In 1903, the same year that Euclid was incorporated as a village, Cleveland streetcar magnates Henry Everett and Edward Moore formed the Cleveland, Painesville & Eastern (CP&E) Railroad. The CP&E operated a line from Public Square to Painesville and, through a subsidiary, all the way out to Ashtabula. A parallel CP&E route, the Shore Line, ran from Cleveland to Willough Beach before merging with the main line in Willoughby. As extensive as the CP&E was, it comprised only a fraction of the hundreds of miles of electric railway lines owned by Clevelanders. Indeed, Cleveland and Buffalo investors’ tracks did much to forge a continuous electrified system from Chicago to New York and New England.

The CP&E’s Shore Line — along with a Lake Shore Boulevard newly paved and lined with arc lights every 500 feet to the county line — also enticed lakefront real estate speculation between Euclid Beach and Willough Beach Park in western Lake County. Among the Cleveland investors was German immigrant and building contractor Isaac Stein. Not only did he buy a summer lake home in Wickliffe for his own family; he also opened two residential allotments in the village of Euclid. The first, Aronda Beach, opened near Stop 131 on the CP&E Shore Line in 1907 and was said to be “modeled after a famous California resort” (perhaps Redondo Beach). The second, Maplewood-on-the-Lake, opened at Stop 136–1/2 in 1911 with 66 building lots. There, Stein built five- and six-room cobblestone cottages that the A. E. Robinson realty firm marketed.

In keeping with Stein’s intent to fashion a resort on the lake, he opened the Maplewood Beach Hotel the following year. Originally envisioned as a five-story, 100-room hotel (with the lower two floors built below the level of the bluff but visible from the shoreline), the Maplewood Beach Hotel ended up being only three stories with one below the bluff. Built of white concrete with cobblestone trim and a red-tile roof with understated towers on either end, the resort hotel faced west, perpendicular to the beach. It featured 80 guest rooms, a large lobby and dining room/ballroom decorated in green and white and opening through French doors onto a spacious veranda, and a grill room, as well as six separate cottages.

Maplewood Beach Hotel billed itself as a well-to-do resort and touted the fact that its manager, H. M. Stanford, managed the prestigious Tampa Bay Hotel in the winter months. It advertised its wide beach, bathing, boating, fishing, and tennis. In an early ad, it promised: “No matter how hot, close, stuffy, dusty and disagreeable it is in the city, you will find it cool, clean, breezy, comfortable and restful at Maplewood Beach.”

Despite its attractiveness, the hotel proved short-lived. By its second season (1913), Stanford was no longer manager, having yielded to Cleveland’s L. J. Noble, who had previously run a small hotel overlooking University Circle. No ads appeared after 1915 (the fourth season), suggesting that the Maplewood Beach Hotel proved unprofitable. The next year, the new Cleveland Country Club opened at the former resort. The club, headed by an Akron attorney, renovated the hotel as its clubhouse. It, too, proved unsuccessful, leading to leasing the property in 1917 to the East Shore Country Club. The club increased its membership more than tenfold to 2,500 in 1919 and reopened as the Maplewood Shore Club.

In the ensuing years, the Maplewood Shore Club hosted a number of large tennis tournaments, swimming competitions, and other sporting events. Notably among these were long-distance swimming races from Euclid Beach to Maplewood Beach. Cleveland firms such as M. A. Hanna & Company and Central National Bank held their annual outings at the club. In 1926, the same year that the interurban ceased operation, a fire shuttered the former hotel, and it sat vacant in its damaged state for about a decade before being demolished. The site of the onetime resort lies immediately west of the two 18-story towers of Harbor Crest apartments that now stand on Lake Shore Boulevard at East 242nd Street.

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If the Cleveland Harbor Lighthouse continued shining to this day, its beam would illuminate much of the Flats, keep most residents of the Archer Apartments and Pinnacle Condominiums unhappily awake, and seriously endanger drivers crossing the Cleveland Memorial Shoreway bridge. That’s all moot, of course, since the lighthouse ended its service in the 1890s. All that remains are sections of a sandstone wall and steps at the southwest corner of West 9th Street and Main Avenue. It’s a cute little spit of land, appropriately named Lighthouse Park.

By the mid 1820s Cleveland was hopping. The city had just dug a new entrance to the Cuyahoga River—eliminating a complicated stretch of waterway that took the river as far west as Weddell Street (now West 54th Street). Increased lake/river traffic around downtown, combined with Cleveland’s rapid commercial growth, convinced city fathers of the need to create a formal “Lighthouse Service” and to fund the creation of a “light station.” They chose a site on a bluff at the north end of Water (now West 9th) Street which, at the time, more or less abutted the Lake Erie shoreline (much of the land north of the Shoreway bridge is fill). Noted architect Levi Johnson was hired to design and build the tower and adjoining lighthouse-keeper’s house, which were completed around 1830. About the same time, an east-west artery, appropriately called Lighthouse Street, was cut through just north of the lighthouse. That road was later renamed Main Street, thus explaining why we often refer to the structure above it as the Main Avenue Bridge.

In the 1830s the immediately surrounding neighborhood was still quite bucolic with small residences, grassy plots, and a few grand homes, including Levi Johnson’s Mansard-style home just south of the Lighthouse. Cleveland’s commercial center was a few short blocks to the south and east, lining Superior Street between the Cuyahoga River and Public Square. Within fifteen years of the lighthouse’s completion, three grand hotels—the American House (1837), the Franklin House (1845), and the Weddell House (1847)—would offer testament to the area’s increasing vigor. In 1852, Johnson, who also was a shipbuilder and real-estate entrepreneur, built his own hotel, the Johnson House, on Superior between Water and Bank (West 6th) streets.

Today, lighthouses exhibit a special charm that most large structures lack. The Cleveland Harbor lighthouse was no exception, although its mission was inarguably utilitarian. Built at a cost of $8,000, the hexagonal stone building stood 55 feet high and 150 feet above the level of the lake. Via 11 lamps and 14-inch reflectors, it produced a fixed white light that could be seen for 19 miles.

In 1872 the tower was rebuilt and the keeper’s house remodeled. The lighthouse lasted until 1894 when, following a fire, it was decommissioned. Shortly thereafter, a new 63-foot-high lighthouse was constructed on a breakwall just west of the harbor entrance and the original lighthouse was torn down. Parts of the tower were used to increase the size of the adjoining dwelling to 43 rooms—capable of housing four keepers and their families. That structure remained until around 1937 when the Main Avenue Bridge was built.

