The Portage Trail

The Portage Trail

This strange, silent film "The Portage Trail" dates to 1915. The film tells the story of a romance between a minister's son and a banker's daughter, but the narrative also pays attention to the city of Akron, Ohio. It's highly possible that the film was made in an attempt to clean up that city's reputation, since in the 1910s there was a deadly outbreak of typhoid fever caused by a bad water supply. To whit, the film has a segment, inserted into the middle of the romance, explaining how the city now has a new "five million dollar water treatment plant".