A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I, Part 7

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1262

USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I > Part 7

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In 1905 part of Newburgh Heights village was annexed, and the village of Corlett.

In January, 1910, Collinwood was annexed after a long and hard fought contest at the polls and in the courts.

The geographical boundary that originally included one square mile, has thus been expanded to include thirty-three and ninety-four hundredths square miles, twenty-two and fourteen hundredths east of the river, and eleven and eight tenths west and south of the river. 1

WARDS.

From 1836 to 1851, there were three wards in the city. The original charter defines their boundaries as follows: "The first ward shall comprise all the ter-

1 This does not include Collinwood's area.

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

ritory lying easterly of the center of the Cuyahoga river, and southerly of the center of Superior street to Ontario street, and of a line thence to the center of Euclid avenue, and southerly of said last mentioned street. The second ward shall comprise all the territory not included in the first ward lying easterly of the center of Seneca street; the third ward shall include all the territory westerly of the center of Seneca street, easterly of the westerly boundary of the city, and northerly of the center of Superior street and Superior Lane."

In 1852, a fourth ward was added, composed largely of the new territory annexed on the eastward, and extending to Willson avenue.

In 1854, the annexation of Ohio City added three, and in 1856 a rearrangement of the wards raised the number to eleven.

In 1869, there were fifteen wards, in 1874, there were seventeen wards, and in 1875, one more was added. No additions were made until 1884, when twenty-five wards were made by the council. This number was increased to forty in 1886, and in 1894 to forty-two. This is the largest number of wards the city ever had. The number was reduced in 1903, when the new municipal code was adopted, to twenty-six.4

CHAPTER VI.

STREETS, BRIDGES AND VIADUCTS.

The original streets of the village were Water, Ontario, Miami, and Erie streets running north and south, their course is north thirty-four degrees west ; and Bath, Federal, Lake, Superior, Huron and Ohio streets running east and west, and their course is north fifty-six degrees east.

These streets surveyed, were not, however, at once opened and cleared of trees and stumps. By 1812 the only street really cleared was Superior west of the Square. Ontario was barely passable for teams, north of the Square and south of the Square it was an open road, along the present Broadway to New- burgh. Water street was scarcely more than a path. Lake and Huron streets were unopened while Erie street was partly opened and cleared of underbrush.

In the October, 1815, meeting of the village trustees, a number of new streets were laid out, on the petition of John A. Ackley, Aaron Olmsted, Daniel Kelley, Thompson Miller, Mathew Williamson, Amasa Bailey, William Trimble, Levi Johnson, Joseph R. Kelley, Stephen Dudley, John Randall, Hiram Hamter, and Ashabel W. Walworth. The descriptions of the streets designate the lot numbers through which they pass. "And it is further ordered, the said several streets in said petition mentioned and described, shall be severally distinguished, known and called by the following names, towit: The first in said petition mentioned shall be called St. Clair street; the second, Bank street; the third, Seneca street; the fourth, Wood street; the fifth, Bond street ; the sixth, Euclid street ; the seventh, Diamond street." There were the first additions to the original streets. They bisected many of the original large town lots. The names of all of them are familiar excepting Diamond street. This was the name given to the street en-

" The boundaries and wards are given in the City Directories of the given years.

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

circling the Square or Diamond, as it was sometimes called. Some years passed before all these streets were opened to the public.

At the meeting of Erie street and Federal street there is a jog, due probably to the fact that St. Clair was laid on the line of the two acre lots fronting Lake and Superior streets, which line did not meet the center of Federal street. Judge Griswold thinks that the continuation of original Federal street "would have de- stroyed the lots fronting on Mandrake lane." 1

In 1820, Seneca street was laid out south of Superior and Michigan street was opened to intersect it. In 1821 Michigan street was extended to Vineyard lane.