Today, the wall and steps are the focal point of Lighthouse Park, which also features built-in seating, bench swings, electrical hookups for device charging, and an interesting light-bar feature. There also are several colorful historic markers that, like the Cleveland Harbor Lighthouse in years past, provide an illuminating view of Cleveland.

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In 1936, Cleveland newspaper columnist S. J. Kelly reminded Clevelanders of the loss of what was once the pride of the Forest City—Lake View Park. The origins of Lake View Park can be traced back to 1867, when a group of citizens visited Mayor Stephen Buhrer to request a lakeside park, leading the city council to recommend acquiring land. In 1869, the Ohio legislature passed a bill that enabled the city council to condemn and purchase land for Cleveland’s first park. Council approved buying property between the lakefront railroad tracks and Summit Street (a street that once ran a block to the north of today’s Lakeside Avenue) from Seneca (W. 3th) to Erie (E. 9th) Streets. In 1871 the mayor appointed the first Board of Park Commissioners, empowering them to levy taxes for park purposes. It took two more years before the land was fully appraised and purchases were completed to assemble ten acres.

In 1874 the park commissioners authorized issuing $50,000 in bonds for park development. The city then removed the shanties along Summit Street and graded and terraced the bluff. Landscape gardener C. T. Shueren devised a plan of improvements. City workers planted trees, sculpted ponds, and created decorative features. Instead of allowing the entirety of Cleveland’s downtown lakefront to be given over to shipping and industrial interests, the city had used its natural resources to its advantage, opening up the first city park as a showcase for the natural beauty of the lakefront. For the 1876 U.S. Centennial, the park offered a favored vantage point for Clevelanders and out-of-towners to watch a “sham” reenactment Commodore Perry’s battle on Lake Erie. Through ongoing beautification work, by 1885, Lake View Park was reportedly a showplace that must have impressed railroad passengers on the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern line that ran past the lower level of the park.

Lake View Park included many pathways which visitors could walk through to observe the gorgeous flower fields, rock grottos, manmade lakes, and unique features such as the large fountain—fashioned in the likeness of what observers variously described as a dinosaur, dragon, or lizard—which stood in the middle of the park grounds. The public reception to Lake View Park was overwhelmingly positive, with many praising the naturalistic environment that was in stark contrast to the dominant industrial and commercial sections of the central city.

Despite the attractiveness of Lake View Park, it was not without its problems. Periodic news reports make clear that by the 1880s, the park already had “acquired a tough reputation.” It was a “rendezvous” for “improper purposes,” “infested by mashers” (a Victorian-era reference to men who sexually harassed women), lined with saloons, and often “virtually deserted.” Given the park’s prime location alongside downtown, existing railroad rights-of-way, and the lake, not to mention the problems the park faced, the city entertained various proposals from business interests to redevelop the area. One proposal in 1889-90 was for a 10,000-seat exposition hall in the park, which it was held would rival similar venues in Detroit and Pittsburgh as a tourist attraction. However, iron and steel interests hoped eventually to expand the industrial usage of the lakefront, and some city officials decried the loss of Cleveland’s only central park on the lake. Ultimately the plan was dropped.

External pressure from rising industrial powers to replace Lake View Park would be enough for most local governments to consider the offers, especially with the promise of a future economic boom. However, Cleveland officials and citizens regularly pushed back against threats to close the park. Citizens formed committees and brought petitions to court to protect Lake View Park, and the local government regularly hosted events on park grounds to show that interest was still high. However, industrialists’ interest in the lakefront was unmoved by citizen interest in public access to the waterfront. Therefore, it came as little surprise that, in 1907, a new union railroad depot was approved for the Lake View Park site as part of the Group Plan. The station plan, however, met with severe backlash in 1910 from park supporters, who argued that the establishment of a railroad depot was antithetical to the very reason that Lake View Park was established and offered a less-people-friendly experience to visitors. Despite grievances from the public, city officials viewed the union depot as far too important to reject. Only the federal government’s concern during World War I about local rail traffic impeding cross-country traffic along the lakefront lines prevented the lakefront union station from reaching fruition.

Nevertheless, even as the debate over building a union depot raged, the decline of Lake View Park became apparent and too rapid to stop. The worsening pollution caused by the aforementioned railroad, as well as the numerous factories established through the city, suffocated the natural life in the park. The park’s trees and flowers began to wilt and die and its manmade lakes, which were once a beautiful highlight, became toxic and polluted. Despite preventing industrial society from directly destroying Lake View Park, the city was unable to stop the negative effects that industrialism had on the environment, which destroyed the park all the same.

The effect that pollution had on Lake View Park led to a further drop in attendance, but the park’s end did not come right away. Instead, as is usually the case with redevelopment, it awaited a firm plan that could make it off the drawing board. That firm plan came in early in the 1930s, soon after construction of the multipurpose Cleveland Municipal Stadium, when the city built an underground garage for nearby City Hall. By that time, “made land” (or fill) had shifted the water's edge some 1,000 feet to the north, making the “lake view” a more distant one. Ever an astute observer of Cleveland’s changing cityscape, Plain Dealer columnist S. J. Kelly noted that the dragon fountain, once the park’s conversation piece, was headless by that time and carried off by a junk dealer.

Despite efforts from citizens and local city planners, this beautiful and unique landmark which afforded a place to marvel at the majesty of one of the Great Lakes was allowed to waste away until its final demise went unmourned. Clevelanders today have no memory of Lake View Park, which has been buried beneath parking garages for nearly a century. Lake View Park was a final bastion of naturalist beauty and appreciation along a Cleveland downtown lakefront dominated by capital interests. With its demise, officials, planners, and citizens would struggle for the next century to give Clevelanders a people-friendly lakefront.

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Known as a popular entertainment and leisure location that housed numerous shore clubs in the early to mid-1900s, the property at East 185th and Lake Shore Boulevard was sold and a fire subsequently destroyed any trace of the shore clubs’ existence in 1946. Despite there being no physical trace of the shore clubs, the clubs provided fantastic entertainment and meals to Clevelanders who sought out a day of leisure. The grounds had a private mansion that was built around 1900 and each of the various shore clubs redecorated and reshaped the mansion and its grounds over time.

The first shore club at this location was the Moonbeam Shore Club, which first opened to the public in May 1925. This shore club provided live entertainment, such as the musical stylings of Jack Mile’s Moonbeam Shore Club Orchestra and Al Waldon’s Serenaders. The shore club hired young women to sing and dance at the club. The Moonbeam Shore Club had its headquarters at Hotel Griswold (8844 Euclid Avenue); however, the Moonbeam Shore Club was not open for long and went up for sale in August 1926. By December 1926, The Lakeshore Gardens took over the location and offered great food and lively music that made patrons flock to the dance floor. But like the Moonbeam Shore Club, the Lakeshore Gardens were not open for very long.

