USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I > Part 84
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The interior of this home is well adapted to the work of this far-reaching organization. Its ample offices, quiet library, cheerful club rooms and digni- fied auditorium at once became the center of a vitalizing power that radiates into every activity of the city and whose impulse is felt throughout the state and over the nation. For the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce is unique. It has been the model for Detroit, Boston, Pittsburg, Buffalo, Rochester, Dayton, and many another American city.
The work of its first years roughly outlined above has been amplified dur- ing the succeeding decade. Only the greater activities can here be mentioned, for the records of all its accomplishments would fill a folio. Today with over two thousand members, there are some eighty-five active groups, each one work- ing out a problem; not in desultory meetings around well spread tables, but working in shirt sleeves, with sincerity and determination.
tReports and proceedings of the Chamber of Commerce, 1895, page 43.
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The local tasks have naturally predominated. Here have been worked out the splendid plans of a wider and finer cooperation between employer and em- ployee that make many Cleveland factories models of their kind. Nearly two hundred stores and manufacturing establishments have responded to this call.
Some years ago the tenement district was carefully studied and Cleveland was found to contain the rudiments, at least, of New York's worst evils. A special committee of picked men and a secretary employed for the purpose, studied section after section of the congested districts, and the exhaustive report published is a so- ciological document of value. It was found, for instance, that there were portions of the city where people were huddled together so densely that, if the ratio were maintained over our entire area twenty million souls would live in Cleveland. The shambles were a disgrace to the community. At once legislation was sought. A new and ample building code resulted ; it limited the amount of space to be used for buildings; prescribed a minimum of air space, the method of construction, ventilation, and so forth. This code was later expanded to cover all manner of buildings, and to provide rigid inspection of plans and of buildings during and after construction. It has already served as a model for other municipali- ties.
Following this and growing out of a similar investigation, came a sani- tary code drafted by another Chamber committee, adopted at its request by the Board of Health, which also has served as a model for our neighbors. Collat- eral movements at once grew out of this. It was found, for instance, that in one of our slum districts a population of five thousand were served with eleven bath tubs. Forthwith " public bathhouses" became the cry. Other cities were visited to see what was needed and what was being done. Now there are three public baths in Cleveland visited in 1908-9 by about five hundred thousand bathers.
Other committees followed the lead. It was found that playgrounds must be provided for the little ones in the congested districts. Numerous diverse activities were brought into cooperation ; the social settlements ; the public schools; the city council; and private charities. Twenty playgrounds were soon opened, public and private, under the direction of competent instructors. Many more are on the way, for Cleveland generously provided with magnificent parks and vast stretches of boulevards, now is turning to the neighborhood park and play place where the child can be free.
The little ones brought up under adverse conditions often become a charge upon the community. The Chamber followed the child to school and to his home. Last year a law drafted by the Chamber providing medical inspection of school children, was passed, and the physician, and the trained nurse, now visit every schoolroom in the city. The unfortunate child, victim of evil environ- ment, that falls into the meshes of the law, is sent to a juvenile court, which is sociological rather than legal in its temperament, is cared for in a detention home, or in a special school, or sent to a special farm, where he can be allowed his natural growth. All of these activities receive the active cooperation of the Chamber.
The health of the adult has also received attention. Not alone in the new sani- tary code and building code, but in laws compelling pure food. Four or five
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years ago Cleveland was about the only large city in the land without adequate meat and milk inspection. Research by the Chamber revealed bad conditions. Again laws were sought after the facts had been gathered. A meat inspection department with a competent veterinary at its head was established by the city and Cleveland's meat "before and after killing," the places where it is sold and where it is prepared, are rigidly inspected. Milk inspection came at the same time. Cleveland had had practically none of this. When fifteen trained inspect- ors were sent out to visit the dairies that supply the city they were met with in- solence, for the arm of the council did not extend beyond the city limits. After some wise diplomacy and teaching the farmers that milk unapproved could be poured into the gutters after it did reach the jurisdiction of the council, there was an unfriendly acquiescence. The Chamber did not like this spirit. They mol- lified it by holding a milk contest under the direction of the United States De- partment of Agriculture, offering gold and silver medals for the most deserving dairies. The contest was followed by another in 1907. Cooperation between the farmer and the city has taken place of morose submission.
