He wasn't called "Black Jack" when, in 1912, he married Helen Mulgrew from West 67th Street and the two newly weds moved into a house at 1377 West 69th Street. In 1912, he was Tommy McGinty, and he was one of Cleveland's best featherweight boxers.

Like world featherweight boxing champion Johnny Kilbane, Tommy McGinty was a second generation Irish-American who grew up in Cleveland's Old Angle and saw boxing as a way out of the poverty that was endemic to the Angle in early twentieth century Cleveland. By 1909, Tommy McGinty, just like Johnny Kilbane, was boxing under the management of the legendary Jimmy Dunn. Also like Kilbane, McGinty moved uptown in the years just before World War I to what is now the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood. However, while Kilbane went on to win the featherweight boxing title in 1912, McGinty's career was cut short in 1911 by an injury he suffered in a fight. Turning lemons into lemonade, McGinty withdrew from the ring and became one of Cleveland's earliest and most successful fight promoters.

In addition to promoting boxing matches in Cleveland, however, Tommy McGinty also promoted gambling, operating a cheat spot at 2077 West 25th Street that was famously raided by Cleveland Safety Director Elliot Ness on July 21, 1936. It was his promotion of gambling that gave Tommy McGinty the moniker "Black Jack" McGinty.

While McGinty's cheat spot on West 25th street catered to a lower economic class, McGinty also provided gambling opportunities to the rich and famous. In 1930, he built the Mounds Club on Chardon Road, just across the Lake County line. The Mounds Club was famous in Cleveland for two decades as a swanky night club that featured lively entertainment, alcohol and gambling. Like McGinty's cheat spot on West 25th Street, the Mounds Club too was often the target of raids by local law enforcement officials.

In 1950, after the State of Ohio had closed down the Mounds Club, Tommy McGinty, now better known as Thomas J. McGinty, took his gambling operations national and, along with several organized crime figures from Cleveland, founded the Desert Inn in Las Vegas. McGinty's ownership of the Desert Inn, as well as his association with alleged organized crime figures Moe Dalitz and Morris Kleinman, soon drew the attention of federal authorities. In 1951, McGinty was subpoenaed to testify before Senator Estes Kefauver's committee on organized crime in America.

McGinty avoided federal prosecution and shortly thereafter retired to West Palm Beach, Florida, where he died in 1970--a long way away from the home that he and Helen Mulgrew shared on West 69th Street in 1912.

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In November 1981, Standard Oil announced that it would build its new headquarters overlooking Cleveland's Public Square. The timing could not have been better. The city of Cleveland was financially troubled, the population was declining sharply, and businesses throughout the city were closing their doors.

The choice to build on the historic Public Square seemed fitting for the corporation. Under the leadership of John D. Rockefeller, the growth of Standard Oil (the progenitor of Sohio) had helped make Cleveland a center for manufacturing and industry. The new structure would firmly plant the corporation's Ohio company at the heart of the city, a sign of hope for a city that was losing its industrial and manufacturing base.

Standard Oil, founded in 1870, had long been one of Cleveland's most powerful and infamous companies. Within only two years of its establishment, the company had either absorbed or driven its Cleveland competitors out of business. Standard Oil would continue to expand, and eventually moved its headquarters to New York in 1885. By 1890, the 40 companies that made up the corporation controlled nearly 90% of the oil refining capacity in the United States. Many of the business tactics used to achieve these ends were suspect, and the companies' control over the oil supply and influence on the railroad industry was apparent. In 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court forced Standard Oil to dissolve into independent companies, out of which Standard Oil of Ohio was formed. Sohio, as it was named in 1929, remained an economic force in the region, dominating the refined products market in Ohio from 1930 until the middle of the century. Sohio continued to expand its markets outside of Ohio and investing in new products and services.

By the end of the 1970s, Sohio was the largest corporation in the city. With offices scattered throughout downtown, the industrial giant developed plans to construct a suitable symbol of its prominence. Designed by Gyo Obata of the St. Louis firm Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum, final plans for the hulking structure incorporated elements of postmodern architecture while maintaining a solid, functional appearance. When completed, the $200 million structure offered over 1.2 million square feet of office space. The building ran perpendicular to both Superior and Euclid Avenue, but curved inward and employed setbacks toward the top to help downplay its bulk. Although Sohio had initially planned for its headquarters to surpass the Terminal Tower in height, it met with resistance from city officials. As a result, upon completion the building fell short of the tower's peak by 55 feet.

Dedicated in April 1986, the building would soon be renamed the British Petroleum Building. British Petroleum (BP), a company that had merged with Sohio in 1969, purchased all of Sohio's stocks in 1987. Sohio ceased to exist, and BP slowly began to draw back its presence in Cleveland. In 1998, BP sold the building and moved its headquarters to Chicago. Since then, the building has been called by its address, 200 Public Square. As one of a relatively few Class-A office buildings, it has enjoyed success in attracting other major tenants such as Huntington Bank and Cliffs (formerly Cleveland Cliffs).

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Most people know about "The Arcade" in Cleveland. Some might be surprised, however, to find out that Downtown actually had three more of these incredible structures running parallel to each other between Euclid and Prospect Avenues. Two of them, the Colonial (1898) and Euclid (1911) Arcades, stood side by side 100 feet apart, while the Taylor Arcade (1907) was located to their east. The Taylor Arcade was subsumed into Taylor's department store in the 1930s. In contrast, the Colonial and Euclid have been connected at their midpoint by a food court since 2000. The Colonial Marketplace project also led to other renovations in and around the arcades, including the opening of a Marriott in the former Colonial Hotel on Prospect Avenue.

While Cleveland's "other" surviving arcades may lack the five-story grandeur of the original Arcade (which opened in 1890), they are still unique and impressive spaces. The sheer brightness of the Euclid Arcade, with its white marble floors, white terra cotta walls, and sky-lit white barrel-vaulted ceiling is truly something to behold. The Colonial Arcade offers a different flavor, sporting an iron and glass ceiling reminiscent of the original Arcade, as well as exquisite detailing on its balcony-level walls and fixtures.

It is difficult to imagine today just how busy these arcades were in the decades after they first opened. This was an era when people came to downtown Cleveland to shop and the arcades were made to accommodate the customers. Both the Colonial and Euclid Arcades had space for about 40 stores, including retail establishments, restaurants, places for amusement such as bowling alleys and billiard halls, and professional offices. As interior spaces located away from the street, the arcades provided an escape both from the weather and the hustle and bustle of the big city. Women in particular were said to "naturally seek them out" and spent "many a comfortable day flitting from store to store." It was remarked that in the arcades "there is no noise, except the steady hum of conversation and the swish of shoes on the pavement" and "all is clean and bright."

Today, the arcades do more than merely provide respite from Cleveland winters. Restyled the 5th Street Arcades, the old Euclid and Colonial Arcades have brought back a range of distinctive shops and eateries that contribute to downtown's revival.

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While no actual Civil War battles took place in Northeast Ohio, the role that its men played in the war was still a significant one. The 7th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which is better know as the 7th OVI, was a heroic group of men from all over Northeast Ohio who served proudly in the American Civil War. The 7th OVI was initially composed of 1800 men in 10 companies and was in fact only one of a number of infantry units composed of men from the state of Ohio. Indeed, when President Lincoln called on troops to join the war effort in April of 1862, there were enough volunteers from across Ohio to fill the entire quota of 75,000!

Most men from the 7th OVI were true Cleveland boys with a strong spirit to fight for the Union. These were men of culture and good social status, including clergymen, students, teachers, bankers, farmers, and mechanics. When the 7th Ohio was called into service on April 30, 1861 Colonel E.B. Tyler was chosen to lead the infantry. The 7th Ohio mustered at Camp Taylor in Cleveland, located near what is now East 30th and Woodland Avenue. The troops then were moved to Camp Dennison near Cincinnati to receive further training, weapons, and uniforms. It was here that most of the 7th signed up for three years of service to defend the Union. After their service began, they headed out to West Virginia on June 26, 1861.

When Colonel E. B. Tyler was promoted to General, William R. Creighton, with whom the history of the Seventh is identified, took over as Colonel of the 7th OVI. Creighton was part of the old Cleveland Light Guard militia unit which formed the nucleus of what became the 7th OVI. He led the 7th through many famous battles such as Cedar Mountain, Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg before he lost his life in the Battle of Ringgold, Atlanta on November 27, 1863. On that same day, Creighton's Lieutentant Colonel, Orrin J. Crane, also lost his life. Both Creighton and Crane always led their men into battle showing great courage and valor.

After Creighton and Crane lost their lives, the 7th headed south to aid in the Atlanta campaign. Before the campaign began, however, the 7th Ohio was pulled from action at the front because their enlistment time had expired. Those who wanted to continue to fight for the Union joined the 5th Ohio. The rest of the regiment was mustered out, with its men paid and discharged at Camp Cleveland on July 8, 1864.

A war historian wrote of the 7th regiment that "[a]ll in all, considering the number of its battles, its marches, its losses, its conduct in action, it may be safely said that not a single regiment in the United States gained more lasting honor or deserved better of its country than the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry." The unit lost 10 officers and 174 men to hostile action and 2 officers and 87 men to disease. The memory of the 7th OVI, however, will live forever in marbled monuments around the country. One such monument can be found in Woodland Cemetery in Cleveland, where both Creighton and Crane are buried.

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The film takes place in a fictional town called Hohman, Indiana. Most exteriors were shot in Toronto. Interior scenes were done on a stage set. But in every sense, Ohio’s Tremont neighborhood is where Ralphie Parker and his family experienced A Christmas Story.

3159 West 11th Street, just south of Clark Avenue, is A Christmas Story House. Across the road is A Christmas Story Museum and a gift shop. All three locations are open 365 days a year for tours, along with a chance to buy everything from leg lamp nightlights and pink bunny suits to Lifebuoy Soap and faux Red Ryder carbine-action, two-hundred-shot, range-model air rifles. Be careful not to shoot your eye out!

The house was built in 1895: a colonial-style home in an area comprised largely of families whose men worked in the nearby Flats. The Mittal Steel plant (formerly J&L and Republic Steel) can be seen from the house’s back yard. The neighborhood’s arc mirrored that of Tremont—clinging to working-class status for much of the 20th century and floundering in the 1960s and 1970s when suburban flight and freeway construction desecrated the area. Spurred by artists and urban pioneers, Tremont began its upswing several decades later, but Ralphie’s neighborhood—well outside the borders of “hip Tremont”—has remained solidly blue collar. According to staff at the Christmas Story House, 3159’s basement used to host many an illegal cockfight.

The fortunes of the house, and eventually the immediately surrounding area, began to change in the early 1980s when director Bob Clark began scouting for a location in which to set A Christmas Story. Clark visited more than 20 cities looking for the perfect house. Since a vintage department store was needed for the parade and Santa-line scenes, Clark also sent letters to about 100 department stores around the country. Only Higbee’s in downtown Cleveland responded, but that was okay because both the department store and 3159 West 11th were ideal. Clark also liked the way the Tremont neighborhood had looked in 1978’s The Deer Hunter. Local auto club members lent Clark their antique cars. To thank the city, the producers named the house’s fictional thoroughfare Cleveland Street.

