School children walking past the northwest corner of Franklin Boulevard and West 65th Street will someday remember it as where the Rite Aid neighborhood drugstore was located. Adults in the neighborhood remember that it used to be where the old Pick-N-Pay grocery store stood. Only the older residents of the neighborhood remember that up until the mid-1960s the Kaufman Funeral Home stood on this corner. And perhaps there are only a few, if any, left in the neighborhood who remember that, before it was the Kaufman Funeral Home, the grand old house on the corner of Franklin Boulevard and West 65th Street belonged to George August Tinnerman, a German immigrant who launched one of the great industrial enterprises in the history of Cleveland.
George August Tinnerman was born in Bavaria in 1845. In 1847, the year before the 1848 Revolutions which shook central Europe from Vienna to Paris, George immigrated to America with his parents Henry and Sophia Tinnerman. Like his father who was a wheelright, George entered the trades but as a tinner. In 1868, he opened a hardware store on Lorain Avenue--just east of its intersection with Fulton Road. Among the products George sold were cast iron stoves. In 1875, according to his son Albert, George became dissatisfied with the cumbersome cast iron stoves and invented the first steel range--a forerunner of today's range stoves. George became so successful in selling his new steel stoves that, in 1913, he closed his hardware store and began to exclusively manufacture stoves and ranges.
In 1890, as George Tinnerman grew financially successful, he and his family moved from their house on Fulton, which abutted the Tinnerman stove and range manufacturing plant, to a more fashionable address on the northwest corner of Franklin Boulevard and Gordon Street (now West 65th Street). George and his wife Caroline completed the raising of their four children in this house, and, when the children became adults, three of them acquired houses on Franklin Boulevard in the 6000-7000 block--none more than a few minutes walk from their parents' home on the corner of West 65th. Members of the Tinnerman family continued to live on Franklin Boulevard until well into the decade of the 1940s.
In 1925, George A. Tinnerman died and his son Albert H. Tinnerman, who until 1938 lived at 6910 Franklin Boulevard, took over the family business. In 1925, Albert invented a new fastener for stoves called a "speed nut." As it turned out, Albert's invention had application not only in the manufacture of stoves, but also in the manufacture of automobiles and aircraft. In the 1930s, Albert's son, George A. Tinnerman II, convinced Henry Ford to use the speed nuts in his automobiles, and in the 1940s, during World War II, the United States government also began using Tinnerman's speednuts in its aircraft. One source claimed that the federal government's use of the Tinnerman speed nut not only reduced the weight of American war planes, but also cut production time in half.
In 1950, Tinnerman Products-- now a national manufacturer of speed nuts and other clips and fasteners, moved from its original location on Fulton Road to a new state of the arts facility on Brookpark Road in the suburb of Brooklyn. During the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, Tinnerman Products continued to grow under the guidance of Albert Tinnerman and then his daughter Alberta Buttris, a third generation Tinnerman and granddaughter of George A. Tinnerman. In 1969, the company's separate corporate existence in Cleveland came to an end when it merged with Cleveland industrial giant, Eaton Corporation.
Today, the Tinnerman Stove and Range Company building at 2048 Fulton Road is home to Vista Color Imaging, a visual marketing solutions business. The former 100,000 square foot Tinnerman Products headquarters and factory in Brooklyn is now vacant and in search of a new business owner. And at the corner of Franklin Boulevard and West 65th Street, a Rite Aid drug store now stands where the fashionable home of George A. Tinnerman once stood. But, with three other homes of the George Tinnerman family still standing on the 6000-7000 block, you can still feel the Tinnerman presence on Franklin Boulevard.
]]>The Marjorie Rosenbaum Plaza at Burke Lakefront Airport celebrates the "Golden Age of Aviation" when Cleveland hosted the National Air Races eleven times between 1929 and 1949. It was during this era that Cleveland was referred to as the "Indianapolis 500 of the Air." The Plaza also celebrates the modern day Cleveland National Air Show held at Burke Lakefront Airport since 1964.
Granite plaques that ring the Air Show Plaza tell the stories of the National Air Races held in Cleveland between 1929-1949 including legendary pilots who flew here: Amelia Earhart; Charles Lindbergh; Jimmy Doolittle; and Roscoe Turner. The plaques tell the stories of some of the famous airplanes including the GeeBee air racer flown to victory by Jimmy Doolittle in 1932 in the Thompson Trophy speed pylon race. Also featured are stories of the incredible women air racers in those early years (including Amelia Earhart) who flew in the National Air Races. The finish line of the "Powderpuff Derby" women's distance race from Santa Monica, California to Cleveland was in front of of cheering fans in the Grandstand at Cleveland Municipal Airport (now Hopkins Airport), the location of the National Air Races in Cleveland until 1949.
The National Air Races were discontinued in Cleveland after 1949 (partially due to a fatal crash of a P-51C air racing plane flown by Bill Odom in Berea, Ohio during the 1949 National Air Races.) The current Cleveland National Air Show at Burke Lakefront Airport returned in 1964 and has become a Labor Day Weekend tradition in Cleveland and is one of the oldest and best annual air shows in America.
The Air Show Plaza features two F-4 Phantom jets on pedestals painted in the color schemes of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels and the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. Both demonstration teams have performed at the Cleveland National Air Show many times. (The F-4 was the only airframe used by both the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds at the same time.) Walk of Fame plaques that circle the Plaza celebrate the modern day Cleveland National Air Show since 1964 at Burke Lakefront Airport. These Walk of Fame plaques showcase some of the legendary flying acts and performers who have appeared at the Cleveland National Air Show since 1964.
