On February 9, Professor John Grabowski of CWRU and a nationally recognized expert on the history of Northeast Ohio, gave a lively talk to and entertained a spirited discussion with Club members on the history of Cleveland.
Professor Grabowski came reinforced with several dozen illustrations, the first of which showed Cleveland shortly after founding by Connecticut pioneers settling on land set aside for their state’s excess population. “They were looking for good farmland,” Grabowski said, “and meant the settlement to be a market center for farmers. In true New England fashion, the first thing they did was lay out a public square for the town,” the square taking a prominent place in the 19th-century sketch and still at the heart of Cleveland.
Two important developments changed Cleveland from the envisioned market town to an industrialized city, Grabowski said: the canal system linking Lake Erie to the Ohio River, and the discovery of minerals in Michigan and Minnesota, namely copper and iron ore. Somewhat later, the discovery of petroleum 130 miles east along Oil Creek in Pennsylvania opened the opportunity for Cleveland to become a refining and shipping hub, an opportunity extraordinarily exploited by the young accountant and commodities trader John D. Rockefeller.
Other interesting facts about Cleveland noted by Professor Grabowski:
Rockefeller established the Standard Oil Company along the Cuyahoga River about where Kingsbury Run enters the river today.
Location made Cleveland a good center for iron and steelmaking: iron ore came down the lakes; coal for blast furnaces was abundant from Pennsylvania; and there was plenty of water.
Extraordinary fortunes were made. Mansions were so grand on Euclid Avenue that England’s Baedeker guide to America suggested people see it. The fortunes made during the Gilded Age in Cleveland laid the foundations of the Cleveland Clinic, the Art Museum and more.
Ohio City on the west bank of the Cuyahoga River was not originally part of Cleveland. It developed independently and was a separate city until the 1850s.
Ohio City and the Tremont area to its south are now popular neighborhoods for young people desiring the benefits of downtown. Tremont, named for the Boston street and normally pronounced TREE-mont, is now sometimes humorously pronounced as it might be in French – TRAY-mon – for its rising status.
Irishtown Bend on the Cuyahoga was so named on account of Irish there loading and unloading lake boats. It is now being developed as a park, and the Cuyahoga itself has become the center of recreation in the city.
Immigrants developed their own communities, the original names of some still in use: Poles named their neighborhood Warszawa after Poland’s capital; and Czechs named theirs Praha (Prague) and Karlin.. Little Italy on the East Side was the most concentrated of ethnic neighborhoods; it got its start with Italian stone carvers working on monuments for Lake View Cemetery.
Downtown has been attracting significant numbers of young people. Nine stories of the Terminal Tower are being converted to apartments, and condominium projects are popular. The near West Side is rapidly changing, as is University Circle on the East Side.
Professor Grabowski, who has authored and co-authored books about Cleveland has supplied a bibliography of Cleveland history, which is available on our website here.