A mild sort of cinematic history was made in 1983 when A Christmas Story was released. The film was marginally successful at the outset, but its accolades and popularity increased over time. Leonard Maltin gave the film four stars, calling it “delightful” and “truly funny.” AOL, IGN, E! Entertainment, and at least one viewer poll have cited A Christmas Story as the top holiday film of all time. The movie earned Bob Clark two Genie Awards and in 2012, A Christmas Story was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Every year, TBS runs A Christmas Story for 24 consecutive hours beginning on Christmas Eve.

Twenty-one years after the film was released, entrepreneur Brian M. Jones, a native of San Diego, bought the house on eBay for $150,000. He used revenue from his business, The Red Rider Leg Lamp Company, for the down payment. It was, in the words of Old Man Parker, a “major award,” an opportunity to create a new kind of museum in Cleveland. Watching the movie frame by frame, Jones drew interior plans and spent $240,000 to reconfigure the structure as a single-family dwelling and a near-perfect replica of the movie set. Jones then stocked the interior with movie props. Entering the house, visitors now are greeted by the infamous leg lamp, the Parker’s decorated tree, a kitchen stocked with Ovaltine, and the sink where Randy hid. Upstairs, they can see the bathroom where Ralphie’s decoder ring and a bar of Lifebuoy soap reside. The back yard, where several scenes were filmed, looks just like the movie. Near the front entrance is a memorial bench dedicated to Clark. It sits on the exact spot where he had a cameo as a nosy neighbor.

The house and museum opened to the public on November 25, 2006, with original cast members attending the grand opening. The site drew 4,300 visitors during its opening weekend, and tens of thousands of faithful fans have made the pilgrimage since. Most went because they, like many pundits and critics, believe that A Christmas Story is one of Hollywood’s best. A few, however, may have been “double-dog dared” to attend.

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In July of 1964, motorists traveling along the Inner Belt Freeway south of Memorial Shoreway were greeted by the newest billboard from Shaker Heights auto dealer David L. Blaushild. Bold letters spanning a giant 80- by 20-foot sign declared: “Let’s Stop Killing Lake Erie, have your council vote Anti-Pollution! write…David Blaushild 16003 Chagrin.” The environmentally conscious car salesman acquired free use of 15 billboards in the Cleveland area, and was using them to draw attention to the issue of lake pollution. A series of advertisements in Cleveland’s newspapers complemented the imposing signage, and called on the citizenry to join the crusade. Blaushild asked Clevelanders to express their support for the cause by filling out and mailing in a coupon to his dealership, which would be forwarded to public officials. An overflow of public response prompted the salesman to expand his efforts. He began sending both petitions and an antipollution resolution to those that replied to his ads. The respondents could then circulate the petitions within their communities throughout the greater Cleveland area, and submit with the proposed statement of position to local governing bodies for adoption. By some accounts, over half a million signatures were gathered between June and August. Twenty-six towns along Lake Erie passed Blaushild’s resolution calling on the Ohio Governor to take steps towards preventing industrial and sanitary pollution from reaching public waters.

David Blaushild’s Moreland-based Chevrolet dealership served as headquarters for the petition drive. Both his surname and automobile promotions had long been known in the Cleveland and Shaker Heights area. Just one year prior, he had caused a minor stir with another billboard located near Fairhill (Stokes Boulevard) and Petrarca Roads. As described by Cleveland Plain Dealer, “Tired businessmen driving home…have been met by the sight of two scantily clad young women cavorting on the catwalk of a billboard.” Police intervened after receiving complaints, which Blaushild chalked up to the doings of rival auto dealers. Beyond enlisting bikini-models to sell cars, he was also known for imaginative radio and print advertisements. In 1963, Blaushild employed the Cleveland Orchestra to record a minute-long jingle promoting a “classically, classical deal at David Blaushild Chevrolet.”

Beyond his sometimes-questionable promotional tactics, Blaushild’s name carried weight in the auto sales industry. Lester Blaushild, David’s father, opened a franchise of the Star-Durant car line around 1921 at 12100 Kinsman Road. Keeping up with the rapidly changing automobile industry, Lester switched to the Hudson-Essex line before finally settling with a Chrysler dealership in 1931. The Latvian immigrant brought members of his family to Cleveland during this time, including his brother Bennie. Bennie started working for Lester in 1924, and soon after opened B.W Blaushild Motors, Inc. at 15215 Kinsman Road. The Dodge-Plymouth dealership relocated within Mount Pleasant at 14307 Kinsman Road in 1932, and eventually opened a showroom at the Kinsman-Lee intersection in Shaker Heights at 16333 Kinsman Road by 1948. All the while, Lester’s dealership grew by bounds. Regularly touted as the largest Chrysler dealership in the region, at one time it was the third largest in the country. In 1949, Lester opened a new Chrysler-Plymouth showroom at 16005 Kinsman Road.

David Blaushild worked for his father’s auto dealership beginning in 1938. With the advent of World War II, David enlisted in the U.S Army Air Forces. Joining in 1942, he served as a photo intelligence officer in Europe for nearly the duration of the war. Upon his discharge, Lester offered David the choice to work in the mechanic shop or frontroom. David chose the latter, at which point his father removed himself from the business’ daily operations. Following the relocation of both the Dodge-Plymouth and Chrysler-Plymouth auto dealerships to Shaker Heights at midcentury, the Blaushild name became a fixture in the emerging Kinsman-Lee auto row. A year after Lester’s death in 1958, David transitioned the business into a Chevrolet dealership. The Chevrolet dealership expanded to include a showroom across the street at 16222 Chagrin Boulevard in 1963.

A trip to Shaker Lakes in the summer of 1963 drastically altered the trajectory of David Blaushild’s life for the next decade. Hoping to share fond childhood memories of visiting the recreation grounds with his young daughter, David Blaushild arrived to find the body of water emitting a rancid odor and littered with garbage. Similar to most cities situated along Lake Erie, both Shaker Heights’ and Cleveland’s sewage infrastructure was outdated and ineffective. With excessive rain, the sewer systems regularly failed and raw waste flowed into the surrounding rivers and lakes. He quickly discovered that Lake Erie was in just as bad of shape. In addition to being a final destination for much of the region’s sewage overflow, the lake was used as a dumping ground for untreated chemical waste by local industries.

Blaushild immediately began working to raise public awareness about the sad state of the region’s water supply. He was not alone in advocating for the modernization of sewage systems or holding industries accountable for breaking antipollution laws. Increasingly since the early 1960s, scientists and environmental activists voiced their concerns over the alarming levels of pollution in Lake Erie. Blaushild, however, effectively used his skills as an advertiser, salesperson and showman to bring this crisis to light and build a base of support that could influence policymakers. In addition to his billboard and print campaign, Blaushild booked television appearances, radio interviews and a speaking tour to spread his message. Local newspapers similarly began to call on lawmakers to take action on water pollution issues.


As support for Blaushild’s cause grew, governing bodies of communities along Lake Erie were quick to adopt his resolution. Cleveland Mayor Ralph Locher initially rejected the non-binding proposal, however, citing the potential negative economic impact on local industry if antipollution laws were strictly enforced. Following public outcry, the resolution passed in the fall of 1964. The following year, Ohio’s Governor requested a federal government conference be held concerning Lake Erie pollution. Blaushild used the opportunity to present state officials over 200,000 signed petitions and letters that had been collected over the course of his campaign.

The Woods and Water Club of Cleveland named Blaushild their Man of the Year in 1964, noting that he had “single-handedly…done more than any other person to fight pollution of our lake and waterways.” The highly visible media campaign, however, only marked the beginnings of a nearly decade-long battle waged by Blaushild to raise public awareness about the region’s water pollution crisis. In 1965, Blaushild sued the City of Cleveland for failing to enforce water pollution laws. He asserted that the local government turned a blind eye to local industries that dumped untreated chemical waste into the Cuyahoga River.


The case was drawn out over seven years, eventually making it to the Supreme Court. In the end, Blaushild lost. It was determined that the City was not the appropriate regulatory authority for enforcement of the antipollution laws. Despite its outcome, the lawsuit had served its purpose. The harmful and illegal dumping practices employed by a number of Cleveland industries were brought out into the open. Coinciding with the national media coverage of the 1969 Cuyahoga River fire, the work of environmental activists such as Blaushild attracted attention to the dire state of Lake Erie and set the stage for future regulatory protections of the region’s water supply.

Blaushild stepped away from his public role in the fight against water pollution during the early 1970s. Since the eye-opening visit to Shaker Lake in 1963, the crusade to save Lake Erie had taken over much of his life. Reflecting a tenacity and flare for salesmanship that is often disparagingly associated with used car dealers, Blaushild instigated lawmakers to publicly recognize and respond to the lax enforcement of antipollution laws. His campaign mobilized residents living near Lake Erie into action by offering a platform from which they could express their concerns.

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The years 1856 to 1865 were tough ones for all Americans, as the country reeled toward and then fought a bloody civil war over slavery. But they were especially tough years for Maria Quarles Barstow. In 1856, her husband, William A. Barstow, the third governor of Wisconsin, left office under a cloud of a scandal as the result of campaign law violations in his re-election effort. Then came his failure and embarrassment on the battlefield in the Civil War. And finally, just months after the war ended, William Barstow suddenly died, leaving her a 42-year old widow with four boys--ranging in age from eleven to nineteen, to raise.

And that's when Cleveland, and the house at 4211 Franklin Avenue, gave her a reprieve from a horrendous decade. Prior to 1865, Maria had never lived in Cleveland. However, her husband's family were west side pioneer settlers and she came to Cleveland in late December of that year to bury her husband and to start her life anew. Her husband's spinster sister and bachelor brother took her and the boys in--all of them living together in a small house on State (West 29th) Street. Then, in 1868, she had a opportunity to gather her family together in their own home. She rented the new Second Empire style house near the corner of Franklin Avenue and Harbor (West 44th) Street that had just been built by German immigrant carpenter Ferdinand Dryer.

Maria had landed in a good neighborhood. Just across the street from 4211 Franklin lived Hannes Tiedeman, who had not yet torn down his modest house and replaced it with Franklin Castle. Also living on the street a few blocks to the west was Stephen Buhrer, who had just been elected Cleveland's mayor. Up the street toward Franklin Circle lived Henry Coffinberry, a prominent early Cleveland industrialist and son of Judge Coffinberry. Further up the street was coal magnate and real estate developer Daniel Rhodes. Living next door to Rhodes were his daughter and son-in-law Marcus Hanna, who one day would put William McKinley in the White House. Two of Rhodes's sons, including noted American historian James Ford Rhodes, also lived nearby on the Avenue.

