Cleveland Historical

Hilliard Building: The Oldest Commercial Building in Downtown Cleveland

2024-03-05T20:17:12+00:00

Richard Hilliard achieved much as a businessman and civic leader in the thirty years (1826-1856) that he lived in Cleveland. Most of his achievements have long since faded from the public's memory. However, the three story brick building that he erected in 1850 still stands today on West 9th Street as a reminder to Clevelanders of who he was.

In Cleveland's Warehouse District, northwest of Public Square, the historic Hilliard Building stands on the corner of West 9th Street and Frankfort Avenue. A visitor to the area can't help but notice how isolated it is from other buildings. In fact, it is entirely surrounded by parking lots. There is a parking lot to the west of it, directly across West 9th Street. There is another to the south of it between Frankfort and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen Building on Superior Avenue. And finally there is a very large parking lot that extends north from the Hilliard Building all the way to St. Clair Avenue and also to the east behind the building all the way to West 6th Street.
Such parking lots, when covering large areas of a city's downtown, have become known as "parking craters," a term popularized by blogger Angie Schmitt who wrote that they render urban landscapes "inhospitable and unattractive." How and why the Hilliard Building came to occupy such an isolated location on West 9th Street, in the middle of a "parking crater," is an important part of the history of this building.
The Hilliard Building is named after Richard Hilliard, who was born in Chatham, New York in 1800. When he was a teenager, Hilliard began working in dry goods stores in western New York. One of those stores opened a branch in Cleveland in 1824, locating its new store at the southwest corner of Water (West 9th) and Superior, across Superior from where the Western Reserve Building stands today. Two years later, Hilliard who had by then become a partner in that business, moved to Cleveland. He soon bought out his partner and then formed a new partnership with William Hayes, a dry goods merchant in New York City. At about the same time that they formed their partnership, Hilliard married Sarah Katherine Hayes, a sister of his new partner, not an unusual way to cement a business relationship in the nineteenth century.
The dry goods business of Hilliard and Hayes, according to Hilliard's biographers, soon became very successful, and Richard Hilliard developed into an important figure in Cleveland's early history. In 1830, he was elected President of the Board of Trustees of Cleveland Village, and in 1836, when Cleveland became a city, he was elected one of its first aldermen. In the decade of the 1830s, he was one of the developers of Cleveland Centre in the Flats, a bold, but ill-fated, effort to make Cleveland the center of international trade in the Midwest. In the 1840s, Hilliard and Henry B. Payne, became more successfully involved in the incorporation of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad, Cleveland's first railroad, both of them becoming directors of that railroad. (Payne, an attorney, later built the Perry-Payne Building on Superior Avenue in downtown Cleveland.) In the early 1850s, Hilliard served as the first president of the Cleveland Water Works Commission, which led to the creation of Cleveland's first public water works system in 1856.
In 1850, Hilliard built the three story brick commercial building which is the subject of this story, moving his dry goods business into the building in the same year. According to an article appearing in the Plain Dealer on June 27, 1851, the building had 48 and 1/2 feet of frontage on Water Street and 100 feet on Centre (today, Frankfort) Street. The interior of the building was arranged as follows. There was a dry goods room measuring 25 by 100 feet on the Centre Street side of the building, and rooms on the two upper floors of the building that were also used in the dry goods business. The balance of the front of the building consisted of a room approximately 21 by 80 feet which served as a grocery store. The rear 20 feet of that part of the building was "furnished and used as a Counting-room."
Hilliard and Hayes, which then became Hilliard, Hayes and Co., was, according to newspaper sources, the largest dry goods wholesale business in the Midwest in the 1850s. It provided dry goods to retail stores in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, and had sales that annually exceeded $500,000, equivalent to almost $20 million in 2024 dollars. However, shortly after returning from a business trip to New York, Richard Hilliard died on December 21, 1856 from typhoid fever. He was only 56 years old. His death had a profound effect upon his wholesale business operated out of the Hilliard Building, then known as the Hilliard Block. Several new partnerships were formed with combinations of Hilliard's son Richard Jr. and several of his father's former partners, but none lasted. On March 22, 1858, an advertisement appeared in the Plain Dealer, offering the "stock . . . business and good will" of the company for sale. By 1860, a new wholesale dry goods firm, S. Raymonds & Co., was operating its business out of the Hilliard Block.
S. Raymond and Co. occupied the Hilliard Block as a tenant for more than a decade under leases from the Hilliard family who still owned the building. Then, in 1875, the building took on new tenants when it was remodeled as an office building for merchants in Cleveland's coal and oil trade. Among those new tenants in the building now known as the Coal and Iron Exchange Building was Rhodes and Hanna, a business started by prominent early west side industrialist Daniel Rhodes, but, following his retirement in 1867, operated by a partnership that included his son Robert Russell Rhodes and son-in-law Marcus Hanna. (Known to history as "Cleveland's kingmaker," Hanna later directed the successful 1896 and 1900 presidential campaigns of William McKinley.) From 1875 to 1887, a number of Cleveland's most prominent coal and iron merchants had their offices in the building.
