450 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXV system of young Cleveland and, by 1835, nearly all the thoroughfares of the original town, as mentioned, with those added in 1815, were cleared and established. Of the radial streets, St. Clair, the northernmost was opened in 1816. It was called the North Highway and Federal Street was subsequently merged into it. St. Clair became the. fashionable lake shore drive and led to the Northern Ohio fair grounds and race track near Glenville. Superior Street was early planned to be Cleveland's leading thoroughfare ; its principal retail business street down town and the chief link between the central Public Square and the great resident district projected toward the east. Until a comparatively recent period it was the backbone of the city's principal retail district, but the great residence territory which was to be developed along Payne Avenue, which was opened in 1853, was invaded by industrial smoke and unsightliness before the property came into the hands of builders and home-seekers. The result was to crowd the handsome homesteads of the city further to the south in East Cleveland. Prospect Street, which had been surveyed by Ahaz Merchant in 1831, and during civil war times, as well as later, was a fashionable residence street. Kinsman Street, the Old South Highway, laid out as early as 1797 and in the '60s called Woodland Avenue, also had its day when it was lined with stately homes and was one of the fashionable drives into a beautiful suburban district. 1918] - MEANS OF COMMUNICATION - 451 EXPANSION IN ALL DIRECTIONS But all of these thoroughfares, including Euclid Avenue, have been invaded by the necessary expansion of retail business areas, although the latter, especially beyond Wade Park, has come the nearest to retaining its original fame as an avenue of beautiful homes of any Cleveland highway. The development of Euclid Avenue in that regard, has been rapid since the annexation of East Cleveland to the city in 1872. The village of West Cleveland was absorbed by the city in 1894. At that time, the leading street connecting the two divisions was Columbus which passed over an iron bridge, the most substantial structure of the kind then spanning the Cuyahoga River. Through Columbus Street, communication was made with the State Road to Lorain, later called Lorain Avenue, and with the Wooster Pike. Detroit Street, another leading West Side avenue was virtually a continuation of Euclid. It followed a lake ridge to the westward and merged into the State Road to Toledo. and Detroit. Franklin Circle, to be hereafter described, was the center of the West Cleveland street system, such as it was. THE BRIDGES AND VIADUCTS As the streets multiplied, and various settled sections were received into the corporation, the problem of adequately bridging the Cuyahoga 452 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXV River and its tributaries, other streams which flowed into the lake and the numerous ravines and valleys which cut the site of the municipality —the question of how best to bind together the city's territory so as to make communication between all its sections most convenient, without disfiguring its beauties, was a problem which tried the capabilities of the best engineers and citizens, and it is still a living issue. From the days of Ahaz Merchant, who laid out most of the original thoroughfares of Cleveland, to the time of W. A. Stinchcomb, whose labors in street improvements and bridge and viaduct building are woven into the latest great developments in these lines, the efforts of the founders and promoters of the city have been faithful and untiring closely to unite the people of its diversified physical territory. GETTING THE EAST AND THE WEST SIDES TOGETHER The origin of this series of great works goes back to the infancy of Cleveland as a settlement and a village. The initial problem, which has been fully solved only within recent years, was how best to bring the settlers on the east side of the Cuyahoga River in convenient communication with the West Siders. It is known that the ferry at the foot of Superior Street, operated by Elijah Gunn, was for some years the only public means of getting to the west side of the river. It was then impossible to build a stationary bridge at that point, as it would obstruct navigation. Some years later, a compromise between the landsmen and the marines was effected by which a floating bridge of whitewood logs was built much further south, at a point where the Center Street bridge now spans the river. In the Annals of the Early Settlers' Association it is stated : "When vessels wished to pass, the logs were floated to one side and were brought back into place by means of ropes. This was the first bridge across the Cuyahoga." FIRST PERMANENT BRIDGE ACROSS THE CUYAHOGA But something more substantial materialized during the mayoralty of John W. Willey, Cleveland's first mayor. James S. Clark and others platted a strip along the east side of the river which they called Willeyville. Columbus Street bisected it, and on the opposite side