Maria Barstow and her sons only lived in the house at 4211 Franklin Avenue for about three years. It was likely financial circumstances that forced her in 1872 to move back in with her husband's family on State Street. But perhaps the three years in the new house on Franklin Avenue were long enough to stabilize and rebuild her family, and introduce her sons to Cleveland's business elite. Frank Barstow married a daughter of Stephen Buhrer, becoming not only connected to this Cleveland political family, but also to John D. Rockefeller, a long-time friend of Buhrer. Likely through this family connection, Frank met Rockefeller and eventually became one of the founders of the original Standard Oil Trust. He amassed a fortune by the time of his death in 1909.

Maria Barstow survived her husband William by more than 50 years, dying in 1916 in Lima, Ohio, at the age of 93. The former first lady of Wisconsin is buried alongside her husband William in Brookmere Cemetery, on the southwest side of Cleveland.

The house at 4211 Franklin has been home over the years to other interesting people, including the vice-president of a large Cleveland industrial business from 1879 to 1883, and an Ohio circuit court judge whose family owned the house for almost 40 years from 1883 to 1920. But in more recent years the house fell into disrepair and faced foreclosure and possible demolition. It was rescued in 2012 by the Ohio City Near West Development Corporation. The stately nineteenth century home now has new owners who have restored to its nineteenth century beauty and grandeur.

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School children walking past the northwest corner of Franklin Boulevard and West 65th Street will someday remember it as where the Rite Aid neighborhood drugstore was located. Adults in the neighborhood remember that it used to be where the old Pick-N-Pay grocery store stood. Only the older residents of the neighborhood remember that up until the mid-1960s the Kaufman Funeral Home stood on this corner. And perhaps there are only a few, if any, left in the neighborhood who remember that, before it was the Kaufman Funeral Home, the grand old house on the corner of Franklin Boulevard and West 65th Street belonged to George August Tinnerman, a German immigrant who launched one of the great industrial enterprises in the history of Cleveland.

George August Tinnerman was born in Bavaria in 1845. In 1847, the year before the 1848 Revolutions which shook central Europe from Vienna to Paris, George immigrated to America with his parents Henry and Sophia Tinnerman. Like his father who was a wheelright, George entered the trades but as a tinner. In 1868, he opened a hardware store on Lorain Avenue--just east of its intersection with Fulton Road. Among the products George sold were cast iron stoves. In 1875, according to his son Albert, George became dissatisfied with the cumbersome cast iron stoves and invented the first steel range--a forerunner of today's range stoves. George became so successful in selling his new steel stoves that, in 1913, he closed his hardware store and began to exclusively manufacture stoves and ranges.

In 1890, as George Tinnerman grew financially successful, he and his family moved from their house on Fulton, which abutted the Tinnerman stove and range manufacturing plant, to a more fashionable address on the northwest corner of Franklin Boulevard and Gordon Street (now West 65th Street). George and his wife Caroline completed the raising of their four children in this house, and, when the children became adults, three of them acquired houses on Franklin Boulevard in the 6000-7000 block--none more than a few minutes walk from their parents' home on the corner of West 65th. Members of the Tinnerman family continued to live on Franklin Boulevard until well into the decade of the 1940s.

In 1925, George A. Tinnerman died and his son Albert H. Tinnerman, who until 1938 lived at 6910 Franklin Boulevard, took over the family business. In 1925, Albert invented a new fastener for stoves called a "speed nut." As it turned out, Albert's invention had application not only in the manufacture of stoves, but also in the manufacture of automobiles and aircraft. In the 1930s, Albert's son, George A. Tinnerman II, convinced Henry Ford to use the speed nuts in his automobiles, and in the 1940s, during World War II, the United States government also began using Tinnerman's speednuts in its aircraft. One source claimed that the federal government's use of the Tinnerman speed nut not only reduced the weight of American war planes, but also cut production time in half.

In 1950, Tinnerman Products-- now a national manufacturer of speed nuts and other clips and fasteners, moved from its original location on Fulton Road to a new state of the arts facility on Brookpark Road in the suburb of Brooklyn. During the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, Tinnerman Products continued to grow under the guidance of Albert Tinnerman and then his daughter Alberta Buttris, a third generation Tinnerman and granddaughter of George A. Tinnerman. In 1969, the company's separate corporate existence in Cleveland came to an end when it merged with Cleveland industrial giant, Eaton Corporation.

Today, the Tinnerman Stove and Range Company building at 2048 Fulton Road is home to Vista Color Imaging, a visual marketing solutions business. The former 100,000 square foot Tinnerman Products headquarters and factory in Brooklyn is now vacant and in search of a new business owner. And at the corner of Franklin Boulevard and West 65th Street, a Rite Aid drug store now stands where the fashionable home of George A. Tinnerman once stood. But, with three other homes of the George Tinnerman family still standing on the 6000-7000 block, you can still feel the Tinnerman presence on Franklin Boulevard.

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No other president stirred the imagination of the American public like Abraham Lincoln. From his humble beginnings to his dramatic death, Lincoln's life and times have seeped into the mythology of the country. His name, face and deeds are memorialized in hundreds of American cities, including Cleveland.

Lincoln visited Cleveland only twice: once in life and once in death. There are no extant photos of his first visit, which occurred on February 15, 1861, when Lincoln was on his way from Illinois to his inauguration in Washington D.C. Contemporary newspaper accounts captured the excitement as crowds gathered at the elegant Weddell house on the corner of Bank (West 6th) Street and Superior Avenue to hear Lincoln speak from the balcony. The staunchly Democrat Cleveland Plain Dealer briefly put aside its political bias to celebrate the historic occasion.

The Plain Dealer spent much of the next four years criticizing the president and his policies, but it once again put politics aside to mourn Lincoln’s death in April, 1865. The slain president's funeral train arrived in Cleveland on the morning of April 28. The casket was then drawn by horse and carriage to Monument Park (Public Square) followed by a procession of dignitaries and veterans. Thousands of Cleveland area residents gathered in the rain to file past the open casket.

Lincoln was in the news again in Cleveland in 1923, as plans for a local memorial were debated. Controversy arose over the choice of sculptor and the location of the statue. Max Kalish ultimately was chosen as sculptor. The originally proposed site for the memorial was the intersection of Huron Road and Euclid Avenue in Playhouse Square. After much debate, however, the statue ended up on Mall A, in front of (but now behind) the Board of Education building, which became the Drury Hotel in 2016. (The building's main entrance originally faced west until East 4th Street was removed in 1988.) Cleveland schoolchildren donated pennies and nickels to fund the statue.

The memorial was unveiled with great ceremony on Lincoln's birthday in 1932 and served as the location for Lincoln birthday celebrations for many years afterwards.

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In 1886, 69-year-old Abraham Teachout, a fierce supporter of the Prohibition movement gave a speech at the party's annual Cuyahoga County convention which he ended with the words: "The saloons must go but I am afraid I will not see the day." Teachout, who had been the Prohibition Party's district congressional candidate in 1884, did not live to see the age of Prohibition—but it was not for lack of trying. The owner and builder of the Teachout house at 4514 Franklin Boulevard, lived 26 more years after giving that speech, dying in 1912 at the age of 95 years old. America's short-lived Prohibition era would not begin until the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920—some eight years after Teachout's death.

Abraham Teachout, one of Cleveland's wealthy nineteenth century businessmen and a close friend of John D. Rockefeller, was born in western New York in 1817. In 1836, he moved with his family to northeastern Ohio, settling in North Royalton, where the Teachouts are considered to be one of that suburb's early pioneer families. Over the course of the next 20 years Abraham engaged in a number of businesses moving to several cities, including Painesville, Columbus and Chattanooga, Tennessee, before achieving success as a Cleveland lumber merchant. Teachout was one of the first to ship lumber out of the South by rail to urban centers north of the Ohio River. He also was founder of the A. Teachout Co., which specialized in the manufacture of doors, sashes and other related building construction materials. The company, which was eventually headed by three generations of the Teachout family, had its offices on Prospect Avenue (formerly Michigan Street) in downtown Cleveland for many years.

The Teachout House is one of the most interesting houses on Franklin Boulevard. The house has over 5,000 square feet of living area and is notable for its impressive windows and its somewhat onion-shaped cupola. Teachout purchased the land upon which the Teachout house was built in 1883. At the time, he and his family lived on Fulton Road. It is unknown how long the house was under construction, but the family moved into the house shortly after construction was completed in 1887. Abraham lived in the house until his death in 1912. During his 25 years of residence on Franklin Boulevard, the elderly businessman was often seen being driven in his carriage by his African-American carriage driver, Mack Henry, a former slave. After Abraham's death, his widow (who was his third wife--the first two wives predeceased him) remained in the house another decade, selling the house to the Michael and Mary Malloy family in 1924.

Abraham Teachout was a notable supporter of Hiram College. Hiram was founded in 1850 by the Christian Disciples of Christ congregation of which Teachout was a long time member. He worshiped at the Franklin Circle Christian Church  for nearly 50 years and served as superintendent of the church's Sunday school program for 25 years. Abraham sat on the Hiram College Board of Trustees for many years, as did his son Albert and later his grandson David. It was as a result of a $10,000 gift by Abraham Teachout that Hiram College built its first college library in 1900. Prior to the construction of a new library building in 1995, Hiram College's library was known as the Teachout-Cooper Memorial Library. Abraham Teachout and many members of his immediate family and other family relatives are buried in the Teachout family plot at Riverside Cemetery.

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– Adele von Ohl Parker, Los Angeles, California. Summer, 1916.

As World War I raged across battlefields in Europe, Adele von Ohl Parker, nationally known daredevil rider, waged a campaign in the United States for the creation of a mounted Red Cross to be composed entirely of upper-class horsewomen. Conscious of the limitations that society placed upon women like herself in the early twentieth century, she believed that women would rally around her campaign. She wasn't wrong, but before such a mounted Red Cross could be successfully organized here, World War I came to an end.

Adele Ohl was born on December 13, 1885, into an upper-class family in Plainfield, New Jersey. Her maternal Scottish ancestors had operated horse farms there since the early eighteenth century, and were said to have supplied horses to George Washington during the American Revolution. Adele grew up around horses and learned to ride them expertly at a riding academy in Plainfield that was owned by her grandmother and managed by her mother. When she was still a teenager, she began doing daredevil tricks with her horse Delmar. In 1905, after adding back onto her last name the "von" that her paternal German ancestors had dropped when they came to America, nineteen year old Adele von Ohl appeared at the Hippodrome Theater in New York City. There, riding Delmar, she performed an act in which they plunged off a high platform into a tank of water below. The act caught the attention of the East Coast media, who were quick to label her one of America's most daring woman riders, also noting that Adele did not ride a horse sidesaddle like most women then did, but instead rode astride her horse as men did.