On May 13, 1927, Marigold Gardens opened on East 185th and Lake Shore Boulevard. Night club owner Phil Seiznick operated Marigold Gardens and his business was described as a roadhouse or a nightclub that had live entertainment and a café. Since Seiznick was also the owner of Club Madrid (2422 Euclid Ave.), two orchestras, Club Madrid Night Owls and the Royal Hawaiians, played at Marigold Gardens in addition to cabaret acts. He also added an outdoor dance pavilion to the club grounds so that there was a dedicated dance space outside. In 1928, while Marigold Gardens was still in operation, another shore club called Shore Acres Gardens (also spelled Shore Acre Gardens) advertised its presence, suggesting that there was a second shore club located at E. 185th and Lake Shore. However, there was likely a connection between Marigold Gardens and Shore Acres Gardens because the latter had Phil Seiznick’s Club Madrid Night Owls play at their club. There are only a few advertisements for the Shore Acres Gardens in the summer of 1928, so it is likely that the Shore Acres Gardens had connections to Marigold Gardens and was not open very long. In contrast, Marigold Gardens continued operations until 1933.

In June 1933, Herman Pirchner purchased Marigold Gardens and renamed it the Alpine Shore Club. The new Alpine Shore Club had a German theme for its beer garden and boasted an Alpine yodeling orchestra and waiters wearing lederhosen. There were umbrella shielded tables on the porch and on the beach around the dance floor so that when visitors were not dancing, they could rest in the comfortable shade. Prior to owning Alpine Shore Club, Pirchner was entangled with the Mafia due to selling illegal beer during Prohibition. Although Pirchner got out of bootlegging alcohol, the Mafia continued to target his business interests, including the speakeasy on the second floor of the mansion on the property. The Mafia set off stink bombs in the speakeasy to draw customers out of the club without paying their bills. Therefore, Pirchner enlisted the help of famed safety director Eliot Ness and the Mafia stopped targeting the Alpine Shore Club. On November 28, 1935, Pirchner and Helen O’Brien opened the Alpine Village in Playhouse Square, which operated until 1961. Despite purchasing a second club location, Pirchner continued the Alpine Shore Club a couple more years with his co-owner Helen O’Brien.

By 1937, Helen O’Brien solely ran the Alpine Shore Club and renamed it Helen O’Brien’s Shore Club in the following year. She wanted to keep the Bavarian band but added Irish dancing to the list of entertainment at the club. Her shore club was a popular location for events, such as wedding anniversaries. O’Brien also had famous performers much like the clubs before hers, including Johnny Hayduk’s Caballeros, Dick O’Heren, Gypsy Martin Willesh, Ludwig Bosch, and Barbara Edwards. Fantastic full course meals were also served to club visitors. After Helen O’Brien’s Shore Club, there was one last entertainment venue at this location.

The last mention of Helen O’Brien’s Shore Club was in September 1938 and the first mention of Lake Shore Picnic Grounds was in August 1940. Therefore, there must have been a transition from Helen O’Brien’s Shore Club to Lake Shore Picnic Grounds during that two-year window. The Lake Shore Picnic Grounds offered racing, baseball, dancing, and swimming. Local residents could easily reach the Lake Shore Picnic Grounds by car or by public buses and enjoy a day of leisure activities. The picnic grounds’ accessibility made it a popular location not only for the general public, but also for local businesses and social clubs to reserve for outings. What set this shore club apart from previous ones was its policy of explicitly welcoming everyone regardless of race. A number of Black organizations used the grounds. For example, in 1942, the grounds hosted the annual picnic of the Tuxedo Club, an African American social club.

Despite the Lake Shore Picnic Grounds’ welcoming atmosphere, the Cleveland Catholic Diocese purchased the property in 1945 with the intent of turning the mansion and pavilion on the property that used to be a nightclub operated by Marigold Gardens and Alpine Shore Club into an extension of a nearby orphanage. However, the structures were beyond repair and a new orphanage location was procured. In June 1946, there was a large fire at East 185th and Lake Shore Boulevard that could be seen as far as 18 miles away. The fire ravaged the mansion and pavilion leaving only three brick chimneys in place and causing $30,000 in damage. The origin of the fire was never determined. With the fire, came an end to E. 185th and Lake Shore Boulevard’s history as an entertainment venue. Today, St. Joseph’s High School and HWR Christian Center Park occupies E. 185th and Lake Shore Boulevard where the shore clubs once offered recreation and entertainment near the shores of Lake Erie.

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In 1852, John Ball, a Lake Erie ship captain, his wife Harriet Blake Ball, and their eight children moved into a new, two-story brick house on the northwest corner of State (West 29th) Street and Franklin Avenue (Boulevard), in what was then the City of Ohio (also referred to as "Ohio City"). Two years later, that city would merge with the City of Cleveland, and Ohio City would become Cleveland's near west side. The house, which today, some 170 years later, still stands on the corner of Franklin Boulevard and West 29th Street is, according to local architectural historian Craig Bobby, of the Greek Revival style, but, in his estimation, was also influenced by the emerging Italianate style. The notable Greek Revival features of the house include the straightforward stone lintels and sills on almost all the windows and the front door, and the dentil course immediately under the roof eaves. The hipped roof and the cupola are viewed by Bobby as suggesting the Italianate influence,

Captain Ball, who was 40 years old when he moved into the house at 2902 Franklin Boulevard, which then bore an address of 181 Franklin Avenue, may have envisioned living in this roomy house with his wife and children for the rest of his life. However, his family's residence in it was cut short, possibly because of a series of personal tragedies that befell the Ball family between the years 1858 and 1861. In 1858, Ball's wife Harriet died suddenly, and then two of the couple's children, Mary (17) and Eunice (21) died from illnesses within three months of each other in December 1860 and February 1861. At some point in time after the death of Eunice, Captain Ball moved his remaining children out of the house on Franklin Avenue and leased it in 1862 to the Gilbert and Susan Grant family.

