If you happen to find yourself one day driving down East 131st Street in the Garfield Heights Cranwood neighborhood, you may wish to take note of the multi-family brick dwelling on the northwest corner of East 131st and Christine Avenue. Known in that suburb as the Corning House, it is the last remnant of both a wealthy 19th century Clevelander's cattle and horse farm and, as well, a popular early twentieth century horse race track. The story of how this farm and race track fit into the history of this Cleveland suburb begins with Warren Corning.

Warren Holmes Corning was born in Painesville, Ohio, in 1841. In 1857, his family moved to Cleveland, and, as a sixteen year old, he entered into the distillery business, successfully working his way up from the bottom to ownership of a very profitable company. In 1887, Corning sold his company and retired from that business, becoming an investor in and officer of several large Cleveland banks, including First National Bank and Guardian Trust Company. In 1893, the Corning family moved from their house on Prospect Avenue into one of Euclid Avenue's grand mansions, built in 1874 for wealthy Cleveland banker, Daniel Eells. While no longer standing, it once stood on the north side of Euclid Avenue, just east of East 30th Street, next door to the founder of the Otis Steel Company, and only three doors down from the mansion of Samuel Andrews, one of John D. Rockefeller's original partners. 

In 1883, Corning began purchasing land off Windfall Road (today, East 131st Street), between Miles and Broadway Avenues, in what was then Newburgh and Warrensville Townships, eventually assembling more than 200 acres of land. (Today, that land lies in the northeast part of the Cleveland suburb of Garfield Heights.) In 1884, Corning built a large house on land that fronted on Windfall Road. The house was designed, according to local architectural historian Craig Bobby, in the Queen Anne style, but it was an "understated" version of that style, then considered more suitable for a country residence. In its original design, the two and one-half story brick house featured asymmetrical massing, gabled roofs and a covered porch which extended across the entire front of the house. The interior of the house had, and still does today, approximately 8,000 square feet of living space.

According to the Garfield Heights Historical Society, Corning named the cattle and horse farm he developed on this land "Cranwood," a word that referred to both the cranberry bushes that grew wild on the land and the woods that were also prevalent there. An article appearing in the Plain Dealer on February 18, 1911, suggested another possible explanation--that the farm was named after one of Warren Corning's prize stallions. Whatever the name's origin, Corning took the business of his "horse nursery" very seriously and he soon built a small trotting track on land just across Windfall Road from his house. That track—no longer standing—would today be located east of East 131st Street, and between Thornhurst and Rexwood Avenues. Cleveland newspapers made regular mention of Cranwood Farm in the late 1880s as one of Cuyahoga County's several popular venues for harness (trotting) races.

Unfortunately for Warren Corning, his "retirement" life of raising cattle and nursing trotting horses on Cranwood Farm did not last long. In 1894, while undergoing an operation to remove cartilage from one of his knees, he developed "blood poisoning," which resulted in the amputation of a leg and eventually his premature death in 1899 at the age of 58.

By 1904, according to newspapers, Standard Land Company, a corporation owned by his heirs, was leasing the Corning house, and planning to redevelop the rest of his farm as a residential subdivision. Just seven years later in 1911, however, much of the redevelopment plan was put on hold when Standard Land Company leased the Cranwood Farm lands, including the Corning house and the trotting track across the street, to Alvin Pennock, who had formerly worked for Warren Corning at Cranwood Farm as a horse trainer.

In 1911, Pennock opened Cranwood Race Track for harness racing, enlarging the track created during Warren Corning's ownership and converting the Corning house into a race track clubhouse which featured a large restaurant and bar with seating for 150 people.  For a time, the restaurant was managed by Frank Bartek, whose parents were immigrants from Bohemia (today, part of the Czech Republic). According to local newspaper articles, the upstairs of the house was, during this period, separately leased to wealthy horse owners and their families as living quarters during the racing season.

In June 1914, a fire at Cranwood Race Track damaged the Club House, but Alvin Pennock was able to repair and reopen it in time for the Fall racing season. In that same year, Pennock added the new sport of automobile racing to the calendar of events held at the track. While Cranwood was a popular and very accessible race track, harness and auto racing did not last even a decade at the East 131st street location.

In 1922, Cranwood Race Track moved to a new and larger facility on Miles Avenue in Warrensville Heights, midway between Lee and Warrensville Center Roads. In 1959, the Miles Avenue race track closed when the land upon which it stood was targeted for industrial development. Edward J. DeBartolo purchased the Cranwood franchise, but then terminated it and transferred its racing dates to the calendar of Thistledown Race Track in North Randall.

Even before Cranwood Race Track moved to Miles Avenue, the Corning House appears to have ceased being used as a clubhouse. Alvin Pennock, who had acquired title to the house in 1915 from Standard Land Company, sold it in 1920 to the William and Louise Enslen family, who moved into it that year and, according to local directories, soon redeveloped the house into a multi-family dwelling. Changes to the exterior of the building included a major redesign of the front porch which at one time extended across the entire front facade of the house, replacing that original porch with several smaller porches located at three separate entrances to units of the multi-family dwelling. By the time the 1930 federal census was taken, there were four families residing in the house. In 1935, the former clubhouse building was again damaged in a fire, but once again it was repaired. By the time the 1940 census was taken, the number of families residing in separate units in the Corning House had increased to five. A decade later, the 1950 census listed six families living in the house.

Members of the Enslen family continued to own, live in and lease out rental units in the Corning House until 1976, when Clarence Enslen, the last of William and Louise Enslen's surviving children, sold it and moved to Parma. As of 2024, the Corning House was still being utilized as a multi-family dwelling. While Cranwood Farm and Cranwood Race Track are long gone from Garfield Heights, their names live on in the northeast section of that suburb which has been known as the Cranwood neighborhood. The neighborhood also has had an elementary school and a street titled with that locally historic name, but the only true surviving vestige of Warren Corning's farm and Alvin Pennock's race track in this suburb is the Corning House.

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Most of Cleveland's suburban municipalities began as a residential or "bedroom" communities whose residents commuted into the city each weekday, and a few started as preexisting towns shaped by early trade and industry. But one suburb, North Randall, was born in an entirely unique way – as a destination for thoroughbred horse racing. The economic history and center of attraction for North Randall has been revamped repeatedly over the past century. From 1908 to present day, the village has been dominated by horse racing tracks, a mall, and now an Amazon fulfillment facility. However, the first track, Randall Park, and a second, Thistledown, uniquely positioned horse racing as the most important economic engine for North Randall.

The Randall Park race track was originally part of the Forest City Farm which was established by Christopher F. Emery in 1883 as a horse breeding farm. The land for the track was bought in 1905 by Youngstown entrepreneurs and was later acquired by Bert Shank. He later sold 100 acres north of Emery Road to William B. Chisholm for his Thistledown Farms which was Randall Park’s neighbor. The remaining land of that later became the village of North Randall which was established in 1908 with Bert Shank as the first mayor. The village established its major industry in the breeding and training of trotting horses during this time. The racecourse of Randall Park was situated on the southeastern side of the city of Cleveland and served the racing enthusiasts from across the city and region.

Randall Park started as a trotting track for harness racing in 1908, supplanting the much older Glenville Race Track that folded that same year. The park had a one-mile oval-shaped track and a furlong turf course inside the oval. It also featured an open-air grandstand and clubhouse, with the grandstand being able to seat 5,500 people and the clubhouse an additional 2,000 people. The track had stables with a capacity of 650 horses. The track was worth $250,000 and it hosted the Grand Circuit that occurred in 1909. The event, which attracted a massive crowd of 17,000, was won by Emery’s trotter which was driven by Mayor Bert Shank.

Randall Park and Thistledown, which originally opened in 1925, both suffered a series of difficulties in the 1930s and ’40s, including a devastating fire at Thistledown in 1944. Sustained success was elusive until after World War II, when they finally attained a more durable national reputation. The tracks’ schedules grew considerably, and they hosted ever larger crowds to see major races. Thoroughbred racing had replaced trotting (harness) races in popularity, and Randall Park had converted to thoroughbred races in 1939. In 1951, Randall Park received a major upgrade that included grandstand expansion and miniature lakes, hedges, and landscaping in the center of its oval. The Ohio Derby, first run in the 1870s in Cincinnati, moved to a newly rebuilt Thistledown in 1953 and then to Randall Park in 1961.

Later, the Randall Park property was finally purchased by Youngstown-based developer Edward DeBartolo who also had ownership to the nearby Thistledown track and decided to transfer Randall Park’s dates there. Once that was finalized, the Randall Park land was rezoned commercial, and DeBartolo turned it into a shopping center. The $175 million Randall Park Mall opened on August 11, 1976, with 2 million square feet, over 200 stores on two levels, a modern look with unique marble floors, and a distinct constructed interior. This shopping center was intended to change the structure of the community by developing North Randall into a “super city.” DeBartolo initiated projects to create residential communities in which people not only could live but could operate their businesses as well. It eventually became one of the world's largest shopping complexes. The mall had a great run but closed in 2009. Newer malls and lifestyle centers, including Beachwood Place, LaPlace, and Legacy Village, all opened within a few miles between 1978 and 2003, plundering business from Randall Park. Online shopping was another factor around the world as to why malls were closing. Also, as the 2000s progressed, consumer habits shifted away from department stores all together. The rise in crime rates in area also played a factor. The village’s horse racing heritage entered a new phase in 2010 after the mall shut down, and it opened back up as a Thistledown Racino managed by an entertainment company. Businesses later began to fail as consumers lost the comfort in their safety to shop. It was reconstructed and later became an Amazon fulfillment center in 2018.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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At 35 years old, Orville A. Dean first started selling milk to friends and acquaintances. In 1886, he built a large farmhouse on Mayfield Road, which served as his family home and the office for the OA Dean Dairy Company for seventy-one years. In the early years, milk was delivered by horse-drawn wagons. The delivery men dipped large ladles into the 10 gallon cans, and then poured the milk into each housewife's pitcher.

In 1920, Harry N. Dean took over the company from his father. By then, Dean's had grown to eight retail outlets and one wholesale store, with new machinery and equipment. During these years, the Dean's Dairy's many fine horses were displayed at shows and fairs throughout the area. The World War II years were difficult, with food rationing and drivers leaving for the war, but luckily for Dean's, dairy products remained in demand. Grove P. Dean, grandson of Orville, originally moved east to try his hand in other businesses, but was drawn back to home. Under his guidance, Dean's converted most of the wagons from horse drawn to automotive, although some horses were still used. Rubber tires were added to these "very modern units" to cut down on noise during early morning deliveries.

Wilburt McCarthy, who retired in 1975 after 40 years as a Dean's milkman, remembered delivering "to the home every day then, seven days a week. We'd go out and load up the wagons at two or three o'clock in the morning and we'd put in our 10 to 12-hour work day. The pay wasn't much for a milkman." "Dean's had the best chocolate milk, barring anyplace," remembered milkman McCarty. "It was really out of this world. In the summertime, we serviced a lot of house painters. And we'd sell off the truck to those fellows all the time, buttermilk and chocolate milk."

Former Cleveland Heights mayor Ed Kelley worked for Dean's Dairy in the early 1970s, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, milkman William Rapp, his uncle, father and brother. Mr. Kelley filled 500 sacks of ice for the milk trucks each day. Since the trucks were not refrigerated, the milkmen used the sacks to keep the dairy products cool during deliveries. Mr. Kelley worked during the summers and after school in the early fall, until the temperature dropped. He also worked as a weekend night watchman, listening to Casey Kasem's Top 40 on the radio. His favorite memories of working at Dean's were the wonderful stories the drivers shared with him. "The drivers were very kind to me," Kelley remembered, "and they encouraged me to stay in school and go on to college." Dean's was "a great place to work," although going from the hot summer weather outside to the cold air of the cooler could be a shock.

Two other dairy companies operated in Cleveland Heights as well. Hillside was started in 1932 and located on Center Road, near Noble and Mayfield. Many people remember the wonderful tours of Hillside Dairy and their delicious lunch counter. Hillside is also remembered for having one of the first female milk drivers. In one month, they had 18 drivers called up for service in World War II, so they hired the "first feminine milk-carrier, six feet, 170 pounds." Bruder's dairy opened in the early 1900s. One of Bruder's busiest retail stores was located in what is now Seitz-Agin Hardware on Lee Road.

Innovations in refrigeration and the proliferation of convenience stores and supermarkets in the 1970s signaled the end of small dairies that specialized in home delivery. People no longer wanted the more expensive, home-delivered milk products. Even so, many Cleveland Heights residents still hold fond memories of the milk trucks making their regular deliveries throughout the community.

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