Adele von Ohl's act also caught the attention of William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, who hired her in 1907 to perform tricks on horseback for his Wild West extravaganza. She toured the country with Buffalo Bill's troupe from 1907 to 1909. In that latter year, she married James Letcher Parker, a bronco rider also performing with Cody's show. They both left Cody's Wild West for the Vaudeville circuit, appearing over the course of the next two decades in acts with "Wild West" themes, like "Cheyenne Days," "Texas Round-up," and "Rodeo Days." During this period, Adele Parker also appeared with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and worked for several years as a stunt woman in Hollywood, appearing in early movies with cowboy star Tom Mix. In the fall of 1928, Parker traveled to Cleveland, where she was scheduled to appear at Keith's Palace Theater. Her show, however, was canceled and, as she later said, "I was stranded in Cleveland with two horses and seven cents." Perhaps she recognized that Vaudeville was coming to an end, and perhaps she also recognized that, at age 42, her daredevil riding days were coming to an end too. Whatever the reason, she approached A. Z. Baker, President of the Union Stockyards in Cleveland, where her horses were being stabled, and asked him if she could perform an exhibition of daredevil riding at the livestock show that was being held that Fall in downtown Cleveland at Public Hall. She then used the exhibition to generate interest in a new riding school – the Von Ohl School of Horsemanship – that she decided she would open in Cleveland, a city she believed held promise to become an important equestrian center in the Midwest. And thus the stage was set for the beginning of the second act of her equestrian career.

During the years 1928 and 1929, Parker sited her new riding school at various places in the Cleveland area, including the new Equestrium built by the Union Stockyards at 6800 Denison Avenue in Cleveland, and the Armory of Troop A, 107th Cavalry of the Ohio National Guard located in Shaker Heights. Neither place turned out to be a good fit, and, in the fall of 1929, she moved her school to North Olmsted, Ohio, where she rented six acres of land on the Henry Giesel farm. (A decade later, she would purchase the land from the Giesel family.) Located on Mastick Road, just west of Clague Road, it had bridle paths that led down into Cleveland Metroparks Rocky River Reservation, making it an ideal location for a riding school.

It is not clear exactly when or why the Von Ohl School of Horsemanship became Parker's Ranch, but the "when" was certainly no later than by May 23, 1930, when a short article about a YWCA horse riding event there appeared in the Plain Dealer. The "why" for the name change may have been a nod to her husband who helped her start the ranch in North Olmsted, but then soon thereafter departed. The two were divorced several years later. Following his departure, Adele's brother Percy, a dog trainer, and her sister Winnonah ("Nona"), an animal trainer and talented horseback rider in her own right, moved onto Parker's Ranch to assist their sister in its operation. Over time the ranch grew to have some 34 buildings, including four barns which stabled from 60-70 horses, half of whom were owned by the ranch. The ranch also became home to an assortment of other animals, including cows, donkeys, goats, chickens, rabbits and pomeranian dogs. According to the 1940 census, the ranch also came to employ a staff of at least ten persons, ranging from secretaries to cooks to handymen to stablemen. The Plain Dealer, in an article that appeared on June 22, 1930, called it a "dude ranch in industrial Ohio."

While Parker's Ranch was founded as a riding school, it soon became much more than that as Adele Parker initiated programs and events at the ranch that focused on children, including disabled children. Shortly after opening Parker's Ranch, Adele started a day camp for children. Day camp was inspired by a program she had developed for kids in Los Angeles a decade earlier called "Junior Rough Riders." Held every summer for many years, day camp at Parker's Ranch was four days each week for an eight-week session. At day camp, children were not only taught how to ride horses, but also to love horses and how to care for them. Along the way, they were also taught a lot of life lessons from Parker and her staff. She also instituted a number of annual events on the ranch, which gave children opportunities to perform on horseback in front of friends, families and neighbors. One of those events was the annual Mother's Day Show. Another was the Annual Horse Show. And, starting in 1959, the fiftieth anniversary of her last year with Buffalo Bill Cody, Parker began a Wild West show of her own, modeling it after Cody's. Proceeds from the annual Wild West shows, as well as from other events on the ranch, went to the Society for Crippled Children, today known as Easter Seals.

In addition to the programs, events and other activities at Parker's Ranch, Adele Parker also gave riding lessons at Cleveland's famed Karamu House to African American children, a number of whom appeared in riding competitions representing Parker's Ranch. She also found time to pursue other passions. She was a talented sketch artist and oil painter. She also was, in 1961, one of the founding trustees of the Olmsted Historical Society. Parker continued to appear at Cleveland area events on horseback well into her seventies, performing at her fifth annual Wild West Show in 1963 when she was 77 years old. When Parker died at her ranch on January 21, 1966 from heart failure, the papers reported that she had no surviving family. And yet they also noted that more than 300 area children had attended her funeral. These children were part of the estimated 10,000 children in Cuyahoga, Medina and Summit Counties that she taught to ride at Parker's Ranch during the Second Act of her equestrian career. In a real sense, they were her surviving family as well as her legacy in northeast Ohio.

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Travel back in time to the sixties, and the epicenter of Cleveland’s counterculture scene may well have been 11605 Euclid Avenue, where a small and humble bar was nestled in an ordinary storefront built in front of a turreted Victorian rooming house on the north side of the street between East 115th and 116th Streets. There, one could find an inclusive atmosphere that hosted patrons of many backgrounds and worldviews, a place where Marty and Sam would welcome their patrons with a pint of beer. This little gathering place was Adele’s Lounge Bar, which opened in 1954 in a commercial building that also housed L. Schwartz Antique Shop next door.

One faithful patron, Paul Hilcoff, recalls, “It was a long, fairly narrow space. When you entered from the street, the bar was along the wall on the right. An aisle ran behind the bar and the remaining space was filled with wooden tables. I'm fairly sure there were no booths…. By evening on most days, it was crowded, and there was a perceptible buzz in the air. On weekend nights you'd be lucky to squeeze in there at all, let alone get a table. Lighting was typical barroom-dim, but adequate to pick out faces at the other end of the room… just the usual stale-beer-and-cigarette-smoke background radiation that always permeated well-attended bars.” Yet there was something more important than appearances at Adele’s—the atmosphere and culture it created.

Adele’s is remembered for its diverse clientele, as it was home to bikers, college kids, poets, artists, musicians, hippies, members of the LGBTQ community, interracial couples, and the not-so-occasional high schooler. Hilcoff describes what made Adele’s important to its former patrons: “One of the chief attractions of Adele's, at least from my perspective, was that it was a place where outsiders and misfits could feel comfortable. This atmosphere had already been established by the time I started going there.” But by being home to so many diverse patrons, Adele's caught the attention of University Circle institutional leaders and the Cleveland and Circle police forces, who increasingly disliked the unpredictability and sometimes disorder along Euclid Avenue.

Adele’s peaceful bliss and coexistence within its own community would soon come to end. In the years after its formation in 1957, the University Circle Development Foundation (UCDF) set its sights on de-urbanizing the Circle as well as discouraging establishments and crowds that it believed would be undesirable for the community. Unfortunately, in its view, Adele's Lounge Bar and other popular hangouts along Euclid Avenue fit this description. 

As a home to countercultural ideas, Adele’s saw a lot of activism being conducted underneath its roof. Adele’s was also known as one of the few inclusive bars that were friendly toward LGBTQ people, which troubled a lot of traditionalists. In addition, Adele’s was home to underground activist and post-Beat poet d. a. levy, who infamously ran multiple periodicals such as Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle and Marrahwanna Quarterly. Institutional leaders had no room for places like Adele’s in their new plans for the Circle.

Adele’s had a darker side that made it easier for its antagonizers to prey upon it. The culture of Adele's was not so different from the counterculture sweeping the rest of the country. Adele’s, neatly located near Case Tech and Western Reserve University, attracted hordes of young people, many of them from nearby colleges or the Heights suburbs, and some of them engaged in illicit drug use or consumed alcohol under age. By 1966 the use of marijuana, LSD, and other drugs started to catch the attention of the community and law enforcement. Some accounts suggest that dealers sold drugs to adolescents not only outside of the lounge but in it as well. There were also multiple accounts of alcohol being served to minors in the establishment. With violations of this nature, Adele’s soon found itself in the court systems.

The way to permanently shut down Adele’s Lounge Bar seemed to be through inflicting harsh punishments for liquor violations. Throughout its remaining years, Adele’s would spend a great amount of time temporarily closed or operating without a liquor license. Tragically, on February 3, 1969, a fire broke out in the early morning hours, leaving Adele’s completely destroyed and condemned by the city. Authorities blamed an arsonist for the fire, but the destruction of the business would go unpunished. Finally, then, fire accomplished what heavy policing and litigation could not—forcing Adele’s to close for good.

Though some in the media derided it as a haven for “alcoholics and LSD freaks,” Adele’s and similar establishments nearby served as oases for poets, musicians, and activists. And, as one article stated, Adele’s had been “perhaps the only place where an interracial couple wouldn’t feel watched, or where people could talk about socialism or the Bomb without being harassed.” Despite the backlash that Adele’s stirred, its community seemed to look back fondly on the decade of peace, love, and drugs when Adele’s was the heart of countercultural Cleveland.

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At the turn of the twentieth century, Adella Prentiss Hughes, musical organizer and pioneer, sought to change the music scene in her hometown of Cleveland. She took a music degree that she earned from Vassar College in 1890, and went on a grand tour of Europe. The focus of her trip? To study international music. She spent her time well, by networking with a number of world famous conductors. By the time she returned to America in 1891, she had made a name for herself as a professional accompanist and soloist, yet she wanted a change. She found her true passion in the art of promotion. She especially loved promoting Cleveland's thriving musical performances.

By 1901, Adella was a fixture in the Cleveland music scene. Being extremely motivated, fashion forward, and equipped with a brilliant mind, she regularly booked outdoor performances. Her favorite venue was Grays Armory. She ultimately wanted to gain enough public interest to fund a permanent Cleveland Orchestra. Over the next 15 years, Hughes kept a steady stream of operas, symphonies, ballets and orchestras playing at Grays Armory. She finally had the idea for the Musical Arts Association in 1915, and just three years later, the Cleveland Orchestra was created. The Orchestra was musically anchored by Russian conductor Nikolai Sokoloff and financially led by a dedicated following of businessmen and professionals.  

The orchestra was such a hit that it needed to have its own concert space. Under Hughes's direction, the funding for Severance Hall began in 1930. She was able to secure over five million dollars in public donations, and nearly three million dollars from John Long Severance. Hughes was so successful in raising money for the construction of the building that she had money left over. So much so that when construction was completed they had money left over to begin an endowment earmarked for the maintenance of the building. The completion of Severance Hall and the creation of the Cleveland Orchestra marked the fulfillment of two lifelong dreams for Hughes. Her love for music, along with her determination, helped bring these dreams to fruition.

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It was never easy to navigate your way to the birthplace of Isaac Campbell Kidd, one of Cleveland's most important World War II war heroes. The little grey house, built in about 1875, was located at 3059 Mabel Court. To get there, you had to know a little Ohio City geography. From Franklin Circle, you drove west on Franklin Boulevard. Then, just after you passed the Robert Russell Rhodes mansion (today, the Rhodes Mansion Apartments), you would turn left onto West 31st Place, and then quickly left again onto Mabel Court, a winding little alley with just a handful of houses on it. The house in which Admiral Kidd was born sat about 100 feet down the alley, on the right side.