The house at 2902 Franklin Boulevard has for decades been commonly known in Cleveland as the Ball-Wilson house, because Gilbert and Susan Grant's daughter Ella, who was about eight years old in 1862 when the family moved into the house, grew up to become Ella Grant Wilson, a feminist pioneer, and one of the first women in Cleveland to successfully own and operate her own florist business. Later, she became well-known as a garden editor and columnist for the Plain Dealer, as well as the author of two books describing her interactions as a florist with the wealthy families who lived on Cleveland's grand Euclid Avenue in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Grant family only lived in the house on Franklin Boulevard for five years, but that was enough time for Ella to form friendships with children of some of the more prominent west side Clevelanders that would last a lifetime. Among her west side childhood friends was Julia Castle, her "desk mate" at the neighborhood's Kentucky Street School. Julia was the youngest daughter of William Castle, mayor of Ohio City from 1853-1854 and, following the merger of Ohio City and Cleveland, the first mayor of the combined cities. The Castle family lived at 186 Franklin (which today would be 2913 Franklin), almost directly across the street from the Grants. In addition to the life-long friendships she formed there as a child, Ella Grant Wilson also made her first sale of flowers on Franklin Avenue. In her book Famous Old Euclid Avenue of Cleveland, Volume One, published in 1932, she recounted a story of a man walking by her house one day, noticing her flower garden and offering her two tickets to the circus in exchange for a bouquet of flowers.

In 1868, the Grant family moved from the house on Franklin Avenue to University Heights (today, Tremont) where Ella Grant just a few years later would build her first greenhouse on Jennings Avenue (West 14th Street), near Rowley Avenue, and start her florist business. After the Grant family's departure, the Ball family rented out the house at 2902 Franklin for several more years before selling it, in 1873, to Captain William B. Guyles. In that the Ball-Wilson House is named after both its relatively obscure first owner and a pioneer Cleveland woman who never actually owned it, an argument could be made that it should have instead been named after Captain Guyles. Like John Ball, Guyles was a lake captain, but a much more notable one. One biographical article contended that, in the 20 years that he commanded ships on the Great Lakes, he never had an accident which resulted in the loss of life or "considerable" property loss. After retiring as a lake captain, Guyles became a marine inspector for a commercial insurance company. In the early 1850s, he was elected to a seat on Ohio City's council and served on a committee that facilitated the merger of Ohio City and the City of Cleveland in 1854. In 1870, as a member of the city's Board of Trade, he proposed a design for the improvement of Cleveland's harbor that led to the construction of the city's first breakwater in 1885. After moving into the house on the corner of Franklin Avenue and State Street, Guyles became, like several other prominent residents of Franklin Avenue, a director of the People's Savings Bank, the president of which was then Robert Russell Rhodes, who lived across the street from him.

Captain Guyles lived in the house at 2902 Franklin Boulevard until his death in 1896. In 1900, his widow sold the house to the next door neighbor at 2908 Franklin, who used it as rental property for the next decade. The house became owner-occupied once again in 1912 when it was sold to James and Catherine (Moan) Walsh. The Walshes, who were second generation Irish Americans, lived in the house until their deaths, his in 1932 and hers in 1935. After Catherine's death, the house was inherited by one of her nephews, James V. Moan, who used it as rental property for the next three plus decades. In 1970, Moan sold the house to Thomas and Claire Farnsworth, early Ohio City pioneers, who lived in it for the next five years. It was about at this time that the house underwent rehabilitation, which included the removal of the wrap-around porch which had likely been added to it in the first decade of the twentieth century. In 1980, the house was featured as one of the improved historic houses on the sixth annual Ohio City House and Garden tour. As of 2020, the house was no longer single-family occupied, but instead an Airbnb rental property.

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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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It’s 1956 and you’re a Clevelander looking for something to do. Maybe you should “make plans to come aboard the magnificent Aquarama for a memorable cruise,” as an early ad urges. Or perhaps it’s 1958 and “you are looking for an inexpensive vacation idea this summer.” If that sounds good, another ad suggests, “the luxurious lake-cruising ocean liner S.S. Aquarama may be for you.” Then again, it might be 1962 and you’re casually searching for the fountain of youth. In that case, “you’ll want to live forever on the spectacular Aquarama moonlight cruise.” 

If this seems too good to be true, it isn't–or at least wasn't. Between 1956 and 1962, Clevelanders could enjoy one-day round-trip cruises from Cleveland to Detroit and Detroit to Cleveland in a “fabulous new, eight million dollar passenger ship,” according to an ad in the Plain Dealer. One day cost in 1956? $2.50 to $3.25 on weekdays; $3.25 to $4.00 on weekends. Evening cruises also were available: $4.00 for Lounge Class and $4.75 for Club Class. A trip to Detroit (or Cleveland) never looked so good. What's more, auto travelers could take advantage of what one promotional brochure touted as "A New Auto Short-Cut Across Lake Erie" which "saves 180 driving miles." Combined with another passenger/auto ferry ship–the S.S. Milwaukee Clipper between Muskegon, Michigan, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin–one could drive or ride in a virutally straight line from Cleveland to Milwaukee.

The Aquarama began its life in 1945 as a transoceanic troop carrier called the Marine Star: 520 feet and 12,733 tons. It made only one Atlantic Ocean trip before combat ceased. Eight years later, the ship was purchased by Detroit’s Sand Products Company and taken to Muskegon, Michigan, where it underwent an $8 million, two-year conversion, and was reborn as a nine-deck luxury-class ferry capable of carrying 2,500 passengers and 160 cars. The rechristened Aquarama also touted five bars, four restaurants, two dance floors, a movie theater, a television theater, and a playroom. Special events often were held in conjunction with day or evening cruises. For example, on June 10, 1962, passengers were treated to a style show from Lane Bryant’s Tall Girl Department. The next month, evening cruisers on the Aquarama could watch the Miss World finals. Regular shipboard entertainment included musical performances, dancing, marionette shows, games, and contests.

The cruise portion of the ship’s life actually began in 1955, with tours to various Great Lakes ports and a brief stint as a “floating amusement palace” docked along Chicago's Navy Pier. Soon after, service began focusing solely on runs between Cleveland and Detroit: six hours “door to door” with Cleveland-based passengers embarking in the morning from (and returning in late evening to) the West 3rd Street pier. For the next six years, the Aquarama was extremely popular but never profitable. Part of the problem may have been frequent “incidents”: One summer, the Aquarama backed into a seawall. A year later, it hit a dock in Cleveland. A week after that, it banged into a Detroit dock, damaging a warehouse. Alcohol issues also were recurrent: Accusations included untaxed booze and liquor sold in Ohio waters on Sunday. Still, the ship’s most likely death knell was simply high operating costs.