In the mid to late 1880s, as new and grander commercial buildings were erected in the Warehouse District like the Grand Arcade (1883) and the Perry-Payne Building (1889), coal and iron merchants left the Hilliard Block for these more prestigious addresses. For a time, the Hilliard building then served as home to the offices of several stocks, grains, provisions and oil brokers. In the early 1900s, several related wholesale fire equipment and marine supply companies operated out of the building. In 1914, Laura Hilliard, the youngest daughter of Richard Hilliard, who had owned the Hilliard Building since the 1880s, sold it to Koblitz Brothers Realty Company, who, under several different corporate names, owned and leased it to various tenants until 1950.
During the 1920s, when Koblitz Brothers owned the Hilliard Building, the Warehouse District, according to local historian and archivist Drew Rolik, reached its pinnacle of commercial development and then began a slow decline as some of its aging buildings were, beginning in the mid 1920s, demolished to make room for parking lots. At first these new lots were few and far between, but the pace of parking lot creation increased following the end of World War II and the building of the interstate highway system which facilitated a massive movement of urban dwellers to the suburbs in the post war era.
In the 1950s, government officials like County Engineer Albert Porter advocated for more parking lots in downtown Cleveland to encourage suburban residents to come downtown to work and shop. His sentiments were echoed by business leaders like Alfred Benesch who, in a letter published in the Plain Dealer on April 21, 1957, wrote that the Warehouse District (then known as the Wholesale District or as part of the Garment District) was an ideal location for such parking lots as it was filled with "buildings a hundred or more years old . . . which are not any asset to Cleveland . . [and] might be well condemned and razed in order to provide parking facilities . . "
With encouragement like this from government and private sector leaders, the pace of building demolition and parking lot creation in the Warehouse District increased in the 1960s and 1970s. However, in the latter decade the tide began to turn as preservationists made their voices heard. In 1977, aided by a report from architect William A. Gould, the Cleveland Landmarks Commission adopted a comprehensive preservation plan for the Warehouse District. Five years later, in 1982, with the Commission's urging, the City of Cleveland created the Warehouse Historic District, which was later accepted and added to the National Register of Historic Places. By 1988, the Landmarks Commission felt comfortable in proclaiming victory for the preservation of the District.
According to Stephanie Ryberg-Webster in her book Preserving the Vanishing City, by the time victory was declared, more than a third of the buildings that were standing in Cleveland's Warehouse District in its peak year of 1921 had been demolished. The result was the creation of a number of "parking craters" in the District, including the earlier mentioned one within which the Hilliard Building still stands today. That crater began to form in the 1930s when a number of buildings on Frankfort Avenue between West 9th and West 6th were torn down, as well as a part of the Payne Brothers Building on the southeast corner of West 9th and St. Clair. In circa 1950, the old W. Bingham building across Frankfort from the Hilliard Building was torn down for a parking lot, and, as that decade progressed, more buildings were torn down on Frankfort, as well as a number on the west side of West 9th across the street from the Hilliard Building.
The decade of the 1960s and 1970s saw additional buildings demolished on the west side of the West 9th Street, many of them as the result of fires of unknown origin. And then, perhaps most notably for the Hilliard Building, one by one the buildings that lined the east side of West 9th immediately north of the Hilliard Building and south of St. Clair Avenue were demolished for parking lots. The remaining part of the Payne Brothers Building was the first to go in 1966; the Vincent Block next door to it then was torn down in the 1970s; and finally the Board of Trades Building, the last building standing on that side of the street between St. Clair and the Hilliard Building, in the 1980s. By the time the dust settled and the Cleveland Landmarks Commission declared victory in stemming the tide of demolition, the Hilliard Building was left in the middle of the parking crater that it still occupies today, almost 40 years after victory was declared.
The Hilliard Building avoided the fate of the other nineteenth century buildings that once surrounded it, most likely for two reasons. First, in 1950, the building was purchased by two brothers, Sidney E. and Albert E. Saltzman, who, during the peak years of demolition in the Warehouse District, operated a successful wholesale business called Drug Sundries Co. out of the building. And second, in 1983, after the tide had turned toward preservation rather than demolition in the district, attorneys Stanley Yulish and Mark Twohig purchased the building from the Saltzmans; renovated and restored it; and moved their law firm into the building.
Since 2000, the Hilliard Building has been owned by several different limited liability companies, and in 2020 it was further renovated and remodeled in order to convert the second and third floors of the building into apartments. Now, in 2024, almost 175 years old, the Hilliard Building is not just downtown Cleveland's oldest commercial building. It is also a remarkable survivor of the second half of the twentieth century in this city when, for a time, parking in the Warehouse District was king.
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The Downtown Subway Plan: Sinking a Six-Decade Dream