So just who was Isaac Campbell Kidd? When the USS Arizona went down during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941—a date which President Franklin Roosevelt said "will live on in infamy"—1171 members of the Arizona crew of 1511 men lost their lives. Among them was Rear Admiral Isaac Campbell Kidd. The USS Arizona was his flagship.

According to eyewitness accounts, when the attack began, Admiral Kidd, who was not aboard the ship at the time, bravely rushed to it and assumed command as the senior officer. As the attack progressed, a Japanese plane dropped a bomb on the Arizona which struck its forward magazine, blowing up the ship. The Admiral, standing on the bridge above that magazine was killed instantly, almost certainly incinerated by the blast. No part of his body was ever found. Only his Class of 1906 Naval Academy ring. And that was found welded to part of the bridgehead, undoubtedly the part where the Admiral's hand rested at the moment of his death. Kidd was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Isaac Campbell Kidd was born in that little grey house on Mabel Court on March 26, 1884. He spent all of his boyhood years growing up on Cleveland's west side. He attended Cleveland public schools and he graduated from West High School in 1902. At his class's graduation, he gave the commencement address, ironically warning against Japanese military aggression in the Pacific. He was recommended for an appointment to the Naval Academy by famed Ohio Senator Marcus Hanna, and attended the prestigious military college, excelling in both football and boxing, and becoming the college's heavyweight boxing champion.

In 1906, following his graduation from the Academy, he served in a number of important expeditions as the United States began to grow its modern navy and strive to become a world sea power. He first served on the USS Columbia during the Marine Expeditionary Force to the Canal Zone in 1906. The following year, he participated in President Theodore Roosevelt's "Great White Fleet," sixteen battleships that circumnavigated the world over a fourteen month period.

During much of World War I, before America's entry, Kidd served on the USS Pittsburgh. The ship patrolled off the coast of Mexico, once it became known that Germany was attempting to induce Mexico to enter the war, promising it Texas, Arizona and New Mexico if Germany should win. Once America did enter the war, Kidd was assigned to a new battleship, the USS New Mexico, which saw limited action, but in 1919 served as the escort of the transport George Washington, carrying President Woodrow Wilson to the Versailles Peace Conference in France.

During the years between the two World Wars, Kidd continued to receive important assignments and rise in the officer ranks. In 1938, he became Captain of the USS Arizona, and two years later—the year before his death—he received his final promotion to Rear Admiral and final assignment as Commander of Battleship Division ONE, which consisted of three battleships, including his flagship, the Arizona. He was serving in that assignment when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Admiral Kidd's death was not reported in Cleveland until December 11, 1941, four days after the attack. An article in a Cleveland newspaper which detailed his life and death, listed his birthplace as "near Detroit School, 4800 Detroit Avenue." In early 2015, however, it was learned that the newspaper report was wrong, and he actually was born in the house at 3059 Mabel Court--for too long unrecognized as the birthplace of one of Cleveland's most important war heroes. Unfortunately, by the time this became know, the house had suffered extensive damage in a fire during the winter of 2014-2015, and was demolished in April 2015. Like the Admiral himself whose body was never recovered after the attack on the USS Arizona, there is now no trace left of Isaac Campbell Kidd's birthplace in Cleveland.

Research of the various houses that Isaac Kidd lived in while he grew up in Cleveland revealed that none are still standing, so none may be landmarked. There is no school in Cleveland named after him. There is no park in Cleveland which bears his name. The only remembrance of his bravery, his death, and his connection to the City of Cleveland, is a small historical marker which stands outside the grounds of the Coast Guard station, almost hidden by trees, on East Ninth Street just north of the North Marginal Road. Given all that Isaac Campbell Kidd gave to his country, and given his strong connection to the City of Cleveland, the marker seems a very inadequate memorial.

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Some say that Admiral Isaac Campbell Kidd, the highest-ranking officer to die at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, decided to make a career of the Navy because his Irish ancestors hailed from County Wexford, a place on the southeast coast of Ireland well-known for its maritime activities. And that may be true. But a young boy is just as often influenced by the neighborhood in which he grows up, and the Cleveland neighborhood in which Isaac Campbell Kidd grew up--Birch Street (today, West 50th) from Bridge Street to Franklin Avenue, was populated by a number of men, women and families whose work on or near the Great Lakes might well have inspired a boy in his youth to turn his attention and ambitions to the sea.

Kidd's neighborhood was part of two residential subdivisions, the larger of which--the Alottment of Benedict and Root, platted in 1852, in the waning days of Ohio City when that city was still Cleveland's rival on the west bank of the Cuyahoga River. Together with the smaller Dudley Baldwin Subdivision, which was platted in 1863, but then revised in 1869 when Franklin Avenue was realigned to run parallel with Detroit Street, the land which came under development before the onset of the Civil War consisted of more than one hundred acres, covering the area south of Franklin Avenue to Lorain Street, and west of Harbor (West 44th) Street all the way to Courtland (West 54th) Street.

Originally, it was expected that the land would be developed by nineteenth century Cleveland real estate mogul Silas Stone, who developed the large residential subdivision north of Detroit Street, from Taylor (West 45th) Street to Oakland (West 58th) Street. However, Stone defaulted on his contract with Peter Wedell, the land owner, and after Wedell died in 1847, his widow Eliza sued Stone in Superior Court, a local court of equity, seeking relief. Stone was found liable to the widow, and the land in question was sold at public auction in 1849 to Cleveland banker Dudley Baldwin, Wedell's Administrator.

After receiving title, Baldwin turned around and sold approximately eighty-percent of the land to George Benedict, later editor of the Cleveland Herald, but at the time Clerk of the Superior Court, and Elias Root, a Cleveland businessman who was also serving as Sheriff of Cuyahoga County, the office charged with the duty of conducting land sales at public auctions. Despite these irregularities, Baldwin, Benedict and Root, successfully laid out the streets for this new residential area of what was by this time the west side of Cleveland, and sales of lots in the Benedict and Root subdivision, which was developed first, were soon underway in early 1853.

From the start, the two subdivisions attracted many in Cleveland who made their living on or near the Great Lakes. In the 1860 census, of the 18 families living on the block of Birch Street where Kidd would later live, six were headed either by vessel captains, sailors or ship carpenters. By 1880, when there were 42 families living on the block, six families were headed by vessel captains and three by ship carpenters or ship builders. Many of the other families on the block were also headed by men who worked in Cleveland's then burgeoning transportation industry, doing such varied jobs as baggage masters, railroad brakemen, switchmen, street car conductors, and travel agents.

This was the neighborhood into which the Kidd family moved in 1888. And, just five years later, when Isaac Kidd, Jr., was 9 years old, another vessel captain, Charles Miner moved in next door to the Kidds at 107 Birch (1832 W 50th). Miner, recently retired and the father-in-law of Isaac's aunt Minnie--who also lived on the block, no doubt enjoyed spending some time in his last years--he died in 1901, reveling the young Kidd boys with stories of his travels and experiences on the Great Lakes. While Admiral Kidd's own sudden and tragic death in 1941 foreclosed the possibility of him writing his memoirs and crediting growing up on West 50th Street, between Bridge and Franklin, for some role in his career choice, clearly growing up on such a block placed him in close contact with people who would have talked about what life, and life's work, was like on the water.

With the passage now of more than one hundred years since Admiral Kidd left that neighborhood to attend the Naval Academy, many changes have come to West 50th Street between Bridge and Franklin. The street is now paved with asphalt instead of gravel or brick as it was in Kidd's day. The neighborhood's tree population is engaged in a battle with the emerald ash borer, instead of the Tussock moth or Dutch elm disease that earlier-generation trees on the street battled in the first half of the twentieth century. The ethnic population is no longer primarily of English, Irish and German mix as it was in Kidd's day, but is now instead a more diverse mix of whites, African-Americans and Latinos.

And the housing stock on the block for at least the last two decades has been undergoing tear-downs and new construction that is very different from the tear-downs and new construction that Kidd witnessed on the street in the decade of the 1890s. In the process of this most recent rebuilding of West 50th Street, Admiral Kidd's boyhood home at No. 1830 was lost. But there remain many historic houses on West 50th, some that date back to the very beginning of the neighborhood in the 1850s, and some which were the homes of people who undoubtedly played an important role in the career choice of one of Cleveland's greatest and most tragic war heroes. In fact so much still remains on West 50th Street from the time when Isaac Kidd walked the block, that were he here today, he might well gaze down the street from its intersection with Franklin Boulevard, and say, "This is where I grew up. This is my neighborhood."

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The African American Cultural Garden was dedicated in 1977 following years of effort by local community leaders such as Booker T. Tall. For many years the African American Cultural Garden's construction lay mostly dormant as the delegation developed plans and raised money for the garden along Martin Luther King Jr Drive.

Cleveland has a long history of African American settlement but mass migration from the South increased Cleveland's African American population considerably between 1890 and 1920. In 1900, about 6,000 African Americans lived in the city. By 1920, the number had grown to almost 35,000. Most of the African Americans who arrived in Cleveland came from the South; especially from Georgia and Alabama. Upon reaching Cleveland, many settled in the area along Central Ave. between the Cuyahoga River and E. 40th St. This was also the home to many Italian and Jewish residents at the time.

African Americans kept arriving in Cleveland even after the first great migration and World War I. Coupled with natural growth, the number of African Americans living in the city more than doubled between 1920 and 1930 to reach a total of 72,000. During the second great migration from the South, Cleveland's African American population grew from 85,000 in 1940 to 251,000 in 1960. By the early 1960s they made up over 30% of the city's population; a vast increase from the 1.6% of 1900.

As the suburbanization of the rest of the city's population accelerated, the African American community expanded to the east and northeast of the Central-Woodland area, particularly into Hough and Glenville. Cleveland's African American population stabilized in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 70s, fair housing programs and laws made it possible for middle-class African Americans to move to the suburbs.

When the African American Cultural Garden was dedicated in 1977 there were plans to honor six prominent African Americans: Richard Allen, founder and first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; Garrett Morgan Sr., inventor (of the safety helmet, gas mask, and a traffic light with a caution signal) and founder of the Cleveland Call & Post newspaper; Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1976; John P. Green, an elected official in Ohio who introduced the bill in 1890 that made Labor Day a holiday in Ohio; Jane Edna Hunter, who established the Phillis Wheatley Association to assist unmarried African American women and girls who had newly migrated to the North; and Langston Hughes, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance who spent part of his youth in Cleveland. His poetry and prose offered evocative portrayals of African American life in America.

In his poem "Dreams," Langston Hughes writes:

Hold fast to dreams,

For if dreams die,

Life is a broken-winged bird,

That cannot fly,

Hold fast to dreams,

For when dreams go,

Life is a barren field,

Frozen with snow.

In 2003, the late Cordell Edge, a longtime Glenville resident, was appointed to engage a committee to develop the African American Cultural Garden. Mrs. Edge began a journey to cultivate and renew interest in the Garden and hired a landscape architect to develop a design within the specifications of the Cleveland Cultural Garden Federation. Later, Mayor Frank Jackson organized a task force to develop and implement a plan for the garden. In 2016 the first major element of the plan was dedicated. This element, called the Past Pavilion, depicts corridors within slave castles along the western coast of Africa. Present and Future Pavilions are planned to complete the garden as funds are raised.