The Aquarama made its last trip on September 4, 1962. It then was towed back to where it had been rebuilt–Muskegon, Michigan, ostensibly to continue as cruise vessel. Unfortunately, a prohibitively large dredging investment was needed to accommodate the harbor. The Aquarama thus sat dockside—residing (but not operating) later in Sarnia, Ontario, Windsor, Ontario, and Buffalo, New York, where entrepreneurs hoped in vain to convert it to a floating casino. In 2007 the Aquarama was towed to Aliağa, Turkey, where it was broken up for scrap.

For a half dozen years, Clevelanders could enjoy an oceangoing experience on the Great Lakes. But neither Cleveland nor Detroit were slated to remain hot destinations. As beautiful as the open lake surely was, the decrepitude of the ends (the destinations) was less and less able to justify the beauty of the means (the travel). As a Plain Dealer editorial noted on July 4, 1956, “[the] Aquarama’s spit and polish makes you wince a bit when you look at our present lakefront. From the ship’s portholes, our port looks more like a hole.”

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Long before John Patton, one of the victims in the 1916 waterworks tunnel disaster, had ever thought about coming to Cleveland, the city had been digging water intake tunnels under Lake Erie. In the post-Civil War era, pollution of the Cuyahoga River and the lake into which it flowed had increased so rapidly as a result of an expanding industrial sector and urban population that, by the late 1860s, residents were already complaining of tainted water from the lake, which had been the city's primary source for drinking water since 1856, the year construction of the Kentucky Street Reservoir project had been completed. Responding to these complaints, the city, in 1874, constructed its first waterworks tunnel. Five-feet in diameter and located 40 feet below the lake bed, it extended from the shore near the old River Bed to a water intake crib in the lake a little over a mile away where, presumably, the water was untainted.

By the mid-1890s, however, this tunnel, and a second, larger one later built to the same crib, became inadequate, as pollution of the river and lake had worsened considerably. Therefore, in 1898, the city undertook to construct a new tunnel leading to a new water intake crib three miles out in the lake. (Still visible from Cleveland's shoreline today, this crib eventually became known as the 5-mile crib, because, while located three miles from the shore, its tunnel stretches a distance of five miles to the east side Kirtland pumping station.) The project was completed in 1904, but by 1910, with questions raised regarding the new tunnel's integrity and a rising typhoid fever rate in the city, plans were soon made to construct a fourth tunnel, larger in diameter and extending further out into the lake than any of the previous ones. The new tunnel would be constructed from the old west side crib, which was abandoned when construction of the new tunnel to the Kirtland station had been completed, to a new water intake crib nearly four miles out into the lake.

Construction of this newest lake tunnel began in March 1914. It was initially lauded for its safety record, especially when compared to that of the last tunnel's construction, which had taken the lives of a total of 33 workers in four separate accidents occurring between 1898-1901. But the praise quickly ended on July 25, 1916, when Clevelanders woke up to learn that there had been a terrible accident the night before in the tunnel. In the evening hours of July 24, Harry Vokes, a 27-year-old Case Institute graduate, who was serving as acting foreman, led a work crew of eight men, including John Patton, down into the tunnel from the new crib known as Crib No. 5. Shortly thereafter, when natural gas vented up from the lake bed and somehow ignited, an explosion occurred, which buried Vokes and his entire work crew under hundreds of feet of mud and tunnel debris.

As often happens in the midst of tragedy, a number of men, including African American Garrett Morgan, inventor of a new type of gas mask, and later of other patented products including the first three-position traffic signal light, exhibited extreme courage and bravery in descending into the tunnel to search for survivors that night and the following morning. The first two rescue attempts led by Crib superintendent John Johnston and Construction superintendent Gus Van Duzen rescued none of the work crew and resulted only in the deaths of ten of the rescuers who were overcome by the gas in the tunnel. Several additional efforts in the early morning hours of September 25 by Van Duzen's stepson Tom Clancy resulted in the successful rescue of one or two members of the second rescue team lying unconscious on the tunnel floor, but it was not until Morgan, and his brother Frank, arrived with their gas masks that they, tunnel workers, firefighters and others at Crib No. 5, were able to descend into the tunnel relatively safely and bring out the remaining surviving rescuers, including Van Duzen, as well as the bodies of the rescuers who had not survived.

Once all of the rescuers, alive or dead, were removed from the tunnel, sandhogs began to dig through the mud, and sometimes patiently wait for gas in the tunnel to dissipate, in a renewed effort to reach and retrieve the bodies of the work crew. As this was slowly progressing, Cleveland City Hall launched a probe to determine who was at fault for this disaster. Fingers were initially pointed at Van Duzen, Johnston and Vokes, as well as at a city chemist who had failed to timely test an air sample from the tunnel. But, when witnesses began to fault city officials for safety shortcomings at Crib No. 5, including lack of resuscitation equipment, a telephone, and an attending physician, Mayor Harry L. Davis quickly ended the probe, concluding that no one was at fault and that "every man did what he thought best." Meanwhile, digging for the work crew continued. By August 21, all nine bodies were recovered, including that of John Patton. His body was identified by his brother-in-law James Masterson. During the recovery effort, another sandhog, Italian immigrant Luigi Bucciarelli, fell from Crib No. 5 into the lake and drowned, becoming the twentieth victim of the tragedy.

Work soon resumed on construction of the tunnel, which was finally completed in 1918. Afterwards, the two west side cribs were submerged under Lake Erie's waters, leaving only the 5-Mile Crib still visible to Clevelanders today. The west side tunnel was destined to be the last waterworks tunnel ever constructed under the lake bed. When the city initiated its next water intake project in 1948, the project was constructed by digging a trench in the lake bed from a crane mounted on a barge, and then laying prefabricated pipe into the trench. Certainly, this was a better and safer method of constructing a water intake system in Lake Erie, but it unfortunately was developed three decades too late for Irish immigrant John Patton and the other 19 men who died with him four miles out in Lake Erie.

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The story of the failed Lake Erie International Jetport is one that generated a flurry of political interest but ultimately succumbed to the grandeur of its own ambition. Mayor Ralph Locher first introduced the idea of a new airport for Cleveland in June 1966. Dr. Abe Silverstein, the director of NASA's Lewis Research Center, revived the idea three years later. Silverstein's comprehensive plan, estimated at $1.185 billion, located the jetport one mile north of downtown Cleveland. The circuitous lifecycle of the jetport-in-the-lake plan represents the midcentury promises that large-scale construction and redevelopment projects offered for metropolitan economic growth. Several such projects swirled around Cleveland in the latter half of the twentieth century, but not all of them reached fruition. For example, Tower City Center was conceived in the 1970s but languished until it was finally opened in 1990.