The Air Show Plaza is named for benefactor Marjorie Rosenbaum, wife of Cleveland National Air Show Board Member and former Chairman Jacob Rosenbaum.
]]>The National Air Races finally came to Cleveland Municipal (now Cleveland-Hopkins International) Airport in 1929. Local businessmen Louis W. Greve and Frederick C. Crawford played a big role in bringing the event to Cleveland. Both men were involved in the the city's thriving aviation industry with Greve's Cleveland Pneumatic Tool Company making landing gears and Crawford's Thompson Products (later TRW) involved in the production of aircraft engine valves.
The Cleveland National Air Races of 1929 kicked off with a grand parade down Euclid Avenue watched by over one hundred thousand spectators. A $3 million aviation exhibit opened at the Cleveland Public Auditorium at the same time. Meanwhile, the event's organizers built a permanent grandstand at the airport which could seat 50,000 spectators. Overflow crowds (a common occurrence) were accommodated with temporary stands. The ten-day event, held in late August and early September, proved to be wildly successful, and the Air Races returned to Cleveland in 1931, '32, '34, '35, '37, '38, '39, '46, '47, '48, and '49.
The most popular parts of the Air Races were the fast-paced, closed-course races. The 1929 Thompson Trophy Race, for example, featured planes flying five laps around a ten-mile circuit. Cross-country races, timed to end in Cleveland during the Air Races, were also held. The inaugural Powder Puff Race of 1929 featured women competitors (including Amelia Earhart) flying from California to Cleveland. Blimp rides, parachuting competitions, and military demonstrations kept the fans entertained between races.
The dangerous nature of aviation at this time was surely part of the appeal that drew crowds to the Air Races. Indeed, crashes were common, and fatalities sometimes occurred. The closed-course races in particular, with pilots jockeying for position mid-air, could be incredibly dangerous. In 1949, Bill Odom crashed his P-51 World War II fighter plane into a house in Berea during the Thompson Trophy Race, killing himself and a mother and child inside. Afterwards, Berea and other cities near Cleveland Airport passed laws barring races from being held in their airspace. For this and other reasons, 1949 would be the last National Air Race held in Cleveland. In fact, the event as a whole went on hiatus after the crash before being revived in Reno, Nevada in 1964. The Cleveland National Air Show began that same year at Burke Lakefront Airport, though its focus was on aviation demonstrations, and races only occurred infrequently.
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]]>When Cleveland Municipal Airport opened on July 1, 1925 it became one of the first municipally owned airports in the country. City Manager William R. Hopkins took much of the credit for this feat, and the airport was named for him on his 82nd birthday in 1951. Earlier in 1925, Hopkins convinced Cleveland City Council to approve a $1.25 million bond issue that was used to purchase the 1,040 acres of land near the intersection of Brookpark and Riverside roads where the airport would be constructed. Skeptics scoffed at the long distance (nearly 11 miles) between downtown Cleveland and the new airport, but this proved to be a non-issue. Streetcars and other forms of public transportation could cover the distance in about a half hour.
The first flights at Cleveland Municipal Airport carried mail for the U.S. Air Mail Service. Beginning in 1919, Air Mail planes had landed in a section of Woodland Hills Park near East 93rd Street and Kinsman Road. This small airfield soon proved to be inadequate though, providing a major impetus for a new municipal airport. Henry Ford's commercial air mail service, the nation's first, conducted flights between Cleveland and Detroit right from the time that Municipal Airport opened. These early commercial airlines also carried passengers, but the cost of a plane ticket precluded all but the wealthy from partaking in these early flights.
The number of planes using Cleveland Municipal Airport jumped from a few thousand in its inaugural year to nearly 20,000 by 1929. A new terminal building constructed that year contained the world's first air traffic control tower — a tall, glass-enclosed structure with a 360-degree view of the air field. Soon after its construction, two-way radio was installed in the tower, the first time this had been used in the aviation field. This proved to be an important addition, as in its early years the airport used the "allway" landing mat process, which allowed multiple planes to land simultaneously on different parts of the air field — a process designed to prevent pilots from having to wait mid-air for space to land.
During World War II, the area around the airport's periphery became a key part of the war effort. In 1941, a laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) opened on its western end. The laboratory originally conducted research on airplane engines before turning into the NASA Lewis Research Center in 1958. The center was to play a crucial role in the drive to put a man on the moon. In 1942, the Cleveland Bomber Plant also opened nearby in what is now the I-X Center. Here, workers built B-29 aircraft bombers which when finished would take off from the airport to wherever they were needed. Cleveland Municipal Airport was also the regular site of the National Air Races between 1929 and 1949.
By the mid-1950s, all of the original structures at the airport had been razed to make way for expansions. The original Cleveland Municipal Airport was gone, but Cleveland Hopkins International Airport remained a thriving center of the commercial aviation industry that served one of the nation's largest concentrations of corporate headquarters. In 1968, Cleveland-Hopkins became the first airport in the U.S. to have a direct rapid transit connection to downtown. Since the airport lost its hub status in 2014 following a merger of Continental and United Airlines, it has experienced a lower volume of air traffic, leading to ongoing plans to revitalize.
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