In 1827 Champlain street was opened, and the following year Canal street and Orange alley, later called Frankfort street. In 1829 Canal street was opened. In 1831 Prospect street was opened from Ontario street to Erie, parallel to Eu- clid street. Ahaz Merchant surveyed this street and it was at first called Cuya- hoga street, but before the name was put on the map it was changed to Prospect street. River street, for many years the leading commercial street, was laid out in 1833. The increasing demand for the land near the river mouth led to opening Lighthouse street, Meadow street and Spring street in 1833. High street was laid in 1835. The same year the large block of land between Euclid and Prospect was opened by the cutting of Sheriff street, a mere lane. Lake street, although one of the original streets surveyed, was not opened until 1835. The same year Miami street was confined to its original space, and Ohio street, Rockwell and Bolivar streets were opened, as were also Middle and Clinton street, later called Brownell street. Thus, by 1835, nearly all the streets now in the original town plat, were established. When the population began to increase more rapidly, streets were surveyed through the out lots. Erie street no longer remained the eastern line, but successively, Clinton street in 1835, Perry and Frontier streets in 1838, Sterling street in 1846, and Case avenue by 1850 became the leading transverse streets, and by 1860, Willson avenue was no mean street.

The population pushed out along the great radial streets, and as they diverge like the radiae of a fan, these cross streets became necessary. Some of the trans- verse streets, notably, Willson, Case, Bolton and Madison avenues are fine, wide streets, but many of them are narrow, and some of the older ones were hardly more than lanes.

Of the radial streets, St. Clair is the northernmost. It was opened in 1816. Originally Federal street was projected a little to the north of it, but it was merged with the "North Highway." The name Federal was discarded and the en- tire street named after St. Clair, the first governor of the Territory. Warren in his notes of the survey says, "In the beginning of the third and twentieth tallies are small brooks; the land is swampy and scalded, but hard clay bottom, will require causewaying to be good road, but can be passed as it is and is good for grass." It was a well traveled thoroughfare, leading to the fine residences on the lake shore, to the gardens and farms that extended to Glenville, and later to the state fair grounds and the great race track just this side of Glenville. The part of the street lying east of Erie was paved in the '6os with wood. Later it was paved out to Nevada street, and in 1871 a contract was let to pave it with wood and stone,

1 See "Corporate Birth and Growth of Cleaveland." Tract No. 62, W. R. Hist. Soc.

-----

From the original in Western Reserve Historical Society

Ahaz Merchant, pioneer surveyor who laid out the earliest allotments in Cleveland and surveyed all the earlier streets for the city.

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

(the Nicholson block) to Willson avenue. In 1875 it was paved from Willson to Crawford road. In 1886 it was paved with Medina stone from Erie to Willson. Subsequently its entire length has been paved.

Superior street was planned for the principal street of the city. It is one of the widest streets in America. Originally it stopped at Erie street. Fine houses were built on it between the Public Square and Erie street, and west of the Square it remained the principal retail district until recent years. An ex- tension of the street was made by 1853 to Frontier street, but lot number 168 on Erie street belonging to the May estate had a fine mansion on it, facing Superior street and it was not until 1864 that arrangements were made to extend the street through to the city limits. Superior street was the first paved street in Cleveland. It was a very muddy street before it was paved. Its "continuous mudholes" were denounced as a "shame," but when the question of paving it came up, it was thought by many to be an expensive luxury. The street was planked in 1842 and was paved with stone and plank in 1850 and when, in 1851, delegates came from Columbus and Cincinnati to celebrate the completion of our first railway, the "planked road of Superior street" attracted universal admiration. This pavement caused litigation on account of alleged discriminations in amounts of assessments, that was finally carried to the Supreme court, where the city council was upheld. Mayor Senter, in his message in 1860, said, "The planking of Su- perior street has become irreparably dilapidated." The pavement was replen- ished, and in 1873 the street was paved with Nicholson block, to Willson avenue. In 1873 it was widened from Willson avenue eastward, about two and one half miles. Later it was paved with stone in the downtown section, and with brick in the outlying district.

By 1853 a street parallel to Superior street had been projected, between Su- perior and Euclid, on the line between the ten acre lots of St. Clair street and Euclid avenue. The new street was at first called Superior avenue, but was later named Payne avenue in honor of Senator Payne, who owned a great acreage on the new street. It was not opened to traffic until 1873. This street was to open a magnificent residence district, but its lots were withheld too long from the market and "Payne's Pastures," as the open squares were called, were later avoided by the home seeker because they bordered the "smoke belt" along the shores of the lake. The downtown end is now being filled with manufactories of the lighter sort.