Both Locher's and NASA's plan assumed that by the 1990s Cleveland Hopkins International Airport would be insufficient for the region's commercial air transportation needs. In addition, an offshore jetport would reduce the roar of the supersonic jets that people assumed would become the air travel of the future. In March 1972, Cleveland created the Lake Erie Regional Transportation Authority (LERTA) to facilitate plans for a jetport. Dr. Cameron M. Smith, LERTA's executive director, presided over a board of trustees appointed by the county commissioners and the city of Cleveland. The Federal Aviation Administration underwrote the funding for LERTA's $4.3 million feasibility study in 1972. The study, completed in 1977, recommended building the jetport five miles offshore in Lake Erie on a stone-and-sand dike. The proposed 13-mile dike would surround a manmade landmass, a massive undertaking that would stretch contemporary technology to the limit. The jetport would be accessible by a causeway carrying an RTA rapid transit line and an extension of the Innerbelt Freeway.

Proponents of the jetport cited the additional jobs that would be created by the jetport, positive effects for Cleveland's image and economy, and the practical need for a new airport. However, by the 1970s, the jetport had strong opponents including Mayor Dennis Kucinich. Opponents pointed out reasonable barriers to the construction of the jetport including the project's expense compared to renovating Cleveland Hopkins, weather conditions on the lake, and the failure to explore alternative forms of transportation. The FAA finally predicted that Cleveland would not need a new airport at least until the year 2000 and withdrew support in 1978. LERTA dismissed its employees and the board met only once a year. The Lake Erie International Jetport proved to be a pie-in-the-sky dream that was too expensive and impractical to be built. The promise of improving the infrastructure to serve a growing city's strong economy and prepare Cleveland to leap into the twenty-first century could not overcome admittedly reasonable opposition.

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Tens of thousands of people lining the shore of Lake Erie to watch a plane go by. While the idea seems ludicrous today, this is exactly what happened on August 31, 1910, when pioneering aviator Glenn Curtiss took off from Euclid Beach Park and headed west towards Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. His 60-mile trip took him one hour and eighteen minutes to complete, and set a world record for distance flown over water.

A crowd of 18,000 flocked to Euclid Beach to see his plane take off, and all across Cleveland, people left their workplaces and headed outdoors to catch a glimpse of the 'birdman.' The scene was repeated the following day when Curtiss made his successful return trip from Cedar Point to Euclid Beach. For his efforts, Curtiss won a $5,000 prize, as well as the adoration of an entire city. Speaking at Euclid Beach before his flight, Curtiss looked towards the future, stating, "Within two years I expect to see aeroplanes which will carry at least ten passengers, being used as a means of transportation." Indeed, following his success in Cleveland, Curtiss continued to be a pioneer in the field of aviation, founding the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company (now part of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation) and working with the United States military to develop planes for use in battle.

Meanwhile, Cleveland's fascination with airplanes would continue in the years following Curtiss's flight. In 1911, 30,000 Clevelanders converged on Euclid Beach to watch another aviation pioneer, Harry Atwood, land his biplane during a twelve-day trip from St. Louis to New York that set a new distance record. Cleveland soon became a key locale in the aviation industry. In 1918, the city landed a spot on the first government airmail route. That same year, Glenn L. Martin opened a factory on St. Clair Avenue that produced the Martin MB bomber for the military. A number of companies that produced airplane parts sprung up in Cleveland in the 1920s and 1930s, as well. And the spectacle of Curtiss's flight would be reproduced on a much larger scale beginning in 1929, when Cleveland played host to the National Air Races for the first of many times.

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On Whiskey Island, moored on Lake Erie behind a wide copse of bushes, is a giant cruise ship. Or perhaps it’s just an oddly shaped cement building with an extremely nautical visage? The second choice, not surprisingly, is correct. After all, how many cruise ships dock in Cleveland?

The United States Coast Guard Station, located on the west pier at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, is one of only two commercial “Streamline Moderne” structures ever built in Cleveland. The other is the Greyhound Bus Terminal on Chester Avenue at East 13th Street. Actually a complex of buildings (an operations center, boathouse, garage and 60-foot observation tower), the Coast Guard Station was designed by local architect J. Milton Dyer, who also created Cleveland’s City Hall. With horizontal lines and gentle curves, the Station really (and intentionally) resembles a boat—wholly appropriate for a structure whose mission was to organize search & rescue operations, bring food and supplies to isolated communities, and eliminate navigation hazards.

The US Life Saving Service (absorbed in 1915 into the newly formed US Coast Guard) built its first structures on the Whiskey Island site in 1876. Those facilities were replaced by the current Station in 1940, built at a cost of $350,000. The Station remained in use until 1976 when the Coast Guard relocated its Cleveland operations to the East 9th Street pier. The Whiskey Island complex then was occupied (but minimally used) by the water-quality-control laboratories of the Cleveland Division of Water until 1984. Since that time it has stood abandoned, save for brief period in the 1990s when it operated as a night club.

Under the aegis of the Cleveland Metroparks, the Coast Guard Station is slowly being restored. The Foundry, Cleveland’s community rowing and sailing center, has installed new boat docks and periodically hosts regattas and high school and collegiate sailing team practices. And once a year, the Station is pressed into service for the annual Burning River Fest, a panoply of beer, food and entertainment. In 2013, the US Coast Guard Station was added to the National Register of Historic Places—further proof that it is not, in fact, a cruise ship.

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In an era of industrial expansion and technological advances, the Hulett Ore-Unloader helped Cleveland become one of the greatest steel manufacturing cities of the twentieth century. The invention, designed by George Hulett, was vital to the production and processing of iron ore into steel.

In 1844, rich iron ore deposits were discovered in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The ore was originally very expensive to transport, especially from places like the upper Great Lakes region to the Lake Erie coast. The high prices did not affect the demand for ore very much. Instead, the high demand encouraged investments and innovations in both transportation and handling techniques. New technologies and practices could give a company a vital edge in the growing iron ore industry. By 1853, the Cleveland Iron Mining Company shipped 152 tons of iron to the Sharon Iron Company in Pennsylvania. At this time, the ore was manually loaded and unloaded by men using shovels and wheelbarrows. It took about a week to unload a 300-ton shipment of iron ore using this method of raw manpower.

Before Hulett developed his invention, there were many men who realized that the existing method of unloading ships was not ideal nor very efficient. In the 1860s, a steam-hoisting engine was developed to lift and lower metal tubs in and out of the cargo holds. The metal tubs were filled with iron ore, but a group of men was still needed to shovel the ore into the vessels. Later, in the 1880s, a man named Alexander Brown improved upon the steam-hoist and named it the Brownhoist. The Brownhoist utilized a self-filling grab bucket, which could grab 1.5 tons of ore with each pass. Brown's invention significantly reduced the time and cost of unloading the ore. This helped lower the price of the product from 30-50 cents a ton to as little as 18 cents a ton. The Brownhoist thus increased the production of steel. Even so, large numbers of men were still needed to move the ore around the holds in order for the bucket to grab its full capacity.