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Icabod Flewellen founded the first independent African American museum in the United States. In his home at 8716 Harkness Avenue, Flewellen chartered the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Society in 1953. His vision was the preservation and dissemination of information regarding the contributions of individuals of African descent. He hoped to educate young people about the positive contributions of African Americans to the cultures of the world, and to eliminate distorted portrayals and images of African Americans.

At age 13, Icabod Flewellen began collecting newspaper clippings about African American history. He drew inspiration from the writings of the Jamaican author J. A. Rogers, a self-trained historian, novelist, and journalist who spent most of his life debunking pseudo-scientific and racist depictions of people of African ancestry while popularizing the history of persons of black people around the world. Flewellen’s passion was also inspired by the lack of African American history in American classrooms. As he told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “My daddy, who was a railroad brakeman, used to tell me of the great black inventors on the railroad. Every now and then we found a self-motivated teacher who would throw in a few things that weren’t in the textbooks, but still, we got very little Black history.”

Flewellen graduated from high school in the mid-1930s and began working for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a New Deal program created in 1933. At the age of 23, Flewellen went to West Virginia State University and enrolled in the National Youth Administration (NYA), another New Deal program, but ended up switching to the Civil Pilot Training Program. In 1942 Flewellen was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in North Africa in the quartermaster's service.

His first collection, located in his West Virginia home was, he said, “exceedingly rich with historical material.” While Flewellen served in the military, he asked his neighbor Mr. Pryor to store his collection in his garage. Unfortunately, most of the collection was lost when a firebomb thrown by white supremacists destroyed the garage. Flewellen was honorably discharged from the Army in 1945 and he moved to Cleveland. After his return from the military, Flewellen stated, “They were people who did not like what I was doing.” Undeterred, within a few years after moving to Cleveland, Flewellen had essentially transformed his home into a museum. It was so stuffed with portraits, letters, documents, books, busts and sheet music that he barely had room to sleep and eat. Seeking to institutionalize his activity, Flewellen helped organize and became president of the Afro-American Cultural and History Society, the first such organization in the U.S. With the help of the AACHS and his neighbors, Flewellen’s collection continued to grow.

In 1964, Flewellen’s and the AACHS’s accomplishments were recognized by the “Parade of Progress,” a national exhibition held at Cleveland’s Public Hall. A portion of Flewellen’s collection was on display as one of fifty displays set up by the National Service Center. Flewellen never tired of his role in bringing African American accomplishments to the public’s attention, including Garrett Morgan’s invention of the traffic light, Charles Drew’s work in perfecting blood plasma, and John Green’s role as the father of Labor Day. As Flewellen observed, “The Negro child doesn’t realize how great is his heritage. My goal is to let the Negro child know his ancestors were something besides just slaves.” Flewellen hoped his exhibition at the “Parade of Progress” would help create interest in the museum he wanted to build.

Flewellen opened his first museum outside of his home in a tiny classroom in the old school building behind St. Marian Catholic Church at 2212 Petrarca Avenue near Cedar Avenue and Fairhill Road in 1968. The next location was briefly located at the old Bell building at 1839 East 81st Street. Finally, in February 1983 it moved to the Cleveland Public Library’s decommissioned Treasure House building at 1765 Crawford Road in Hough.

By the 1970s, African Americans were being heard. Yet in spite of the fact that Black culture and history were increasing in popularity, the Afro-American Cultural and Historical Society faced extinction in a month’s time unless support and a benefactor could be found. The AACHS became a victim of the Black movement’s success. “It’s a really big thing these days,” said Flewellen. “There’s so many people jumping on the bandwagon with Black movements at universities, colleges, and other things who have much more funds and facilities than we do, we don’t find it easy to get support like that.” After seventeen years of struggling to keep his organization going, Flewellen's fortunes still appeared dim.

By 1985, a rift between founder and museum board over managerial and financial concerns forced Flewellen out. The group disbanded, which broke his heart. He saw his life’s work wasted. When his dream could not be a reality, he arranged for his entire collection to be donated to the East Cleveland Public Library upon his death, which came in 2001. Much of his life’s work lies in a wing of the library called The Flewellen Collection.

The African American Museum has provided cultural awareness, education about Black history, and community events, in addition to a collection of artifacts that represent a holistic view of the African Diaspora experience. Because of the vision and sacrifices made by Icabod Flewellen and countless others to document and display the accomplishment of African Americans and people of African descent, the National Museum of African American History and Culture was born. President Barack Obama spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony February 22, 2012, and on September 24, 2016, the museum opened – a long-imagined dream come true that would have made Flewellen proud.

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The Marjorie Rosenbaum Plaza at Burke Lakefront Airport celebrates the "Golden Age of Aviation" when Cleveland hosted the National Air Races eleven times between 1929 and 1949. It was during this era that Cleveland was referred to as the "Indianapolis 500 of the Air." The Plaza also celebrates the modern day Cleveland National Air Show held at Burke Lakefront Airport since 1964.

Granite plaques that ring the Air Show Plaza tell the stories of the National Air Races held in Cleveland between 1929-1949 including legendary pilots who flew here: Amelia Earhart; Charles Lindbergh; Jimmy Doolittle; and Roscoe Turner. The plaques tell the stories of some of the famous airplanes including the GeeBee air racer flown to victory by Jimmy Doolittle in 1932 in the Thompson Trophy speed pylon race. Also featured are stories of the incredible women air racers in those early years (including Amelia Earhart) who flew in the National Air Races. The finish line of the "Powderpuff Derby" women's distance race from Santa Monica, California to Cleveland was in front of of cheering fans in the Grandstand at Cleveland Municipal Airport (now Hopkins Airport), the location of the National Air Races in Cleveland until 1949.

The National Air Races were discontinued in Cleveland after 1949 (partially due to a fatal crash of a P-51C air racing plane flown by Bill Odom in Berea, Ohio during the 1949 National Air Races.) The current Cleveland National Air Show at Burke Lakefront Airport returned in 1964 and has become a Labor Day Weekend tradition in Cleveland and is one of the oldest and best annual air shows in America.

The Air Show Plaza features two F-4 Phantom jets on pedestals painted in the color schemes of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels and the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. Both demonstration teams have performed at the Cleveland National Air Show many times. (The F-4 was the only airframe used by both the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds at the same time.) Walk of Fame plaques that circle the Plaza celebrate the modern day Cleveland National Air Show since 1964 at Burke Lakefront Airport. These Walk of Fame plaques showcase some of the legendary flying acts and performers who have appeared at the Cleveland National Air Show since 1964.

The Air Show Plaza is named for benefactor Marjorie Rosenbaum, wife of Cleveland National Air Show Board Member and former Chairman Jacob Rosenbaum.

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When was the last time you saw a blimp in the sky? For those who live in Akron, a blimp sighting is as predictable as seeing the sun rise in the east. It has been that way since the construction of the Akron Airdock in 1929. Designed by the Wilbur Watson Engineering Co. of Cleveland and built by the Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation for the construction and housing of lighter-than-air ships (as blimps are sometimes called), the Airdock was once the world's largest structure without interior supports.

The Airdock is gigantic. Stretching 1,175 feet in length and 325 feet in width, the structure covers 364,000 square feet of ground. That means that almost seven football fields can fit inside it. The outer skin of the structure has been described as "half a silkworm's cocoon, cut in half the long way." The top of this "cocoon" reaches 211 feet high. Each end of the Airdock has a pair of huge doors that weigh 609-tons apiece. Each door rests on forty wheels and railroad tracks that allow them to open and close. The Airdock cost $2.2 million to build.

The first two dirigibles launched from the Airdock were the Akron (ARS-4) in 1931 and its sister the Macon (ARS-5) in 1934. Goodyear built these for use by the Navy, but the two airships had short lives. The Akron fell from the sky on April 4, 1933, in a violent electrical storm off the coast of New Jersey, killing 73 passengers. The Macon also crashed in 1935, ending up in the Pacific Ocean.

The blimps Goodyear produced at the Airdock were mainly intended for military use. The development of passenger blimps, once thought to be a viable form of transportation, was abandoned when it became clear that planes were the future of commercial air transport. Military blimps continued to be developed in Akron, however, serving as both reconnaissance planes and as experimental "flying aircraft carriers" that launched smaller airships. The last blimp built in the Airdock was the Navy's ZPG-3W, completed in 1960.

After 1960, the Airdock served for a time as the location of Goodyear's photographic division. It has also held rallies for the United Way and Presidential Candidate Bill Clinton, the latter drawing a crowd of 30,000 to the Airdock in 1992. Goodyear sold their Aerospace plant and the Airdock to the Loral Corporation in 1987, who ended up selling the property to Lockheed Martin in 1996. Lockheed Martin owns the Airdock today and conducts well-concealed aircraft research inside the building.

Goodyear still maintains a blimp hangar, home to one of the famous Goodyear blimps seen at sporting events, at Wingfoot Lake in nearby Suffield. Wingfoot Lake was the original site of Goodyear's Aeronautics Department. In 1917, the company began building blimps and training military pilots at the site. Shortly thereafter, the Navy took over the facility and operated it as the United States Airship Training Station from 1917 until 1921. Goodyear moved its aeronautics program to the Airdock in 1929 and, after using the Wingfoot Lake site for a variety of purposes, sold most of the land to the State of Ohio in 2009 to create Wingfoot Lake State Park.

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Alan Freed and the Moondog Coronation Ball are virtually synonymous with the breakthrough of rock & roll. Freed didn’t invent the term or the genre; but like no previous celebrity, he gave it a voice. And the Moondog Coronation Ball was far from rock & roll’s shining hour; but it ushered in a new era for live music. Together, the man and the event became the faces of a new medium, a revolutionary form of entertainment, and an ever-expanding musical lexicon. Their intertwined and flawed (but increasingly varnished) legacies endure to this day.

Already a seasoned radio disc jockey in Youngstown and Akron, Alan Freed had his first Cleveland gig in 1949 as an afternoon movie show host on WXEL-TV. In 1951 he was hired to host a classical music program on WJW-Radio. However, Freed’s direction soon changed when popular record-store owner Leo Mintz volunteered to sponsor a three-hour, late-night radio show with Freed spinning rhythm-and-blues records by Black musicians. Much like Sam Phillips at Sun Records, Mintz had recognized the burgeoning appeal of Black (“race”) music to young White consumers. Freed grabbed the opportunity and his new show, the Moondog Rock & Roll House Party, was a near-overnight success. As one of a small handful of White disc jockeys pushing rhythm and blues, Freed became an industry force, a true influencer with the power to make or break records with his airplay. The self-anointed Moondog was a “hit man.” And rock & roll was here to stay.

