Traveling through the naval blockade zones of World War I, trained lookouts aboard American merchant ships scanned the hypnotic landscape of rolling waves for evidence of the German U-boat menace.  While watchmen stared along the vast expanse of the ocean in an endless search for periscopes emerging from the water, or whitecaps created by a submarine’s conning towers, it was a futile effort.  The German Unterseeboot was capable of torpedoing an enemy combatant without warning. With sonar yet to be invented, the diesel powered submersibles moved silently and undetected beneath the cover of the water's surface. Apart from out-maneuvering or ramming a surfaced sub, little could be done to save a vessel traveling unaccompanied by military convoy.  The camouflage of evening's darkness offered those aboard merchant ships little comfort. Travelers slept in clothes, with a life preserver on hand. Smoking cigarettes, operating flashlights, or the lighting of matches at night was punishable by a prison sentence.  The helpless sensation of traveling  through the U-boat zone on a merchant ship was described by Clevelander W. C. Coleman in 1918 as being "like that of a child who imagines something coming after him in the dark."

Coleman’s concerns were well grounded. Since Germany had declared unrestricted submarine warfare throughout the eastern Mediterranean and waters adjoining Great Britain, France and Italy in February of 1917, a small fleet of submersibles waged a relentless campaign to decimate the world's available tonnage of merchant shipping.  The submarine proved to be Germany's most effective and feared naval weapons, and the Central Powers were relying on its relatively small fleet to disrupt existing trade routes. In the year following the declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare, German U-boats sank more tonnage than they had cumulatively destroyed throughout the entire war.

Across the ocean, thousands of miles away from the battlefields of World War I,  employees of the Rocky River Dry Dock Company speedily labored to complete construction of an effective deterrent to the German Unterseeboot. The small, wooden vessels being built were known as submarine chasers.  Each 110-foot long subchaser was equipped with three gas-driven Standard 6-cylinder engines of 220 horsepower, underwater hydrophones to detect engine noises, ample offensive firepower, and delivery systems for depth charges.  Built for speed and maneuverability, the vessel could effortlessly change course to face an enemy combatant. The ships were uniquely suited for construction at small boatyards like the Rocky River Dry Dock Company. Designed by Albert Loring Swasey for the United States Navy, the craft could be assembled quickly by woodworkers employing standardized construction methods. The average time set for the delivery of a vessel was between 70 to 180 days.

A fast turnaround time was critical; success in the war depended on it.  Soon-after waging war on Germany in April of 1917, the United States had found itself ill-prepared. Americans previously relied on Europe’s merchant fleet, which now littered the ocean floor. Germany's submarine campaign threatened to compound severe shortages of food and supplies in Allied nations, and the United States needed to transport goods and troops 3,000 miles across the ocean into war zones.  Military success necessitated not only the construction of new vessels for naval warfare, but the rebuilding of a depleted merchant fleet. Revitalizing America's shipbuilding industry became a top national priority.

Ten days after declaring war, the United States government established and funded the Emergency Fleet Corporation; the agency was charged with overseeing the construction and delivery of a shipping fleet sufficient to meet wartime demand.  With initial financing of $50,000,000 and the authority to both acquire and construct vessels, the Emergency Fleet Corporation spearheaded efforts to resurrect and modernize America's shipbuilding industry. German boats in American ports were immediately confiscated, and steel ships already under construction in shipyards were requisitioned by the government.  These efforts proved insufficient to meet wartime demand, and a massive shipbuilding program was initiated. While priority was given to constructing massive steel vessels in large shipyards,  boatyards such as the Rocky River Dry Dock Co. were commissioned to build a fleet of medium sized ships capable of engaging in combat with U-boats and carrying supplies through war zones.

This revival of America's wooden shipbuilding industry during the Great War presented the Rocky River Dry Dock Co. with new opportunities for growth.   Incorporated in 1914 by Theodore R. Zickes, the boatyard specialized in the repair and construction of yachts, dredges and scows prior to the war.  Located an eighth of a mile from the mouth of the Rocky River, across the banks from what is now Cleveland Metroparks Scenic Park, the Rocky River Dry Dock Co. could dock vessels up to 200 feet in length. The shipyard was equipped with electricity, up-to-date machinery and its own blacksmith shop.