Other ways of increasing the healthfulness and adding to the beauty of the city have been devised and put in operation. The Chamber has endeavored to make our soft coal city cleaner. The smoke nuisance has been somewhat abated because of the legislation the Chamber secured for inspection, but more by the pride that manufacturers have taken in the issue. Home beautifying, through coop- eration with the Home Gardening Association has been extensively carried on. Seeds and bulbs in vast quantities are distributed among children in the schools, prizes for gardens, flowers and vegetables are given annually. The result passes all imagination. Barren yards and unsightly alleys have been transformed. But more important and beautiful, the lives of thousands of children, and of their par- ents, have been touched by the gentle influences of growing plants and flowers. Primarily the credit belongs to the Home Gardening Association, an independent organization whose efficiency is largely due to the wise oversight of E. W. Haines. But the Chamber is the godfather of this Association. The trees that were the glory of the Forest City fell victims to the rapid manufacturing development of Cleveland. Injurious smoke and gases and voracious insects combined to destroy them. Their sapling successors planted on every street out of force of habit, were also rapidly succumbing to disease. A municipal committee of the Chamber came to the rescue. The legislature enacted the Chamber's bill providing a muni- cipal department of forestry, giving it not only the power to inspect and to spray and to scrape, but to cut down the useless and replace them in streets and parks. In 1908, six thousand trees were thus planted in the streets and one thousand, five hundred in the parks, while one hundred thousand bulbs and plants beautified the driveways and small open places of the city. Moreover, spraying and trim- ming was done and the householders were admonished to care for the trees on their premises. Cleveland was long known as a town of dirty streets. The Chamber set a committee at work studying street cleaning systems in other cities. They recommended to the council the purchase of street flushing machines and the appropriation of two hundred thousand dollars annually for cleaning streets. This was done to the gratification of all Cleveland housewives.
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Of monumental achievement is the conceiving and the actual beginning of the beautiful group plan that has brought Cleveland into such favorable notice in every American city and in Europe. This noble plan, when once achieved, will have scores of offspring in other cities, great and small. Its wide mall lined with stately buildings of monumental size and magnificent design, its great fountain, sunken gardens, and wide lawns, will be a lasting memorial to the civic foresight of the Chamber of Commerce. For no other group of men could successfully have brought into cooperation the diverse boards and governing bodies who are the controlling factors in the erection of our needed public buildings.
Another far-reaching achievement has been wrought out of a careful and ex- tended study of the city's charities. The useless rivalry of half a dozen orphan asylums, many relief organizations, scores of individual institutions, all anxiously soliciting funds and feverishly competing with each other for bigness, has been supplanted by wise and businesslike cooperation. The work is now carefully distributed among the various agencies and is supervised by the committee on benevolent associations of the Chamber. In the doing of this vast philanthropic work another great good was accomplished. Scores of "fake" charity schemes were unearthed and unworthy institutions who preyed upon the sympathy of the community were exposed. Several of these disreputable persons were arrested. The lesson passed quickly among the guild, "the crook on the way from New York to Chicago no longer buys a stopover for Cleveland and we save the seventy- five thousand dollars tribute which Cleveland formerly paid to this honorable profession. nearly twice as much as it cost to run the whole Cleveland Chamber of Commerce." *
Of the minor work of this active body may be mentioned: the renumbering and renaming of streets; the securing of an ordinance regulating traffic in the streets ; the successful advocacy of granite in place of sandstone for public build- ings ; the study of industrial education, and the recommending to the city its ex- tension ; the protection of fish in Lake Erie; earnest endeavors for a new depot and the elimination of grade crossings; the study of street railway franchise problem in 1901 and in 1906; the adoption of civil service by the city ; legisla- tion secured regulating hitherto irresponsible banks; a systematic study of the high level bridge problem; securing high pressure system for better fire pro- tection in the downtown district; secured an ordinance regulating vehicle traffic in the streets; planned and executed the notable Industrial Exposition in 1909. And as a token of the awakening of an interest in historical matters, the chamber appropriated the necessary funds, sent a committee to Canterbury, Connecticut, to place a suitable stone monument, with bronze tablet, on the neglected grave of Moses Cleaveland. Perhaps this same spirit will soon rehabilitate the graves of our own brave pioneers, who sleep in Cleveland's ancient burial places.