Further developing on the ideas of others, George Hulett invented a machine that would forever change the production of steel in the United States. Born in 1846 in Conneaut, Ohio, Hulett moved to Cleveland with his family at an early age. After graduating from the Humiston Institute in 1864, he ran a general store in Unionville, Ohio, but returned to Cleveland in 1881. His return to the coast of Lake Erie prompted a string of ideas and innovations, leading to the development of several patents between the years of 1887 and 1906. Hulett secured more than two dozen of these patents, which included a variety of conveying and hoisting machinery. His greatest patent was developed in 1898 and would be in service a year later in his hometown of Conneaut, Ohio. It was to be known as the Hulett Ore-Unloader.

George Hulett secured a patent for his unloader and a patent for the bucket the machine needed to revolutionize the industry. The first-generation Hulett was steam powered and its bucket had a 10-ton "bite." In 1912, four second-generation Huletts were built on Whiskey Island. These Huletts were electrically powered and their buckets could grab 17 tons of ore at one time–a vast improvement on the Brownhoist's 1.5 tons from the 1880s. The price of ore now dropped below five cents a ton and helped launch Cleveland as one of the major steel producers in the world. The Huletts worked the docks of the Great Lakes for almost a century until self-unloading freighters appeared in the late 1970s. As late as 1999, six Huletts were still standing, including the four on Whiskey Island. However, despite a preservation effort that led to their historic designation, all but two Huletts were destroyed, and the other two were carefully disassembled so that they might be reconstructed in the future.

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One of the major attractions during the first year of the Great Lakes Exposition was the Marine Theater, a performance which took place in Lake Erie and showcased swimming and diving acts. The following year, Broadway producer and showman Billy Rose came to town and turned the Marine Theater into something even more spectacular: The Aquacade.

Rose invested $500,000 in his Aquacade show and built an elaborate moving set and seats for 5,000 spectators. Grander and more ambitious than the Marine Theater, the Aquacade featured a cast of hundreds of swimmers, divers, and showgirls who performed to live musical accompaniment. Dinner was served during evening performances of the four-act show, and tickets could cost as much as $1.50 -- quite an expense at the time. The show proved to be a great success, with sold out performances being the norm and seasoned New York critics claiming that Billy Rose had "brought Broadway to Lake Erie." Even the Three Stooges -- Larry, Curly, and Moe -- came to see the show when they had a night off from performing at the Palace Theater.

Some of the most spectacular drama surrounding the Aquacade (drama that in fact only helped promote the show further) happened off-stage, however. Johnny Weismuller (best known for his movie role as Tarzan) performed at the Aquacade, and his equally famous wife Lupe Velez (a Mexican actress) would sometimes fly into Cleveland unexpectedly. Velez would fight and argue with Weismuller in public, creating plenty of fodder for the papers. Olympic swimming star Eleanor Holm Jarrett performed in the show, too. Jarrett made headlines by giving up her amateur standing to perform the starring role in the Aquacade, but she had already been suspended from the Olympic team for drinking (itself a hot news item), and may not have been reinstated anyway. Rumors of a romantic affair between Jarrett and Rose (who were both married at the time) also fueled much speculation. The two later divorced their spouses and married in 1939

The Aquacade ended its run in Cleveland when the Great Lakes Exposition came to an end in September 1937. Rose took his show to the 1939 New York World's Fair, with Holm and Weismuller reprising their starring roles, and it again drew rave reviews and large crowds.

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When William J. Gordon died in 1892, he donated the land that became known as Gordon Park to the City of Cleveland under the condition that it would forever remain a free, public park. By the time of his death, Gordon, who made his fortune in the wholesale grocery and iron ore businesses, had accumulated some 122 acres of land along the shoreline near the spot where the Doan Brook enters Lake Erie. Gordon Park opened to the public in 1893 and quickly became a recreational destination for Clevelanders living on the east side. A grand bathhouse catered to the multitudes who crowded onto the park's beach, and the city also provided facilities for boaters, fishermen, and picnickers. Meanwhile, further inland, south of the beach, wooded areas and formal gardens provided quiet retreats for those seeking a more relaxed atmosphere.

In the decades after World War II, however, Gordon Park began to decline. Water pollution affected all of the city's lakefront parks and Gordon Park was no exception. Swimming in particular became increasingly unsafe. Moreover, the late-1960s construction of a straighter route for I-90 (an upgrade of the Memorial Shoreway that the Works Progress Administration had built from East 9th Street to Gordon Park in the late 1930s) literally split the park in two, separating its lakefront areas from those further inland. Meanwhile, Doan Brook was culverted, and the area directly to the east of the park (Dike 14) became a dredge disposal site.

Lake Erie may not have gone anywhere, but it is hard to imagine that William J. Gordon would recognize his 122-acre gift to Cleveland if he could see it today.

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In 1901, Dudley S. Humphrey became the owner of Euclid Beach amusement park, vowing to make the park a respectable, family friendly place for recreation. He had previously run a popcorn stand at the park, though the prevalence of alcohol, freak shows, and gambling under the old ownership did not mesh with his Protestant values. Humphrey's new Euclid Beach, where everything was guaranteed to be "of a highly moral and elevating character," instantly became a success. The park no longer had an admission fee, so one could enjoy a day at the park for little or no money. Streetcar companies introduced single fare service to the park, making getting there cheap and convenient too. Euclid Beach Park proudly touted these new, improved features with the motto: 'One Fare – Free Gate – No Beer.'

Occupying 90 acres of lakeshore property near the Collinwood-Euclid township border, the park grew rapidly under the Humphrey family management to add unique food options, attractions, amusements, and recreational resources for Cleveland’s growing population during the first half of the 20th century. A park railway connected beach and fishing facilities with a dancehall, theatre, and roller skating rink. A Ferris wheel, merry-go-rounds, and a funhouse were among the 157 "spaces and structures" on the park’s map. Rocket cars, roller coasters of all sizes, flying scooters, and "dodgem" cars attracted visitors of all ages as well as the park's arcade. Hundreds of local company and organization picnics filled the Euclid Beach schedule every season. Concerts and political rallies also marked the calendar. All tolled, millions of visitors enjoyed Euclid Beach during the 69 Humphrey management years with some event crowds rivaling the local pro sports gatherings of 85,000 plus.