2011-12-12T11:21:03+00:00

Imagine descending an escalator from USBank Plaza and boarding a subway bound for Tower City Center. Mayor Tom Johnson first proposed a Cleveland subway in 1905, and the idea surfaced repeatedly thereafter. After several failed attempts between the world wars, the city came closest to realizing this dream in 1953, when Cuyahoga County voters approved a $35 million bond issue for a downtown circulator subway by a two-to-one margin. The most discussed route would have traversed a loop from the Cleveland Union Terminal to Superior Avenue and East 9th Street, then to Euclid Avenue and East 13th Street, and back along Huron Road to its origin. Although popular with the public, freeway advocate and county engineer Albert S. Porter persuaded county commissioners to nix the plan in 1957.
Two years later, Playhouse Square area merchants had grown alarmed by the drop in business that afflicted many American downtown retailers by the late 1950s. With the bond issue set to expire in a matter of months, a group led by officers of the Halle Bros. Co. department store and the owner of the Hanna Building worked behind the scenes to reopen the debate. They got a big boost when the City Planning Commission wrote a subway into Downtown Cleveland-1975, a master plan to guide future development in the city's heart. The plan, which now featured a simpler hook-shaped route under East 14th and Euclid, prompted a bitter feud between downtown interests in Playhouse Square and those near Public Square. The former had long clamored for easier access for transit riders. The latter, especially the Higbee Co. with its advantageous basement entrance adjacent to the Union Terminal rail platforms, frowned upon the subway idea.
It may never be known exactly why the county commissioners voted down the subway again in 1959. Some alleged that a sizable bribe bought the decisive vote against the tube. True or not, it is clear that Porter succeeded in creating a situation ripe for defeat. Although Toronto had recently completed a similar subway that reinforced its downtown as a vigorous hub, Porter warned darkly of buildings collapsing into the "quicksand" beneath Euclid Avenue and stores with their utilities cut off for weeks on end. He insisted that no one who could drive on a new freeway would think of being packed in "sardine" fashion into a railcar.
In the 1980s the idea of a subway reemerged in the form of the Dual Hub Corridor, a combination downtown subway and at-grade rail link with University Circle along Euclid Avenue. As cost estimates soared, the idea was scaled back, and the RTA Healthline ultimately opened as a bus rapid transit system in 2008. Meanwhile, the issue of how to distribute transit riders all over downtown found resolution when downtown interests banded together with RTA to fund a system of free trolley buses whose digital overhead destination signs exclaim, "Smile and Ride Free!"
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Clifton Park Bridge