Of wider significance has been the advocacy by the Chamber of far-reaching reform in the United States consular service ; of the betterment of all inland water- ways; the improvement of foreign trade relations ; the adoption of a definite policy of national conservation ; action looking toward currency reform and many other similar movements.
*Address by Howard Strong, 1909, before the Steubenville Business Men's Association.
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND
With all this variety of civic achievement the Chamber is primarily what its name implies. Its commercial, industrial and business activities are potent, though not spectacular. It has a wholesale board, a retail board, a convention board and a manufacturers' board. These are always alert. Every advantage to trade and commerce that can be secured for Cleveland is sought. Harbor improvements, the widening of the river, the resurrection of the state canal, the securing of dock- age on the lake front, the development of proper railroad terminals, the securing of reasonable freight rates all state and national legislation affecting business, the securing of conventions for Cleveland, the development of retail interests and the creation of better relations among retail merchants and between them and their customers, all receive unremitting attention. There are annually several trade ex- cursions into Ohio towns and neighboring states. Extended trips have been taken to Atlanta, Georgia, to Mexico, to the far west, and to distant Alaska.
The organization of this remarkable body is simple. A board of fourteen di- rectors is chosen yearly. These select the president, who becomes the active head of the Chamber for the year, and great are the demands made upon his time. He is a very influential and a very busy public servant. The list of presidents is a distin- guished roll of honor of successful, public spirited Clevelanders. The directors ap- portion the work among more than eighty standing and special committees, ac- tively enlisting about one-fourth of the total membership. When a committee reports, its findings are laid before the directors, sometimes before the entire body. The Chamber employs a corps of able secretaries. Each committee has assigned to it one of this secretarial staff.
On the walls of the beautiful auditorium of the Chamber hang several portraits of notable Clevelanders: W. J. Gordon and William Edwards, James Barnett and M. A. Hanna, John Hay and William McKinley. They typify the scope and the ideals of the Chamber of Commerce ; for they represent national and local emi- nence in business and professional achievement, in government and statecraft, in public spirit and philanthropy, and in its best sense, of manhood and civic devotion. This organization is teaching the nation in what it is doing for our city, the solu- tion of the primal problem in a commercial democracy ; the transformation of bus- iness competition and selfishness into social cooperation and helpfulness ; subordi- nating neither the commercial, the sociological, nor the governmental, but uniting them all into a powerful unity by means of practical cooperation.
The following is the roster of officers :
Presidents-1848, Joseph L. Weatherly ; 1864, S. F. Lester ; 1865, Philo Cham- berlin; 1867, W. F. Otis; 1868, Geo. W. Gardner ; 1869, R. T. Lyon ; 1870, A. J. Begges ; 1871, Thomas Walton; 1872, Chas. Hickox; 1873, B. H. York; 1874, F. H. Morse; 1875, H. Pomerene; 1877, B. A. DeWolf; 1879, Daniel Martin ; 1886, William Edwards ; 1888, George W. Lewis ; 1889, William Edwards ; 1893, Henry R. Groff ; 1894, Luther Allen ; 1895, Wilson M. Day; 1896, John G. W. Cowles ; 1897, Worcester R. Warner ; 1898, Harry A. Garfield ; 1899, M. S. Green- ough; 1900, Ryerson Ritchie; 1901, Charles L. Pack; 1902, Harvey D. Goulder ; 1903, J. J. Sullivan ; 1904. Amos B. McNairy ; 1905, Ambrose Swasey ; 1906, Fran- cis F. Prentiss ; 1907, Lyman H. Treadway ; 1908, Charles S. Howe; 1909, Chas. F. Brush.
