This sketch portrays the nineteenth century village development at Ox Bow Bend as it appeared in 1851. The bridge on the left is the Columbus Street Bridge built in 1835. It connected Cleveland Centre (center of sketch) on the east side of the Cuyahoga River with Willeyville (not shown), another early nineteenth century village development, on the west side of the River. The building with a spire in approximately the middle of the Centre is St. Mary's on the Flats, the first Roman Catholic church built in Cleveland. The bucolic nature of this trading center/residential neighborhood as exhibited in this sketch was shattered in this same year (1851), when the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad arrived and built tracks, a roundhouse and a number of other train repair and maintenance buildings on 12 acres of land in the southwest part of the Centre. | Source: Cleveland State University, Michael Schwartz Library, Special CollectionsDownload Original File
Source
Cleveland State University, Michael Schwartz Library, Special Collections