Prospect street was surveyed by Ahaz Merchant in 1831. At first it extended only to Sterling, but it was later extended to Willson avenue, and when East Cleveland was annexed it was continued to Bolton avenue. It was a fine resi- dence street in the days just preceding the mercantile invasion. In 1861 it was remarked by a visitor that it had "grass plots between the walks and the street," and that they were "evened off." The street was sprinkled in this year, and bore all the evidence of a fashionable residence street. It was at first paved with wood, in 1890 was repaved with stone from Erie to Perry, and later with brick and sheet asphaltum.

Between Euclid and Kinsman street was a large area that was without access for residence lots until after 1835, when three radial streets were pro-

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

jected : Cedar street running east from Perry, Garden street and Scovill avenue running eastward from Clinton, all of them to the city limits.

Cedar street in 1875 was graded and curbed from Perry to Willson; in 1890 it was paved with brick to East Madison and to Fairmount in 1891.

Garden street was so named in token of the many pretty gardens that sur- rounded the cottages of the Germans who built their homes there; later it was called Central avenue. It was paved with Nicholson block from Brownell to Will- son avenue in 1872-3. In 1881 it was curbed from Willson avenue to the Cleve- land & Pittsburg Railroad tracks, and in 1890 was paved to Willson, and later to the city limits.

Scovill street was named in honor of Philo Scovill (originally spelled Sco- ville), one of the pioneer business men of the city. It is a narrow street. In 1850 a petition was filed in the city council, asking that the street be changed to an avenue. It was then a residence street, dry, well drained, though unpaved. The street car company when it laid its tracks, paved the track space with stone. Portions of this pavement are still in place though very much worn.

Kinsman street was the old "south highway." It was named after Kinsman township in the 7th range, which was well settled at an early date. It was originally surveyed in 1797 by Warren, who says of it, "The land admits of an excellent highway, but is not as good for grass as that of the centre laid out yes- terday." It was renamed Woodland avenue in the '6os. It was one of the splen- did streets in the earlier days, with many stately homes, leading out into a beautiful suburban district, and was one of the favorite drives of the town. Its first pave- ment was the popular Nicholson block. It was paved with stone to East Madison in 1890. Subsequently it was paved to the city limits.

In 1873, Hough avenue was opened from east Madison to Giddings. It is a popular residence street with a considerable business section at the crossing of Crawford road.

Pittsburgh street is one of the oldest streets of the town. It led into the old Newburgh road, a state road, only sixty-six feet wide, and in 1834, Leonard Case was instrumental in having it broadened to ninety-nine feet and it was re- named Broadway. This was one of the most frequented roads of the pioneer days when Newburgh was an important settlement. It had for some years the only grist mill in this vicinity. For many years before factories filled the valley, Broadway was a favorite drive, offering a fine view of the beautiful valley of the Cuyahoga. It was one of the first streets of the city to be paved with stone. The pavement was first laid as far as Independence street in 1871-2. In 1875 from Union to Mill street a wooden pavement was laid; since this it has been relaid with stone, its entire length.

EUCLID AVENUE.

But the most important of these radial streets is Euclid avenue. It is one of the few streets of this country that have become world famous for their beauty, and it formerly ranked with Unter Den Linden, the Champs Elysee, and Common- wealth avenue.

ERES AF H C. FORD NO 958 FIFIIN AV FIFAVELAND ANIA

From an old lithograph

EUCLID AVENUE JUST EAST OF DOAN BROOK. 1873

CUCCIO AVENUE X

RESIDENCE OF A P.WINSLOW ESO Nº 630 EUCLIO AVENUE CLEVELAND OHIO

From an old lithograph

EUCLID AVENUE NEAR GIDDINGS AVENUE, 1873

This house was torn down in 1910 to make way for a garage. The elaborate landscape gardening was considered beautiful in the '60s and '70s. The stream is Giddings Brook.

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

When the first surveying party landed in the Reserve, they soon learned that the hardships to be endured were so unusual that they demanded more pay than they had originally stipulated. General Cleaveland, at Conneaut, in July, 1796, made an informal agreement which was later made more definite when the party reached the Cuyahoga, stipulating that the forty-one men of the party should be given a township, at one dollar per acre, each to have an equal share, on condition that they pledge themselves to remain in the services of the company to the end of the year and that they make settlement in the township, so that by 1800, forty-one families should have settled in the township. They wisely selected the township next east of Cleveland township and named it in honor of the great mathema- tician who founded their science, Euclid. When those arrived whose lot it fell to settle in the township the following year, they began at once to build a new road- way from the new metropolis to their possessions. It was surveyed by Warren, as the "Center highway." He says in his notes, "The land admits of an excellent highway to the middle of number 24, and then of a good cartway north of the swamp to the one hundred acre lots; the soil is preferable to that of the city, timber, oak, hickory, chestnut, box." For several miles along the line of this road, nature had provided a true highway in the ridge that marked the ancient shore line of the lake. This ridge became Euclid Road.