The two terms—rock & roll and moondog—are an etymological story unto themselves. Historians generally describe rock & roll as the confluence of traditionally Black musical styles, such as blues, jazz, and gospel, or as an evolving hybrid of rhythm & blues (R&B), pop, and country music. Throughout the 1950s, the terms rock & roll and R&B were often used interchangeably. However, the term rock & roll predates Freed by about 70 years. In 1881, comedian John W. Morton of Morton's Minstrels performed a song titled "Rock and Roll." Five years later, a comic song titled "Rock and Roll Me" was performed by the Moore's Troubadours. Still, these tunes did not refer to a musical form but, most likely, to swaying dance movements or (some believe) to the rocking and rolling movement of watercraft. These connotations held well into the 1930s, with rock & roll references adopted by performers such as the Boswell Sisters and Verne and Irene Castle. Around that time, however, many of the era’s popular blues singers recast rock & roll in significantly more explicit terms. Some of the starkest examples might be 1944’s "Rock Me Mama" by Arthur Crudup (“Rock me mama like a southbound train”) or 1951’s "Sixty Minute Man" by Billy Ward and his Dominoes ("I rock 'em, roll 'em all night long"). From that point forward, rock & roll—the music and the motion—became the disruptive and often sexualized experience that we know today.

Moondog (or moon dog), on the other hand, is a meteorological synonym for “paraselene (par-uh-si-lee-nee)”: faint glimmers caused by moonlight refracted through ice crystals in certain types of clouds. But this was not the inspiration for Freed's nickname. In 1949 an eccentric musician and composer named Louis Thomas Hardin Jr. christened himself Moondog (in honor of a pet that constantly howled at the moon) and composed a classical piece eponymously called "Moondog’s Symphony." Keen to hippify his image, Freed co-opted the name, thus paving the way for his Moondog Rock & Roll House Party radio show and 1952’s Moondog Coronation Ball. In 1954, Hardin sued Freed and won. Freed was ordered to apologize and cease using the name Moondog on the air. However, the term had already become enmeshed in American culture—the eventual subject of multiple rock songs, musical events, cafés, and even basketball-team mascots. One of the names initially considered by the Beatles was Johnny and the Moondogs.

The 1954 lawsuit was not Moondog Freed’s first humbling moment. That would be the seminal but scandal-plagued stumblefest he called the Moondog Coronation Ball. “Coronation” referred to an intermission event during which the most popular male and female teen would be crowned. Organized by Freed, Mintz, and concert promoter Lew Platt, what is now dubbed America’s first rock concert was set for March 21, 1952, at the Cleveland Arena on Euclid Avenue. The bash would include saxophonist Paul Williams and his Hucklebuckers, Tiny Grimes and the Rocking Highlanders (an African American instrumental group whose members wore kilts), the Dominoes (one of the early ’50s’ most successful rhythm and blues bands), teenage R&B singer Varetta Dillard, and jazz/blues-man Danny Cobb. According to former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame president Terry Stuart, “when Freed opened the show, the [overwhelmingly Black] audience could not believe the exuberant radio personality whose show they had been listening to for months was white. The delighted crowd went nuts."

The show’s downfall was a simple printing error: Tickets for a later Moondog event had been printed without a date, thus giving additional thousands access to the March 25 event. A number of tickets also were counterfeited. Ultimately, about 20,000 to 25,000 showed up, with the ticketed and ticketless stuffing the Arena far beyond its 9,500-seat capacity. Hundreds had forced their way in, broken down doors, smashed glass, and pushed past police. Accounts vary as to how long the 10:00 PM concert lasted: somewhere between 15 minutes and two hours. It also isn’t clear which authorities, police or fire, ultimately called a halt. Either way, the crowd was ordered to leave well before the midnight coronation. Most did so reluctantly. A few were more belligerent (one person reportedly was stabbed). The country’s first rock & roll concert—which one promotional poster had presciently called "the most terrible ball of them all"—was kaput.

Blowback was swift and brutal. Fire Department officials prepared charges (ultimately dropped) against Freed and his two associates. The Cleveland Press reported “a crushing mob of 25,000.” The Plain Dealer stuck closely to the facts, but the Call & Post hit Freed with both barrels, calling him unscrupulous and “the fast-talking, wisecracking Pied Piper of the airwaves.” The paper further accused Freed’s radio show of attracting “the most vicious and most depraved elements of society.” The next day, with his job on the line, Freed took to the air, apologizing effusively while claiming that he was not the promotor but rather a “hired hand.” Days later, the Call & Post fired back, citing evidence that Freed assuredly was a co-promoter. Two months after the concert a real moon dog was spotted in the sky over Cleveland (In folklore, moondogs are harbingers of stormy weather.).

Still, Freed won the PR battle, kept his job, and was quickly back in action. Another Moondog show—this time at Public Hall and featuring Dinah Washington, Woody Herman, and the Mills Brothers—came off with no problems on May 25, 1952. In July 1953, Freed returned to the Arena to host the Joe Lewis Show, an R&B event featuring the former heavyweight champion. A Plain Dealer reporter’s distressingly bigoted review of the concert referred to the audience as “trained squeals” and the evening’s “race music,” as recordings that “sell by the hundreds of thousands in shops South of Euclid Ave.”

Later that same year Freed caught what may have been his biggest break. WJNR began daily rebroadcasts of Freed’s shows to listeners in New York and New Jersey. Additional markets soon opened up, including the Armed Forces Network in Europe. By 1954 Freed had moved to WINS-AM in New York City, launching what might be considered his golden age. Over three years he expanded his radio empire, established his own record label (End Records), and produced (and appeared in) several cheesy rock & roll movies. So vast was his reach that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI put Freed under surveillance. As broadcast historian Mike Olszewski recalled, “Back then, it seemed, the United States was always looking for new enemies.”

Comprising equal parts PR and paranoia, Hoover’s actions reflected a nation of two minds. One side recognized a musical future of increased tolerance and innovation. The other saw an assault on long-held “traditional values.” In 1957, Freed’s rock & roll show on ABC television was cancelled after black R&B singer Frankie Lymon danced with a white girl on stage at a Freed-promoted concert. The next year, Freed lost his job at WINS radio after he supposedly yelled “The police don’t want you to have fun,” at an event in Boston. Although he quickly resurfaced on rival radio station WABC-AM, the beginning of the end wasn’t far off: On November 21, 1959, Freed was sacked after declining to sign an FCC document stating that he never received funds or gifts for playing records on the air. Although he was only fined, the implied admission effectively ended his broadcasting career and his high profile made him a poster child for the practice of payola. Payola is generally thought of as a “pay-to-play” arrangement between promoters and DJs. However, the then-common practice often involved more complex relationships, such as fake songwriting credits, royalty kickbacks, and hidden ownership of recording interests. Freed, for example, was wrongly given partial songwriting credit (and royalties) for Chuck Berry’s "Maybellene" and The Moonglows’ "Sincerely." Rock critic Nadine Cohodas once described Freed’s relation with the owners of Chess Records as “a warm friendship shaped by money.”

In 1960 payola was formally classified as a crime and two years later Freed was convicted of commercial bribery. Once again, he escaped with only a fine. The same activities got him indicted (but apparently not convicted) of tax fraud in 1964. By this time he had moved to Florida and was working only sporadically at Miami-area radio stations. Freed died January 1965 at the age of 43 and is buried in Cleveland’s Lake View Cemetery.

Since his death, Freed’s legacy has grown in mostly positive ways. Historically speaking, he may still be the face of payola. But his reputation as patron saint of rock & roll has largely pushed payola to the sidelines. Rock is now considered the musical font from which most popular music has emerged—from do-wop, soul, and psychedelic to punk, grunge, and pop. Moreover, the Moondog Coronation Ball is deemed the foundation stone upon which every live-rock event is built, and as DJ Norm N. Nite once stated, “If it wasn’t for Alan Freed and the Moondog Coronation Ball, Cleveland would not have the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”

Perhaps most important, Freed can legitimately be seen as an early crusader in the battle for racial equality. Opportunist though he was, Freed worked tirelessly to promote Black performers, reach mixed audiences, and stage events where racial integration was accepted and encouraged. More than most other media, “his” music transcends social classes, age groups, and race.

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The Albanian Cultural Garden at the Cleveland Cultural Gardens in Rockefeller Park is the first garden to be located on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard’s east side. Previously, all gardens to the east of the boulevard faced East Boulevard. The Albanian Cultural Garden was planted to celebrate the Albanian community that has been flourishing in Cleveland since the 1890s.

Many early Albanian immigrants who left for the United States in the 1890s first left Italy along with Italian immigrants. Many Albanians had previously fled the Ottoman invasion of their homeland in the Middle Ages, settling in southern Italy. Their descendants were called Arbëreshë, meaning Albanians of Italy. In addition to the Arbëreshë immigrants, other Albanians came from southern Albania’s Korçë to Cleveland seeking job opportunities. Many immigrants from the late 1800s to early 1900s lacked formal education and were predominantly men who hoped to make some money and then return home. However, many decided to stay and bring their families to the United States. By 1914, a little under 2,000 Albanian immigrants resided in Ohio. Early Albanian immigrants usually settled on the Near West Side of Cleveland especially on Detroit Avenue from West 54th to West 58th Streets, as well as in Linndale.

The population of Albanians rose before World War II and by 1940, there were about 1,000 Albanian immigrants in Cleveland. After the war, Cleveland received many more Albanians who had been displaced to refugee camps in Austria, Italy, and Germany, as well as those from Kosovo, Yugoslavia. Early Albanian immigrants who arrived before the end of World War II helped those who were able to make their way to Cleveland before immigration stopped. In 1946, Enver Hoxha came to power and no Albanians could leave.

Immigration resumed after the fall of communism in their homeland in 1992. Many left the city of Fier in Albania and other parts of southeastern Europe for the U.S. In addition, foreign exchange programs from Kosovo to the United States increased immigration. In 1999, President Bill Clinton decided to select Cleveland as one of five cities that would house resettled refugees from the war in Kosovo. Albanian immigrants have been coming to Cleveland for more than a century, and Albanians are one of Cleveland’s most prominent immigrant groups. There are about 20,000 Albanians in Greater Cleveland, many of whom live in western suburbs such as Lakewood, Fairview Park, and Rocky River.

The Albanian Cultural Garden was created with Albanian history and traditions in mind. The Albanian American Association of Cleveland was founded in 1998 and one of its cofounders was Cleveland city councilwoman Dona Brady. This association helped raise funds for a future Albanian cultural garden. In 2007, the opportunity for an Albanian cultural garden presented itself when the city of Cleveland set aside ten additional garden spaces within the Cleveland Cultural Gardens. Brady was instrumental to the creation of the Albanian cultural gardens because she sponsored legislation that would ensure that one of the ten spaces was for an Albanian cultural garden. In addition, Brady also worked side by side with Albanians in Cleveland, as well as with Cleveland’s sister city of Fier in Albania. Once the garden was officially approved, the landscape architect for the garden was chosen and James McKnight and Associates got to work on the garden.