Despite the infrastructure for merchant shipping having atrophied elsewhere in the United State since the turn of the century, the transportation needs of industry on the Great Lakes supported the continued activity of shipbuilding and boat repair yards. The Rocky River Dry Doc Co., not only repaired large barges used in local industry, but specialized in building leisure and racing crafts for Cleveland's most affluent citizens. This shipping industry along the southern shore of Lake Erie rapidly transitioned to wartime production. Although the demands of war prompted many investors to speculate in shipbuilding and construct shipyards across the nation, the Rocky River Dry Dock Company's modernized plant and experienced staff presented Zickes a distinct advantage in acquiring multiple contracts with the Emergency Fleet Corporation.

The Rocky River Dry Dock Co. submitted a bid and received its first contract for the construction of a submarine chaser shortly after the establishment of the Emergency Fleet Corporation. The company delivered the ship to the United States Navy in November of 1917. The small business was subsequently awarded contracts to build an additional seven subchasers and five Junior Mine Planters for the U.S. Navy between 1918 and 1919. The government contracts were accompanied by expansion; the workforce grew from around 75 men in 1916 to nearly 200 by the end of World War I, at which time the boatyard had been working at full capacity for over a year. As an indication of the boatyard's accomplishments in transitioning to wartime production, Zickes was sent by the U.S. Navy to oversee the completion of vessels at an under-performing plant in Alexandria, Virginia.

In total, 441 submarine chasers were built at Navy and private boat yards across the United States for the Emergency Fleet Corporation. Upon delivery to the U.S. Navy, the ships were used by the United States Coast Guard or sent on their way to the war zones of Europe. One hundred subchasers, including five built in Rocky River, were sold to France.

The contributions of submarine chasers to the Allied war effort were difficult to measure. Their agility and speed effectively deterred German U-boats from surfacing and attacking larger vessels. They were employed to escort troop and cargo ships, and safeguard large steel vessel against unexpected submarine strikes. Submarine chasers also patrolled waters, generally in hunting units of three, to both attack and identify the location of U-boats. Successes in combating submarines proved less decisive. Artillery mounted on subchasers posed little threat to a U-boat's heavily armored conning tower or deck, the latter of which was generally protected by over two feet of water. The deployment of depth charges, mines rigged to blow at a predetermined depth, required correctly guessing the location and distance downward of a submarine. While commanding officers claimed a handful of submarine kills, subchasers were more likely to inflict damage to a U-boat or force it to submerge.

America's fleet of submarine chasers still aided in diminishing the effectiveness of Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare campaign. In consort with the Navy's fleet of steel ships, the wooden crafts protected American troops and merchant ships traveling through unsafe waters. Collectively, the rebuilding of an American merchant and naval fleet made possible the transportation of supplies and soldiers to the battlegrounds of Europe. Achieved in under two years, the industrial feet helped secure an Allied victory in the Great War. The construction of submarine chasers at small boatyards like the Rocky River Dry Dock Company illustrated this incredible revitalization of America's shipbuilding industry during World War I.

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Republican Justice Harold Hitz Burton served as Cleveland's 45th mayor from 1936 to 1940, U.S. Senator from Ohio from 1941 to 1945, and U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice from 1945 until his retirement in 1958 due to failing health. Burton was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, in 1888, and graduated from Bowdoin College and Harvard Law School. Law was Harold Burton's calling, and in his various practices he sought to uphold it as dispassionately as possible. Upon the United States' entry into World War I, he sought commission as an officer in the 361st Infantry of the 91st Division and achieved the rank of Captain by fall 1918. In his service he fought in Verdun during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, was  awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre "for extraordinary heroism and gallantry in action," and was recognized by General John J. Pershing "for exceptionally meritorious and conspicuous services during the Argonne Offensive."