The Humphrey's vision of Euclid Beach Park, sadly, also involved the strict regulation of African American visitors, who were admitted to the park but prevented from using all of its facilities. These practices culminated in a series of protests and violent incidents during the summer of 1946, prompting the mayor to order the park closed a month early. From that point on, the park's dancehall – whose racial policies had been the target of many of the protests – remained closed to the public. Nevertheless, Euclid Beach remained popular in the years after World War II but ultimately closed in 1969.

Although it has been closed since 1969, Euclid Beach lives on throughout Northeast Ohio in a number of ways. Cleveland Metroparks assumed management of Cleveland’s lakefront parks in 2013. A visit to Wildwood Park, which occupies the site of Euclid Beach amusements and the lakeside beach, now accommodates visitors, boaters, and swimmers in a park setting. In addition, even those too young to have visited the park themselves can still take a ride on the rocket car, crunch into an authentic Humphrey popcorn ball, hear the quavering cackle of Laughing Sal, and enjoy the park's 1910 carousel, lovingly restored after being rescued from a shuttered amusement park in Maine, in its new location at the Western Reserve Historical Society in University Circle.

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During the summers of 1936 and 1937, Cleveland's civic and business leaders sponsored the Great Lakes Exposition. Held along the lakefront on a reclaimed refuse dump, the Expo was intended to foster civic and regional pride, attract visitors and businesses to Cleveland, and provide an entertaining diversion in the midst of the Great Depression.

Local businesses and industries from the region sponsored exhibits designed to celebrate American progress and promote their own products. Standard Oil of Ohio produced souvenir maps to the city, while the Higbee Company hosted a branch store on the expo's grounds, housed in an impressive tower. Visitors learned about regional industries at exhibits such as "The Romance of Steel", and watched patriotic pageants.

Municipal Stadium acted as the western anchor of the grounds, which stretched to East 24th Street. The main grounds extended to East Ninth Street, where the Midway began. The main area featured imposing, albeit temporary, structures and pageantry, while the Midway "Streets of the World" area provided carnival style entertainment with an international theme. Controversy over appropriate entertainment on the Midway swirled around the expo. Originally, nudity and "exotic" dancers were banned, but in 1936 several venues featured scantily clad females and striptease dancers. In 1937 the nudity rule was again enforced.

The Expo garnered some international attention but was never a full blown world's fair. Attendance was not as large as hoped for, and plans to construct more permanent lakeside recreation facilities never came to fruition. Even so, the Great Lakes Exposition provided two summers of excitement and entertainment for many Cleveland residents and out of town guests at a time when spirits needed a lift.

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Back when Native Americans made camp along Lake Erie, Whiskey Island was a spit of high land rising out of the marshes surrounding the original mouth of the Cuyahoga River. Lorenzo Carter, Cleveland's first permanent white settler, chose this location as the site of his family farm.

Activity on Whiskey Island really picked up with the rechanneling of the Cuyahoga River in 1827. Undertaken due to the increased river traffic caused by the opening of the Ohio & Erie Canal, the straighter, man-made mouth entered Lake Erie at Whiskey Island's eastern end. The new configuration partially dried out the marshes surrounding Whiskey Island, making it somewhat more amenable to development.

Land developers soon purchased Whiskey Island from Carter's descendants and laid out a street grid on the land. Most Clevelanders still considered the area too marshy and unhealthy to consider settling there. Irish immigrants, however, who did much of the labor on both the canal and the rechanneling project, soon took up residence on Whiskey Island. The area quickly developed into a rough and tumble immigrant neighborhood, filled with saloons and slum housing. It was around this time that Whiskey Island received its name, thanks to the presence of a distillery.

Docks and manufacturing plants arrived on Whiskey Island around the same time as the Irish. By the 1850s, railroads—quickly making the canal obsolete—also began running their way across the land. By the late nineteenth century, many of the Irish inhabitants had risen in wealth and status and moved to more attractive neighborhoods. As the Irish moved away and Cleveland's industrial might grew, Whiskey Island became nearly exclusively an industrial area.

The Cleveland and Pittsburgh ore docks on Whiskey Island, which linked up with the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks running across it, featured a number of Hulett ore unloaders, named for their Cleveland-based inventor George Hulett. These 100-foot-tall behemoths had buckets that could scoop out 17 tons of ore from a lake freighter's hull in a single go. The hundreds of millions of tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone unloaded on Whiskey Island fed Cleveland's bustling industries for decades.

Today, the Huletts have been dismantled, replaced by self-unloading ships. The railroad tracks, ore docks, and a salt mine remain on Whiskey Island, but Cleveland's postwar deindustrialization has lessened their activity. Out of this unhappy development, though, has come something positive, as Clevelanders have reinvented Whiskey Island once again, turning its eastern end into an area for lakefront recreation. Wendy Park and the Whiskey Island Marina are yet another chapter in the story of the ever-changing Whiskey Island.

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By the 1960s, Lake Erie had become extremely polluted, in part due to the heavy industry that lined its shores in Cleveland and other cities. Factories dumped pollutants into the lake and the waterways that flowed into it (like the Cuyahoga River) without much government oversight. Waste from city sewers made its way into the lake too, as did fertilizer and pesticides from agricultural runoff.

As a result of these pollutants, Lake Erie contained increased levels of phosphorus and nitrogen, which contributed to eutrophication - a process that encourages the development of algal blooms. Dead fish littered the shoreline as a lack of oxygen in the water led to massive fish kills. Episodes like this led to the coining of the phrase - more sensational than factual - "Lake Erie is dead," which started to appear in national publications in the late 1960s.

In 1969, the Cuyahoga River caught fire, bringing more negative national publicity to Cleveland and its polluted waterways. Even though pollution in Lake Erie was a regional problem, Cleveland bore the brunt of the negative publicity.

The burning river and the "dead" lake were major impetuses for the Federal government to step in and deal with water pollution in Cleveland and across the nation. In 1972, Congress passed the Clean Water Act, a measure that tightened regulations on industrial dumping. That same year, the United States and Canada signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in an attempt to lower the amount of pollutants entering the Great Lakes.

Locally, the city took steps to improve its sewer system and better monitor water quality. Mayor Carl Stokes led the way, pledging to clean up Cleveland's waterways. He appeared before Congress (and his brother, United States Representative Louis Stokes) in 1970 to discuss the issue and seek federal aid. Carl's involvement brought significant media attention to the problem and contributed to the national movement against water pollution.

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