1
LEVI JOHNSON, 1786-1871 The pioneer contractor and shipbuilder of Cleveland
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND
Treasurers-1848, R. T. Lyon ; 1865, J. H. Clark; 1867, J. F. Freeman ; 1870, J. D. Pickands ; 1871, A. Wiener ; 1872, S. S. Gardner; 1879, Theo. Simmons, sec- retary ; 1884, X. X. Crum, secretary ; 1887, A. J. Begges, secretary ; 1893, A. J. Begges ; 1894, Geo. S. Russell ; 1896, Samuel Mather ; 1897, Geo. W. Kinney ; 1898, Joseph Colwell; 1900, Thos. H. Wilson ; 1901, H. C. Ellison ; 1903, Geo. A. Garret- son ; 1904, Chas. A. Post ; 1905, Demaline Leuty ; 1906, F. A. Scott ; 1907, Charles A. Paine.
Secretaries-1848, Charles W. Coe ; 1849, S. S. Coe ; 1854, H. B. Tuttle ; 1860, C. W. Coe ; 1862, H. B. Tuttle ; 1864, Arthur H. Quinn ; 1865. J. C. Sage; 1879, Theo. Simmons ; 1884, X. X. Crum; 1887, A. J Begges ; 1893, Ryerson Ritchie ; 1898, F. A. Scott; 1905, Munson A. Havens.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
THE BUILDERS EXCHANGE AND SOME EARLY CLEVELAND BUILDERS.
By E. A. Roberts, Secretary of the Builders Exchange.
It is a long step from the crude log cabin built by the first settlers who pitched their tents near the mouth of the Cuyahoga river on that bright July day in 1796 to the sixteen story Rockefeller building now occupying nearly the same site; from the quaint home of Lorenzo Carter to the apartment house for one hundred families, or the Euclid avenue mansion of four score rooms; from the old log jail on the northeast corner of the public square and the little red court house on the southwest corner to the massive county building of steel and granite now near- ing completion on the lake front, as a part of the pretentious grouping plan ; from the small church that is said to have followed a distillery in erection to the ornate new trinity cathedral; from the dingy one room bank to any of the million dollar structures recently completed, or from that first six windowed schoolhouse, built on what is now the Kennard house site at a cost of one hundred and ninety-eight dollars to the new Technical high school-but such is the vast stride the city has made.
In exact proportion as the city has grown, financially and commercially, has its building industry expanded. In other words it may be said that a true ba- rometer of the city's progress is to be found in the record of its building opera- tions. Comparison of the statistics covering the cost of structures for fifteen years demonstrates this fact. For the five years from 1894 to 1899 the estimated cost of buildings for which permits were issued aggregated eighteen million dollars, while that for the succeeding five years was twenty-eight million dollars, and for the five years prior to 1909 the figures jumped to fifty-five million dollars or almost double the total of the previous period. Unlike some of the older eastern cities, Cleveland's building history does not cover many generations of buildings. In numerous instances, it is true, the original structures built by the pioneers have been replaced by others, and in some cases in the business district there have been
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND
three successions of buildings, but in very few cases have more than that been recorded. In the older portions of the city hundreds of houses are standing as examples of the art and tastes of the early builders who established the village standards. One may read in a number of books of the erection of a house at the corner of Hanover and Vermont streets on the west side built by the agents of the Northwestern Fur Company some years before the arrival of Moses Cleave- land. The house is still standing, its simple lines reflecting the good taste of the builder. One may. also visit what is said to be the oldest house on the East Side -a remodeled structure built by D. L. Wood in 1839 on what was formerly Wood street, now East Third street. A number of buildings used in the '30s and '50s for church edifices are still standing, some of which are now devoted to baser uses. Among the latter is the old Methodist church erected in 1836 at the corner of Clinton avenue and West Thirty-second street, now utilized as a livery stable. In some cases, however, the ground hallowed by the early villagers is still retained to sacred uses, as witness the old stone church, a picture of which adorns all the early wood cuts of the public square. These buildings may be said to represent the first generation of structures. In some of them a striving for artistic features is exhibited but in most of them the hustle and bustle of the embryo city have crowded out all but utilitarian considerations. The owners simply outlined to the carpenter or mason the number of rooms or the business capacity desired and the foundation was staked out the next morning with operations started as soon as material could be delivered.