2011-06-13T12:32:55+00:00

Opened in 1964, the Clifton Park Bridge connects the cities of Rocky River and Lakewood. It is a section of Clifton Boulevard and the Grand Army of the Republic Highway (U.S. Route 6). The bridge crosses the Rocky River very close to where it empties into Lake Erie.
The Clifton Park Bridge was built by the State Highway Department to alleviate the congestion on the Detroit Rocky River Bridge. The project, however, was not without controversy. The seizure of private property through eminent domain was eventually required in order to build the bridge. Apart from angering the affected citizens, this measures would also mean that each city would lose the money from the property taxes on those sites. The tax issue led to a more than ten-year-long dispute between the cities of Rocky River and Lakewood as the two sides could not agree on the location of the bridge. Rocky River supported the location even though the city would lose tax money. Lakewood on the other hand opposed the location because the bridge would go through the wealthy Clifton Park neighborhood on the northwestern side of the city and cause $1.5 million worth of property to be lost to eminent domain.
Other plans were proposed, such as increasing the traffic on the Hilliard Road Bridge and turning the Nickel Plate trestle into a double-decker bridge for both train and car traffic. The Hilliard Road Bridge plan was highly favored and carefully discussed. The basic question at the center of this debate was whether or not cities had the right to refuse the building of a major highway. This is also known as the "ordinance of consent." In the end, eight homes and fifteen other parcels of land were seized by the state under eminent domain in order to build the bridge with both cities losing valuable property. The Clifton Park Bridge was thus built by the state of Ohio over the objections of the local governments.
The unique curving streets of Clifton Park distinguish it from the rest of Lakewood's grid pattern. It was built starting in the late 19th century and features many historic mansions. It has been the home of many of greater Cleveland's most prominent citizens. Despite Lakewood's fears, the Clifton Park neighborhood continued to thrive even after the Clifton Park Bridge controversy, remaining alive and well even today.
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Lorain-Carnegie Bridge: Home of the Guardians

2010-09-24T05:32:13+00:00

The Lorain-Carnegie Bridge opened in 1932, becoming the second fixed high-level span in Cleveland. It was built in part to relieve traffic on the Detroit-Superior Bridge (the city's other fixed high-level bridge) which opened in 1917. Construction began on the bridge in 1930, though plans for the bridge date as far back as 1902, when citizens of Cleveland presented a petition requesting construction of a high-level viaduct between Lorain and Central Avenues. In 1927, the city approved a bond issue of $8 million for the bridge's construction, changing the plan slightly to have the east approach connect with Carnegie instead of Central Avenue. Upon completion, the bridge stood 93 feet above the Cuyahoga River and had a span of 5,865 feet.
Perhaps the most memorable features of the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge are the 43-foot tall "Guardians of Transportation" which line its sides. These four huge double-sided pylons, carved out of sandstone from nearby Berea, Ohio, represent technological advances made in transit, with each Guardian holding a different kind of vehicle in its massive hands. Frank Walker designed the pylons and Henry Hering did the actual sculpting with the help of a number of local stonecutters.
In the 1970s, Cuyahoga County Engineer Albert Porter wanted to tear down the pylons in order to add lanes to the bridge. He did not get his way. So, when the bridge reopened in 1983 after nearly three years of repairs, the Guardians of Transportation were still in place. The bridge was renamed at this time, becoming the Hope Memorial Bridge, in honor of actor Bob Hope and his family, English immigrants who came to Cleveland in 1908. William Henry Hope, Bob's father, was a stonemason who worked on the construction of the Guardians in the 1930s.
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The Shaker Lakes Freeway Fight: Saving the Shaker Parklands

2010-09-22T10:52:30+00:00

The Shaker Lakes are man-made bodies of water created by the North Union Shaker Community in the mid-nineteenth century to power a series of mills. When the Shakers left and their lands became part of the suburb of Shaker Heights, the lakes remained, becoming the focal point of a series of parks. In the 1960s, however, the parks surrounding the Shaker Lakes were threatened by a proposal that sought to construct freeways through both Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights.
One of the most important developments in Cleveland (and big cities as a whole) after World War II has been the emergence of vast freeway systems, spurring the growth of suburbs and sparking an exodus of residents from within central cities themselves. The fact that Shaker and Cleveland Heights have remained free of such roads is no accident. In 1963, a plan by Cuyahoga County Engineer and Democratic Party leader Albert Porter to run the Clark, Lee, and Heights Freeways through the two suburbs sparked outrage among its residents. Porter, a powerful politician whose leadership at the County Engineer's Office from 1943 onward had contributed to the success of the postwar freeway construction boom, soon emerged as the prime villain in the affair, brashly demanding for construction to commence despite a number of protests.
Women played a large role in the successful effort to block the Heights freeways from being built. Women's organizations were fundamental in the 1966 creation of the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes, which highlighted the educational and environmental significance of the threatened Doan Brook watershed. The fight against the freeways also benefited from the fact that Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights were very prosperous suburbs filled with wealthy residents, some of whose homes faced destruction. Activists in the Heights pressured state and local leaders to reroute the freeways. In February 1970, Ohio Governor James Rhodes, who was running for the U.S. Senate that fall, finally scrapped the project. Porter's career ended in disgrace when he plead guilty to several counts of theft in office in 1979. The Nature Center remains open and has since taught generations of young people about the importance of the environment.
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