It was surveyed from Huron street to the Public Square in 1815, and this stretch was opened the following year. It is sometimes stated that it extended through the southeast section of the Square to Superior street, but none of the plats show this. Probably in the pioneer days, the ox teams and stage coaches, as a short cut, were driven diagonally across the Square to Superior street, but no formal street was laid out beyond the line of the Square.

At first Euclid was not an important road. It was not as much traveled the first decades as Broadway to Newburgh and Pittsburgh, or even Kinsman road. But as the settlements increased at Doan's corners, Collamer and Euclid, it be- came the most frequented road. Moreover, it was the great thoroughfare to Painesville, Erie, and Buffalo, and was known as the Buffalo road as late as 1825. Stage coaches, carriages and wagons joined the farmers' ox carts, and by 1830 it was the most important highway along the lake shore.

Its natural advantages early attracted those who wished a pleasant site for their homes near the growing town. At first the stretch between the Square and Erie street was lined with the stately square homes with classic porticos of the early period.1 About 1837 Truman P. Handy built one of the first residences,

1 On Euclid Ave. between the Square and Erie St. (E. gth) were the stately homes of Samuel Williamson, John Tod, Philo Scoville, Geo. F. Marshall, John C. Grannis, S. O. Gris- wold, Dr. Cushing, W. J. Crawford, John A. Wheeler, Geo. A. Benedict, Henry Nottingham, E. N. Keyes, Benjamin Harrington, Henry Chisholm, T. P. Handy and Edwin Cowles Other Euclid Ave. residents, in the section now invaded by business, were Lyman Kendall, C. W. Heard, Prentis Dow, A. Buttles, H. W. Clark, Prof. Webber, Henry Gaylord, Nelson Monroe, W. D. Beatty, M. B. Scott, William Williams, Judge S. J. Andrews, Freeman Butts, Elisha Taylor, Geo. B. Senter, Rev. Dr. Claxton, John F. Warner, O. A. Brooks, E. T. Sterling, C. Stetson, Sylvester Hogan, Dr. Elisha Sterling, W. Scofield, B. J. & J. B. Cobb, Anson Smith, Dr. Strickland, Dr. Hopkins, L. Benedict, Josiah Stacey, Geo. A. Stanley, C. E. Fisher. Here were also located the Plymouth Church, St. Paul's, and the Wesleyan Metho- dist churches.

The pioneer of the business invasion was the Otis block, facing Bond St. The building of this block was viewed with astonishment by the people, it was so far away from the busi- ness center. Just as, in 1837, the people wondered at the audacity of Truman P. Handy

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

"way out of town" near Erie; the home was subsequently used by the Union Club, the Hippodrome now occupies the site. When the town crowded the homes beyond Erie street, the wealthier residents began the custom of building their houses back from the street, providing ample lawns that sloped gracefully to their doors. By 1860, the street as far as Willson avenue was virtually a park, each home sur- rounded by spacious grounds. It was the show place of the city and in its golden days its fame was deserved. Distinguished visitors in these years, have left glowing accounts of its stately beauty, and even today, after the advent of the factory age with its clouds of smoke, its noxious, leaf destroying gases, and its crowding commercialism, large stretches of the famous avenue refuse to be robbed of their pristine glory.2

It has been our street of pageantry. Not a noted event in the past seventy years but Euclid avenue has borne an important part therein. The completion of the Cleveland & Pittsburgh railway, made it the gateway through which the notables of the land have been welcomed to our city. Down its broad and sheltered isles, were borne the remains of Lincoln, Garfield, Hay, and Hanna. Its stately mansions viewed the pageantry of honor to Grant, to Sherman, and the soldiery of the great war. Notable conventions sent their parades past its broad lawns, and great festivals, national and local, have shared their gaiety and throngs with this street of splendor.