Some interesting comparisons may be made touching the scope of the building industry in that early period in contrast with that of today. It is certain that Eben- ezer Duty was one of the earliest brick makers in Cleveland. He had a small yard where brick was made in 1830, the moulded forms of clay being baked in the sun. His son Andrew W. Duty, applied for a patent on a brick machine in 1832 and the art of brick making descended to the great grandson, Spencer Duty, at present in business under the firm name of the Deckman-Duty Company. From this modest beginning, turning out but a few thousand brick in a season, an industry with a capacity of one hundred and fifty million brick per annum has developed, the amount of common brick handled in Cleveland in 1909 having been estimated at one hundred and twenty million.
The first stone for buildings in Cleveland is said to have been hauled by oxen from the quarry of John Baldwin near Berea. The name of Baldwin is known to many as the founder of Baldwin university. On good authority it is estimated that twenty-five thousand car loads of stone are now taken out of the quarries near Cleveland annually, of which one-fifth is used in the city, the balance being shipped to all parts of this country and Canada. From this stone state capitols, federal buildings, churches, schools and palatial homes by the hundreds have been built.
According to the records of the port of Cleveland, lumber was imported to the city in 1836 to the amount of two hundred and ninety-four thousand, six hundred and fifty-two feet. The records of 1909 indicate that this modest figure had in- creased to five hundred and forty-five million, five hundred and eighty-four thou- sand feet, and that particular year was not the best in the city's history, either, for building. Not all of this vast amount of lumber was used in the city, many mil- lions of feet going by rail to various parts of the country from Cleveland as a dis-
C. H. Fath
William Downie
Arthur McAllister
1. T. Watterson
1. Dautel
GROUP OF PIONEER CONTRACTORS AND BUILDERS
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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND
tributing center. In the total of materials received for building operations in 1909 must also be included one hundred and thirty-eight thousand tons of cement, one million, six hundred and sixty thousand and forty-three tons of lime, sand and simi- lar materials and four hundred and seventy-one thousand, one hundred and nine- teen tons of structural steel as shown by figures obtained from the transportation companies by the Chamber of Commerce.
Of the early builders active in the city's first generation, our present history mentions little. Facts in this connection must be derived from the few survivors of that period. The ambitions of those early hewers of wood were not large, nor are their monuments unduly pretentious. Comparatively few citizens remember the little carpenter shop of Blackburn & Fuller that stood on Prospect street, just west of Erie street in the '6os, or the shop of Alfred Green, at the corner of Oak place and Prospect street, and yet in their day they were conspicuous centers of activity. In that period of the city's growth Herman Treber, W. P. Southworth, Joseph Heckman, James Clemans, S. C. Brooks, David Latimer and Barney Riley were familiar names among the builders, the latter having constructed many of the school houses of the time. Other builders whose work lived after them were Fred Warner, the general contractor who built the old postoffice; Samuel Brody, fore- man of the city hall and builder of the old public library, removed in after years from the site of the present Citizens building; George Smith, who built the old Champlain Police station; and Alex Forbes, who built the Union depot, after fin- ishing the home of Amasa Stone. There are many others of this time, whose names might be mentioned were this a biographical rather than an historical sketch. In a later period came such builders as L. Dautel, highly regarded for his correct ideas on construction work; Colonel A. McAllister, prominent in civic life as well as in building ; John T. Watterson, builder of shops, factories and mills ; C. H. Fath, contractor of both public and private works ; Gottlieb Griese and others, who have gone to their rest.
As for the builders of the present day, their history is making. It may be in- teresting to note that Cleveland builders are in demand in all parts of the country, and that their activity is not confined by any means to their own locality. From the Baltimore courthouse and the Jersey City courthouse, erected by one of Cleve- land's firms, to a great cement works, costing one and one half millions of dollars, built by another Cleveland firm near San Francisco, is a wide range for operations, and yet this alone measures the scope of the activities of the building contractors of Cleveland. In the line of public buildings they have to their credit a numerous list, while in the department of commercial structures and residences their names are connected with many substantial operations in the United States and Canada. One Cleveland builder at least has to his credit a distinction similar to that of Moses Cleaveland. This builder, George Caunter by name, laid out a town in Put- nam county, Ohio, named it Townwood and served as its first postmaster and station agent. Unfortunately Mr. Caunter did not give the village his own name as did General Cleaveland, therefore arises the need of writing down the facts, lest they may perchance be forgotten.
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