During the first stage of the garden’s development, a seven-foot-tall bronze statue of Mother Teresa was installed in the Albanian Cultural Garden. Mother Teresa is important to many Albanians because she was a famous Catholic nun of Albanian decent who helped countless people in her life. The Asian-Indian community decided to help raise money for the Albanian Cultural Garden’s Mother Teresa statue because of her well-known work in Calcutta. With funding from the Sisters of Charity Health System, Albanian sculptor Kreshnik Xhiku created the bronze Mother Teresa statue, the centerpiece of the first phase of the garden. The statue sits atop a six-foot-tall pedestal bearing the inscription “Mother Teresa Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu 1910-1997.” Next to the statue are benches for prayer and reflection.

With the completion of its first phase, the Albanian Cultural Garden officially became the twenty-ninth garden to be added to the Cleveland Cultural Gardens since 1918. On September 22, 2012, the dedication ceremony for phase one commemorated the 100th anniversary of Albanian independence. News of the garden made its way to Albania, and the Albanian President Bujar Nishani, as well as the Albanian Ambassador to the U.S., Gilbert Galanxhi, attended the dedication ceremony. Also in attendance were three musicians who were adopted from orphanages run by Mother Teresa.

The Mother Teresa statue continues to draw people to the Albanian Cultural Garden. Due to Mother Teresa’s work with the poor and the miracles she performed that healed two individuals of tumors on two separate occasions, Pope Francis believed she was worthy to be canonized and become a saint. The Albanian Cultural Garden held a canonization ceremony on September 4, 2016, the day that she was recognized as a saint. People who attended were asked to bring flowers to lay at the feet of the statue and to stay and learn about the process to become a saint. She was canonized the day before the 19th anniversary of her death.

During phase two of the garden project, an upper level with a fountain was added. This particular fountain, originally built in the 1920s was in Willard Park until it was removed to make way for the installation of the Free Stamp in 1991. The location of the fountain remained a mystery for some years until Councilwoman Brady discovered the fountain dismantled in Harvard Yard’s parking lot. The City of Cleveland originally planned to discard the fountain, but Brady saved it and donated it to the Albanian Cultural Garden. A lighted walkway to the fountain was also added to the garden. Many hope the beautiful fountain will entice more people to visit the garden for weddings, parties, and picnics. On November 24, 2013, the fountain was dedicated. This ceremony also captured the attention of Albanian officials just as the first dedication had. The mayor of Fier, Baftjar Zeqaj, and an Albanian Prime Minister representative attended the second dedication ceremony. Each completed phase of the garden gave Albanians the opportunity to come together.

The Albanian Cultural Garden celebrates Albanian culture and connects Albanian immigrants and their descendants with a piece of their homeland. Through the garden’s design, the events held at the garden, and the people who visit the garden, a piece of Albania has truly been added to the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.

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It is autumn 1961 and an election campaign is underway. You see a woman with a white hat walking around the neighborhood speaking with residents. Her demeanor makes her stand out from the crowd and her face is one not to forget. Her huge smile is enthusiastic and bright, and her eyes shine with great hope for the future. Her presence is one of compassion and persistence. She believes that personal contact with the people of Cleveland is the best way the develop a strong, trustworthy relationship during a political campaign. This charismatic woman was Albina Rose Cermak, who was raised on the city's West Side by a Republican father and her mother who was a suffragette. This house overlooked the downtown skyline and the beautiful Lake Erie.

From her home on Cliff Drive near Edgewater Park, Albina Cermak could behold the skyline of the city she hoped to govern. Cermak was the first woman to run for mayor of Cleveland. Other women had been mayors of mostly small towns in the United States before 1961, but Albina was the first woman to run for mayor in a major U.S. city since another in Seattle in the 1920s. Throughout her election race, Cermak often wore a white hat, which became one of her trademarks. Her opponent was Mayor Anthony Celebrezze, who had been in office since 1953. Cermak believed that Mayor Celebrezze was ill-suited to his position. Her campaign argued that his office had caused major damage to the city's economy. Cermak was running as a Republican in a largely Democratic city. In many ways she did not stand a chance to win the '61 elections, despite her progressive ideas during her campaign.

The aftermath of World War II brought heightened challenges as the "urban crisis" enveloped the once-prosperous industrial city. Unfortunately, Cleveland political and business leaders had failed to uplift the city. Cermak believed that City Hall was not reliable or responsive to the needs of Clevelanders. She promised that if elected this would change, by appointing responsible individuals. Her two most important ideas to improve Cleveland were to bring back industry and use better code enforcement to improve slum areas. Her other focuses were taking action on air and lake pollution and advocating for a more reliable transportation system that ran throughout the Greater Cleveland area.

Although her ideas were a great blueprint for improving Cleveland, they were not enough to win the election. Anthony Celebrezze dominated the vote in 1961. A number of factors help explain why Albina Cermak did not win the '61 election. Many of her ideas were ahead of her time. She was also campaigning during a time when very few women held a powerful political position. The media also influenced how the people viewed her. Some local newspapers promoted her campaign, while one editorialized that her campaign was laughable. Even though she would never be mayor, her actions during in the campaign were advanced and unforgettable.

Albina Cermak's 1961 mayoral campaign showed her love and devotion for her city. She would continue to run for political positions and be involved in many committees until her death in 1978. Her mayoral campaign may not have been a success, but it definitely was not a failure. Cermak paved the way for the women in Cleveland in the professional and political world. Almost forty years later, Jane Campbell not only ran for mayor of Cleveland, but was victorious in the election. Women like Albina Rose Cermak showed courage in breaking down barriers against women holding political and professional careers.

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The Alcazar Hotel was built in the Spanish-Moorish style in 1923 and mimicked the architecture of two hotels in St. Augustine, Florida. The Alcazar (which translates as "home in a fortress") is built in the shape of an irregular pentagon, and features a central courtyard which centers on a circular fountain that is a replica of the one at the Hotel Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine. Its stunning interior features a goldfish pond surrounded by a large hexagonal lounge adorned with colorful mosaic tiles. Cleveland architect Harry T. Jeffrey designed the hotel, which took nearly two years to construct at and cost over $2 million.

The Alcazar was one of the Cleveland area's grandest residential apartment hotels and among the first such buildings in the suburbs. The hotel owners appealed to wealthy Clevelanders in a 1923 advertisement by asking, "The new Alcazar hotel provides an economical home for those wishing to be relieved of housekeeping and servant problems... Why keep house when you can secure homelike accommodations at a much lower cost?" The hotel appealed not only to upper-class couples and families, but also to celebrities, attracting the likes of George Gershwin, Jack Benny, Cole Porter, Bob Hope, and other popular entertainers. Its restaurant and cocktail lounge drew the city's social elite as well as visiting VIPs, and its grand ballroom and courtyard were the site of a number of weddings and lavish events.

By the late 1950s, however, the building was falling into disrepair, and big houses in the area's growing suburbs attracted wealthy families who might have otherwise lived at places like the Alcazar. In 1963, Christian Scientists purchased the Alcazar for use as a retirement home for members of their faith. They soon opened up the hotel to the elderly of all faiths, and today the Alcazar remains primarily a place for seniors, though a few suites are used for corporate housing and by regular hotel guests. Special events are still held there as well, and the building has benefited from improved upkeep which helps maintain its charm and elegant appeal. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

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Located on the south end of the Stockyards neighborhood of mostly working-class homes, the two story brick Italianate-style house at 7403 Denison Avenue stands out, especially because of its cupola and intricate balustrade craftsmanship. Built in 1866 for Alexander Kimberley, the house is not only one of the oldest in the neighborhood, but it is also one of the neighborhood's few remaining houses of this type of architectural design.

Who was Alexander Kimberley, you might ask? He was not an early Cleveland industrialist like James Farnan who with his family's brass factory wealth built a similarly beautiful Italianate home in the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood (see Cleveland Historical story: "The House that Brass Built"). Nor was he a large-scale real estate developer like Benjamin Tyler who could easily afford his elegant Italianate summer home on the north end of the Stockyards neighborhood (see Cleveland Historical story: "B. F. Tyler House"). While neither a James Farnan nor a Benjamin Tyler, Alexander Kimberley still found a path to moderate wealth in mid-nineteenth-century Cleveland, one that enabled him to build the beautiful house that is the subject of this story. It's a house which has now stood on the top of the ridge at Denison Avenue and West 73rd Street for more than 150 years.

So how did he do it? Alexander Kimberley was an immigrant from Birmingham, England. When he arrived in Cleveland in 1846 as a nineteen year old boy, the city was just beginning its transition from commercial hub to industrial powerhouse. In the 15-year period from 1845-1860, the urban population exploded from 14,000 to 44,000, a more than 300% increase. Alexander Kimberley decided to make his money by serving that growing population. He began by operating saloons. By 1852, he had opened his first, near the docks at the foot of Superior Street. Three years later, partnering with his younger brother Frederick, he opened a second, this one on Public Square, across from where the County Court House sat at the time. Perhaps he intended this saloon to serve a more genteel clientele than the first. The brothers advertised that their "Arcade Dining Saloon" would feature an "Eating House on the European Plan." In 1857, Kimberley, now thirty years old, capped off his saloon entrepreneurship by opening a third saloon--this one he called a restaurant--on Merwin Street, near West Street, not far from where the Flat Iron cafe sits today on the east bank of the Flats.

There are no records extant to tell us exactly how much money Kimberley made from these three saloons, but it must have been substantial. And, like many of the lower socio-economic classes who began to make money in Cleveland's growing mid-nineteenth-century economy, Kimberley decided to invest in real estate in Ohio City, which soon merged with Cleveland to become the latter city's west side. He purchased a house on Detroit Street just east of Kentucky (W. 38th) Street in 1853, living there and operating a millinery store out of the first floor. In 1859, he made his second investment, a commercial lot on Detroit near Hanover (W. 28th) Street. By the time the 1860 census arrived, Alexander Kimberley was no longer a saloon keeper. It is likely that when the census-taker asked what his profession or trade was, Kimberley responded with some pride, "I am a merchant."

In 1864, Alexander Kimberley purchased eighteen acres of land on the south side of Ridge Road (now Denison Avenue) in what was then Brooklyn Township from Rufus K. Winslow, one of the founders of the Academy of Natural Sciences, later known as the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The land lay about two and one-half miles southwest of Kimberley's home on Detroit Street. By this time, he was married and the father of two children. Within two years' time, construction of the ornate house in the country which is the subject of this story was completed and the family moved in. When the 1870 census was taken four years later, Kimberley stated that he was now a farmer--most likely a gentleman farmer, because he continued to operate his millinery store in town and invest in real estate in the Detroit Street area of the near west side. Among his most significant projects was the development in 1873 of a commercial building complex on the south side of Detroit Avenue between Hanover (W. 28th) and State (W. 29th) Streets, which he built in partnership with his brother David. The complex featured a number of retail store fronts, two meeting halls, and one building known as the Kimberley Block.

Alexander Kimberley died in 1885 after suffering a stroke. The Italianate house at 7403 Denison was sold a few years later to immigrants from Germany, the Ernst Stern family. The Sterns lived in the house until 1916, when it was sold to a building supply company that used the home as an office. Ever since, the property has been used for commercial purposes, although as late as 1940, the second floor of the house was leased to renters. Most recently, the grand old house served as the home of a waffle house and ice cream store.

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