of the Cuyahoga commenced the Wooster and Medina turnpike. A bridge was the logical connection ; and Columbus bridge was built. It was the first substantial structure to span the stream, was built by Mr. Clark and his associates and cost $15,000. The bridge was 200 1918] - MEANS OF COMMUNICATION - 453 feet long, with a draw sufficient to allow a vessel of forty-nine foot beam to pass through. It was an old time covered bridge, twenty-four feet above the surface of the river, but a contemporary print states that it "presents an imposing appearance and reflects much credit on the architect, Nathan Hunt. This splendid bridge was presented to the corporation of the City of Cleveland by the owners, with the express stipulation that it should forever remain free for the accommodation of the public, although the Legislature had previously chartered it as a toll bridge." The bridge thus made over to Cleveland diverted so much of the trade to the East side which had formerly come to Ohio City, or West Cleveland, that the West Siders openly rebelled, especially after the Cleveland council directed the removal of the east half of the old float bridge, which, legally, it had a right to do as that structure was the joint property of the two cities. The Bridge War which was the physical culmination of the quarrel, was fought over the Columbus span, and is described in the early portion of the narrative history. OTHER BRIDGES AT THE STRATEGIC POINT The quarrel was still on when, in 1846, the towns agitated the building of a larger bridge. Ohio City said "No ; and we stand on your old ground (addressing the City of Cleveland). You own only to the middle of Cuyahoga River." So the county stepped in and built the second bridge; in 1870, the third was completed and in 1898, the fourth. The present structure, built at a cost of $80,000, is operated by electricity. It is at the apex of the westernmost bend or horseshoe of the river, across which it was thrown south for the express purpose of diverting the trade of the southern country towns from Ohio City to Cleveland, and until the two were consolidated the hostility between the East and West sides was bitter and always rampant. The Columbus Street bridge is worthy of special comment, which has already been well made in the following words: " One of the most original and novel bridges in the city and the first of its kind ever built, as far as we are aware, with the exception of a contemporary built at some government arsenal in Spain, of which the details were never given in American periodicals, is the double swing bridge at Columbus Street, designed by Walter P. Rice, chief engineer, assisted by James T. Pardee, city bridge engineer, and John Brunner, of the Mount Vernon Bridge Works, the latter rendering important service in the development of the shop drawings. This bridge is of special 454 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXV type as its name implies, and was the outgrowth of special conditions. Its construction saved the City of Cleveland about $60,000, as against the proposed plan, and has proved one of the quickest moving and most satisfactory bridges on the river. This type does away with the old characteristic center pier, affording a clean opening of about 113 feet in the center of the stream—a necessity, as the location is at one of the worst bends in the river and every inch of channel is needed for the passage of large freighters. The two separate spans are designated as bobtails ;' that is, one arm being shorter than the other and counterweighted. The roadway, when the bridge is closed, has a grade of about three feet per hundred feet and has a length of 279 feet total, the shore ends locking into anchorage and forming a cantilever. The motive power, another innovation at that time, being a combination of electricity and compressed air ; the operation of diaphragm gates at approaches, latching of bridge, and raising and lowering of apron at center, being controlled by the latter power, while the actual swinging of the two spans is done by electric motors. This type was later duplicated in Canada." DIRECT COMMUNICATION WITH OHIO CITY In the days when Cleveland was centered around the mouth of the river and the public square, the most direct means of communication with Ohio City and the west generally was by way of Division and Lighthouse (Willow) streets. In the '50s, therefore, bridges were built across the river at those crossings. The wooden structures were subsequently replaced by iron bridges. The marine interests fought the building of the old Lighthouse Street bridge, but opposition calmed down somewhat when, in 1856, its construction was authorized by the city and the State Board of Public Works. In 1897, a new bridge, operated by electricity, replaced the old. A BRIDGE STORY OF MYSTERY Seneca Street bridge was another of the pioneer bridges designed to bring trade to Cleveland before the railroads had proved themselves as fixed and dependable. It was so overloaded with cattle upon a certain occasion in 1857 that it collapsed and fell into the river. The fate of