The Lorain Public Library System’s southern Lorain branch, 2121 Homewood Drive, celebrated the city’s rich history of Latin music on Oct. 15. The panel, “Lush Legacy of Latin Music in Lorain,” included a massive announcement.
Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum, is featuring the city of Lorain for its new American history museum exhibit.
According to Eileen Torres, President of the Hispanic Fund for the Community Foundation of Lorain County, the exhibit will showcase the history of salsa music. The city of Lorain is extremely important throughout that history.
“The Smithsonian will include Lorain in an upcoming exhibit at the American History Museum that tracks salsa music’s journey in the USA,” Torres said. “Lorain will be included since we were a major market for salsa’s recording artists during the Golden Age of Salsa.”
When traveling across the American Midwest, 1970s salsa groups would stop in Lorain, a town of only 80,000 people at the time, Torres said. The history of the salsa genre is embedded into the fabric of the city.
“You wouldn’t imagine a city of 80,000 (would) be on the circuit,” she said. “The bands from Puerto Rico and New York on their way to Chicago, or on their way back, would stop here… We had every major name in the salsa industry come to Lorain. It’s fascinating.”
The organizers of the Oct. 15 session recommended the community bring photographable memorabilia for the museum. Items already collected for the exhibit include audio interviews with bands, and records from the Lorain-based group The Nombres.
“It was fascinating to me that (the Smithsonian) knew one of the bands, The Nombres, they already knew about that,” she said. “(They were) made up of teenagers.”
Torres put a call out to anyone who might have video recordings of Lorain-based salsa bands performing. Due to the passage of time, very little footage remains from bands of the 1970s, often considered the golden age of salsa.
Torres spoke on the great opportunity the Smithsonian has afforded the city. Not only is the memorabilia a great way to showcase the city’s history in Latin music, but a way to showcase the city as a whole, she said.
“This will put Lorain on the map,” Torres said. “Now, we’re the ninth-largest city (in Ohio), we have the largest percentage of Latinos… This is the third leg of what the Lorain Historical Society is doing. Two years ago, they did celebrating 100 years of Latinos in Lorain.”
Torres is also putting together a documentary for the 2026 Fourth of July celebration in Lorain. The hope, she said, is to bring members of the old Lorain salsa bands together for a massive all-star group concert.
The Smithsonian Institution will begin their exhibit on the history of Latin music across the United States in 2026. The exhibit will run until 2029, Torres said.