Following the resigning of his commission in 1919, Burton moved to Cleveland with his wife to practice corporate law in a local firm before forming his own firms: Cull, Burton & Laughlin and Andrews, Hadden & Burton. After a brief stint as Cuyahoga County Commander of the American Legion he was persuaded to join the world of politics by local Republican Party leader Maurice Maschke. In 1921, Cleveland constituents voted to create the position of City Manager, an individual to work closely with the city government to oversee city development and governance with the  goal of  eliminating party politics in the interest of the city's progress. Burton initially served under City Manager William R. Hopkins as City Law Director from 1930 to 1931, though some of his time in office was as interim City Director following the removal of Hopkins by the city council. The position of City Manager was  eliminated in November 1931, thereby restoring the mayoralty. Burton later ran for the recreated position of Mayor in 1935 as an independent Republican seeking to oust the corrupt Harry L. Davis. By 1936 Cleveland had become rife with corruption in the form of gambling, racketeering, and protection rackets. Burton's desire to eliminate corruption led him to hire Eliot Ness as City Safety Director, tasking Ness with cleaning up the city.

As a mayor during the Great Depression, Burton benefited from a number of New Deal programs designed to put people back to work and rebuild the aging infrastructure of the city. One of the most successful and influential of these was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federal program that provided economic aid to workers and cities through construction projects and infrastructure renovations that often could not be afforded by the cities themselves. Cleveland's Memorial Shoreway, now a segment of Ohio State Route 2, was originally constructed to provide transit to the Great Lakes Exposition of 1936. This roadway was expanded using WPA funding to provide access to downtown Cleveland from the West Side as one of the nation's first limited-access expressways, with the majority of it completed in 1939. Mayor Burton worked closely with the WPA and its administrators to increase the funding given to Cleveland for its development. Under Burton and with federal assistance, Cleveland's unemployment declined from 125,000 persons to 75,000 using the almost $1.5 million that the WPA provided in relief funding to the city government each month. Following Burton's death, the Main Avenue Bridge, a segment of Memorial Shoreway, was later renamed the Harold H. Burton Memorial Bridge in his memory.

Harold Burton served as Mayor of Cleveland for only four years before pursuing election to the U.S. Senate, and he was ultimately appointed into the Supreme Court by Harry S. Truman in 1945. As an Associate Justice he later voted in favor of and helped produce unanimity in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, which can be considered the highlight of his career on the court.

Harold Burton served as a model soldier, Republican Mayor, and Associate Justice throughout his life, seeking only to do what he considered to be righteous and just. It is because of this that he left a very noncontroversial legacy, and as such has been somewhat ignored by history which remembers great and controversial figures alike.

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According to one website, it was for years one of Cleveland's most popular places for urban exploring. In a building where world wars were once won, young people crept through dark hallways, clambered up rusted metal stairways, and walked carefully through debris-filled rooms.

Well, perhaps it is a bit of a stretch to say that wars were won in this building. But it is a fact that, in the long-vacant Warner & Swasey building at 5701 Carnegie Avenue, critical armament parts were once manufactured that helped the United States and its allies win two world wars during the twentieth century.

The five-story building made of reddish-brown stone was constructed over a six-year period from 1904 to 1910. It replaced the original Warner & Swasey building that had been erected on the site in the early 1880s. That was just shortly after Worcester Warner and Ambrose Swasey, two young New England machinists, had come to Cleveland to build a machine shop — to Cleveland, because they thought Chicago was just too far west.

Warner & Swasey built telescopes and machine lathes in the new, as well as the old, building on Carnegie Avenue. And in wartime, when the company built those armament parts that helped America win two world wars, thousands of Clevelanders worked there. They built parts for tommy guns in World War I. And in World War II, when 7,000 Clevelanders worked for Warner & Swasey, they built parts for planes, ships, and tanks.