the cattle is unrecorded. The bridge which replaced the wrecked concern was a hand drawbridge ; an iron one followed ; in 1918] - MEANS OF COMMUNICATION - 455 1888, a bridge of two spans, nearly 300 feet in length was constructed, and, in 1903, the city built its first Sherzer roller lift bridge, known as the Middle Seneca or Middle West Third Street bridge. Its operating power is electricity. OTHER CLEVELAND BRIDGES The Main Street bridge, which was one of the first iron structures of the kind in the city, was originally built in 1869. It was reconstructed in 1885 and the draw is operated by steam. The old wooden drawbridge at Center Street antedated the iron structure at Main. It was completed in 1863, although the truss iron draw was not built until the early '70s. This, in turn, was replaced by the bridge of 1900, operated by electricity. When the Jefferson Avenue bridge, over the river and canal, was finished in 1872, it was the finest structure of the kind in Cleveland. It was built by the King Iron Bridge Company. The river span was 150 feet long and that crossing the canal 117 feet. Cost nearly $40,000. In 1907, a double rolling lift bridge was built over the new channel of the river, and a fixed span was thrown over the old channel where the original swing span had been, at a total cost of $182,000. The lift span is operated by electricity. In the year that the first Jefferson Avenue bridge was completed, was opened the Central Way under the tracks of the Cleveland and Wheeling Railway. At once it became the heavy traffic highway, the principal outlet of the refineries and the iron manufactories. The bridge across the river was an old wooden affair and, in 1883, was swept away by a flood. A suitable iron bridge nearly 200 feet long replaced it the same year, and electrical power was installed in 1917. The structure is now known as the Upper West Third Street bridge. WALWORTH RUN VIADUCT The first of the large viaducts to be built by the city was that over Walworth Run and the Big Four tracks, at what was then the southern outskirts of the city. It was built of iron, and comprised three spans with a total reach of 260 feet. The cost was nearly $80,000. The Walworth viaduct was rebuilt of iron and steel in 1888. In 1911, it was reconstructed in connection with the grade-crossing work of the New York Central and St. Louis railroads. 456 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXV HIGH-LEVEL BRIDGE DEMANDED But the city realized more and more, as both the East and the West sides expanded in area, increased in population and their business and civic demands for ready intercommunication became insistent, that some radical work must be accomplished by which the physical difficulties of the municipal site might be overcome as a whole. Small bridges to cross various streams and minor viaducts to bridge ravines and little valleys must be put aside in favor of some grand high-level structure which should be thrown from the highlands of East Cleveland to those of West Cleveland, so far above the river that its navigation could freely progress beneath. The discussion of this grand radical project commenced in the '60s, was placed in the background by civil war matters which would not be suppressed by any others, and definitely and strongly revived in 1870. BUILDING OF THE OLD SUPERIOR STREET VIADUCT Both "sides" of the river now saw the vital necessity of the movement, and, if there was any preponderance of enthusiasm and initiative, local historians now generally place it to the credit of the West Siders. Of the latter champions none were more persistent or influential than Henry W. S. Wood and Belden Seymour; and when West Cleveland was incorporated as a village, in 1872, they and other champions of their section redoubled their efforts to secure this most natural connection and one which had been so early advocated and partially realized. The story of the final construction of the old Superior Street viaduct is long and involved, and it would not serve any good purpose to enter the multitude of details composing the account; for, as the peace-loving Uncle Toby said in the immortal Tristram Shandy, "much may be said on both sides of the question." The assertion may be ventured, however, that among those most prominent in the construction of the old viaduct, besides those already mentioned, were George Willey, C. W. Palmer, Judge J. M. Coffinberry, J. F. Hollaway and others. These gentlemen not only were persistent in furthering the enterprise during its initial stage, but continued to give it their best efforts until the viaduct was an assurance. At this time, Charles H. Strong was city engineer with C. G. Force as his assistant, and upon them fell the practical details of construction from first to last. In March, 1872, a special committee of the Cleveland city council, appointed to consider the high-level bridge problem in all its bearings, 1918] - MEANS OF COMMUNICATION - 457 reported in favor of the route from the corner of Merwin and Superior streets to the intersection of Pearl (West Twenty-fifth) Street and Detroit Avenue. