Dugway Brook, among the bluestone brooks that flow into Lake Erie, is all but invisible today. Generations ago its serpentine branches plunged into culverts buried beneath streets, parking lots, and parks. Though mostly unseen, Dugway traces a path through the heart of Cleveland Heights. Along its scenic courses, visionaries chased dreams. John Peter Preyer carved orchards and vineyards from the Dugway valley. Orville A. Dean built a successful dairy business. John D. Rockefeller, Frank Cain, and Eric Mendelsohn created some of the city's most iconic places: Forest Hill, Cain Park, and Park Synagogue. Yet citizens mostly forgot about the brook amid relentless suburban expansion. Cleveland Heights, 60,000 strong by 1960, was a mosaic of suburban neighborhoods and business districts. Heights High teens joined many others in the humming Cedar-Lee business district. A two-mile greenbelt of parks transformed one branch of Dugway into ballfields, playgrounds, and other recreational facilities. By the 1960s and '70s, devastating floods in University Circle prompted new concerns about Dugway, leading to the construction in Lake View Cemetery of the largest poured-concrete dam east of the Mississippi. Today we are rediscovering Dugway Brook as a fragile yet important resource.
Locations for Tour
Before it became Cain Park, the ravine between Taylor and Lee roads was merely a wet, overgrown gully visited by only the most adventurous of hikers. In 1914, the Central Improvement Association of Cleveland Heights (then still a village) formed a…
Today, the Superior Schoolhouse is a property of the City of Cleveland Heights that serves as a repository for archival collections and a venue for educational programs relating to the city's history.
However, the story of the schoolhouse goes…
Dugway Brook, one of several bluestone streams that flow into Lake Erie, is largely invisible today. Generations ago, Dugway's serpentine branches were covered up by streets, parking lots, and parks. Almost 50 percent of the watershed flows…
Opened in 1927, Cumberland Pool began its life just as Cleveland Heights was maturing into a city. In 1925, residents approved $75,000 in bonds for the construction of the Cumberland park, pool, and bathhouse. World-renowned landscape architect and…
The Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District has had four different schools at Lee Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard.
After breaking off from the East Cleveland school system, the district first built Lee Road School, the original…
In 1917, Anshe Emeth—an Orthodox congregation founded by Polish Jews near Woodland and Broadway Avenues (and later located on East 37th Street)—merged with congregation Beth Tefilo and bought land on East 105th Street in Glenville. Spearheaded by…
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…
When it opened in 1931, the Heights Rockefeller Building became a key component of John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s new Forest Hill development. Designed to serve as the commercial center of this upscale residential community taking shape just to its…
On November 11, 1903, in a rented house on a brick street now called Radnor Road in the Mayfield Heights allotment of Cleveland Heights, Rev. Albert J. Alexander, pastor of Beckwith Memorial Presbyterian Church (later merged into the Church of the…
Forest Hill was once the sweeping estate of oil baron John D. Rockefeller. Originally from a small town near the Finger Lakes in upstate New York, Rockefeller purchased the land along Euclid Avenue as a commercial venture in 1873, opening (along with…
Supported by a steel superstructure and faced with Euclid bluestone quarried nearby, Forest Hill Park Footbridge traverses Forest Hill Boulevard in East Cleveland on land that was once part of Standard Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller's summer…
Is that a tree growing out of the roof of that house? This is a common reaction when first viewing this home at 3111 Monticello Boulevard. Built in 1954, the house stands out from most other homes in the Forest Hill neighborhood. Local architect…
In the summer of 1981, the choirs of St. John's and St. James A.M.E. churches, two historic African American congregations on Cleveland's east side, joined together in the octagonal sanctuary at the inaugural service of Christ Our Redeemer…
Cleveland Heights High School, referred to simply as "Heights," originated in 1901 on the site of the present-day Boulevard Elementary School, near the intersection of Lee Road and Euclid Heights Boulevard. Cleveland Heights High…
The Cedar-Lee Theatre opened on Christmas Day 1925. The first movie screened there was "The King on Main Street," a silent film about a rich European king (played by Adolphe Menjou) who falls in love with a common American girl during a…
Well into the 20th century, waves of immigrants swelled Cleveland's ranks. Among them was a Greek native by the name of Chris Mitchell. Rather than contenting himself with a factory job, however, Mitchell tried his hand in business.…