From World War I, through World War II, and into the 1950s and the 1960s, the building on Carnegie Avenue was one of Cleveland's most important workplaces. People talked about Warner & Swasey in the same breath and in the same way that they talked about the city's other big employers, like Republic Steel, TRW, and Ford Motor. But then the building on Carnegie Avenue began its downward slide, much like the city of Cleveland did in the same period. In the end it was a victim of high technology, and when it closed its doors for good in 1985, only a few hundred employees were still left to be sent elsewhere.

Decades passed after Warner & Swasey left Cleveland. Its iconic early twentieth-century industrial building was owned for much of that period of time by the City of Cleveland, which looked to put the building to a new use. In 1988, Cuyahoga County had considered the building as a possible site for its Department of Human Services and Child Support Enforcement Agency. That fell through. In 1992, Cleveland officials talked about making it the Charles V. Carr Municipal Center. That never happened either.

In 2010, yet another proposal was put on the table. Fred and Greg Geis, sons of German immigrants who came to Cleveland in the 1960s, proposed to convert the Warner & Swasey building into a high-tech office, lab and manufacturing facility. However, after several years of planning, the Geis Brothers ultimately decided that the Warner & Swasey Building would not suit their purpose, and they developed their Tech Park instead on a large piece of land located between Euclid and Carnegie Avenues, several blocks east of the Warner & Swasey Building.

And so the historic building stood vacant and deteriorating on Carnegie Avenue for several more years. And then, in 2018, a new redevelopment proposal was put forward by Pennrose, a housing developer from Philadelphia. Its proposal was to convert the Warner & Swasey Building into an apartment building with some affordable housing units, some units for seniors, and some market-rate units. The proposal included a possible roof deck which, according to the developer, would offer tenants amazing views of downtown Cleveland.

In 2025, Pennrose completed its acquisition of the Warner & Swasey Building and, in early 2026, it began its redevelopment and restoration of the historic building. It is likely hoped by all who know the historic nature of the Warner & Swasey Building that soon it will be filled with residents who will not only enjoy the benefits of living in an historic building, but will, as well, enjoy the benefits of living in Cleveland's fast-developing Midtown neighborhood.

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Trees have always been planted as symbolic gestures. Greater Cleveland – and Cleveland Heights particularly – is an excellent example. In fact, this was one of the very first regions to coordinate a living memorial to soldiers who gave their lives in the First World War.

Following the Armistice on November 11, 1918, American Legion posts, garden clubs, school children, communities and families around the country planted trees, usually as part of dignified ceremonies. That very month, the Board Chairman of the American Forests Association, Charles Lathrop Pack, called for "a new form of monument - a memorial that lives." Greater Clevelanders lost little time. They mobilized to such a forceful extent that by Memorial Day 1919, the planting of a long chain of "Liberty Oaks" was already underway.

Under the leadership of Cleveland City Councilman Jerry Zmunt, Cleveland Director of Parks and Public Property Floyd E. Waite, and City Forester Harry C. Hyatt, a path was selected. On July 15, 1918, Ordinance 47590 was passed, "relative to changing North Park Boulevard, running through Ambler Park, Rockefeller Park and Shaker Heights Park from Cedar to Center (Warrensville) Road to 'Liberty Row.'"

Planting and casting began shortly thereafter, and by May of 1919 a dedication ceremony was held. Concurrent with the event, a poem by W. R. Rose was printed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It concluded:

The little trees that line the way, Sad symbols of a nation's pride, Are etched against the wintry gray—Oh let them live for those who died!

By 1924, some 800 Liberty Oaks had been planted. Almost 100 years later, a surprising number of North Park's Liberty Oaks and plaques are intact. You can also see quite a few along Shelburne Road in Shaker Heights, southeast of Shelburne's intersection with North Park near Horseshoe Lake. Unfortunately, the trees and plaques along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive have fared less well, often succumbing to theft and sudden encounters with out-of-control automobiles. Nevertheless, the spirit of the Oaks and the majesty they bring to the area is uncompromised. For many years, the American Legion Glenville Post 130 decorated the plaques. On patriotic holidays, flags are still placed by at least some of the remaining markers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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