, only ”“ appearances on screen as actors. The film was directed by Oliver William Lamb, founder of the Paragon Feature Film Co. in Omaha, Nebraska, who made a living going to small cities throughout the Midwest and convincing local chambers of commerce to allow him to make films in their municipalities using local nonprofessionals as his actors.
The film premiered in Akron on Sept. 14, 1915, and Lamb”™s company took the production on a 180-city tour, playing as far away as Baltimore and Spokane, Washington. But no print of the film was ever preserved in Akron and it was presumed to have been lost until Los Angeles-based Periscope Film LLC posted it for online viewing via YouTube last month.
Periscope co-founder Nick Spark said the company obtained a 16mm copy of “The Portage Trail” in 2018, although he did not know the source of the print.
“Last year, for instance, we rescued two truckloads of 16 mm and 8 mm home movies that had been collected by a single individual in Orange County, California,” Spark told the Beacon Journal. “That person was going to a care home, and if we had not intervened, the films would have ended up in a landfill.”
Photo: A scene from “The Portage Trail,” via Periscope Films