"Euclid avenue in the early days and a long time afterwards, was by no means a popular highway stretching along at the southerly side of the ridge. It was the receptacle of all the surface waters of the region about it, and during much of the time was covered with water, and for the rest of the year was too muddy for ordinary travel." *

The street was early planked from Perry street to the city limits. Logs had been used for "Corduroy," in the swampy places near Willson avenue when it had been made a state road. In 1853 the city council undertook to repair it, and the hope was expressed that "the misery of a wilderness corduroy may never again fall upon Euclid street."

In 1852 complaints were registered because after every rain a pond of water accumulated at the corner of Erie and Euclid, called the "Euclid Frog Pond." In that year an ordinance was passed providing that each owner must pave his own sidewalk. But the city was not vigilant, and very little paving was done. In 1857 there were more complaints. Surface water gathered upon the streets because of the poor drainage of Garden, Brownell, and Chestnut streets. The rains would flood the street and the recession of waters deposited silt and ill

building a house "way out of town," when he built his fine residence near Erie. One by one the homes gave way to business structures. Among the last to disappear was the Chisholm home, when the New England building was erected in 1894, and the Handy mansion, where the Hippodrome was built in 1908 .- See "Annals Early Settlers Association," Vol. III, pp. 346 ff.

" John Fiske, the historian, in a lecture before the Royal Society of Great Britain, spoke of our avenue: "In Cleveland-a city on the southern shore of Lake Erie, with a population about equal to Edinburgh-there is a street some five or six miles in length, and over one hun- dred feet in width, bordered on each side with a double row of arching trees, and with hand- some stone houses of sufficient variety and freedom in architectural design, standing at inter- vals of from one to two hundred feet along the entire length of the street. The effect, it is needless to add, is very noble indeed, the vistas remind one of the nave and aisles of a huge cathedral."

(See S. O. Griswold, "Corporate Birth and Growth of fl-"land"-Tract, No. 62.)

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

smelling refuse. July 28, 1857, an ordinance was introduced into the city council providing for the grading of Euclid avenue, from Perry street to the city limits. This cost three thousand, and eighty-three dollars and nine cents.2 A culvert was dug along Sterling street to the lake to drain Euclid avenue and put an end to the perennial "Lake Euclid." Under authority of an ordinance passed June 7, 1859, Euclid avenue from the public square to Erie street was improved at a cost of seven , hundred and seventy-six dollars and fifty cents by constructing a carriageway twenty-five feet wide, filled with gravel to a depth of one foot. The roadway of the street was made forty-one feet wide. A further improvement was made between the same points under authority of an ordinance passed July 10, 1860. At this time the gutters were paved with stone for a width of eight feet from the curb line, on each side of the street. From this it would appear that a stone pavement was put down between the curbs and the gravel carriageway previously built and the old planks ripped up. But the street was not kept in a tidy manner. In 1862 complaint was made that weeds were allowed to grow between the sidewalk and the street. In 1864 portions of the street were repaired and in 1865 the council passed an ordinance that Euclid, together with parts of St. Clair and Prospect street be sprinkled in the dry summer months.

When East Cleveland was annexed in 1872, Euclid road beyond Willson ave- nue was planked, and ditches made on either side. Soon many planks were miss- ing to the great discomfiture of travelers. In the '60s Nicholson pavement was laid to Willson avenue.

In 1873 contracts were let to pave with Medina sandstone from the Public Square to Erie. In 1875 pavement was laid from Perry to Willson. By 1882 these pavements were in miserable condition and repaving with Medina sandstone was begun. In 1886 the street was paved from Fairmount street to the city limits, and an embankment built over Doan brook, and in 1891 the avenue was repaved with stone blocks from the Square to Perry street and later this stretch was laid with asphalt.

When the west side was united to the city the leading street connecting the two towns was Columbus street passing over the most substantial bridge then spanning the valley. It connected with the state road to Lorain, later called Lorain street, and with the pike to Wooster.

Detroit street was virtually a continuation of Euclid, and followed a lake ridge to the westward, merging into the state road to Toledo and Detroit. Some semblance of a radial plan was attempted on the west side, with Franklin circle as a center. Between Franklin, formerly Prospect street, and Detroit street, and between Monroe and Bridge streets the streets were laid out at right angles. But the contour of the land did not readily lend itself to so regular a plan, and the west side has developed the same desultory street system as the east side.

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A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I, Part 7

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1262

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1262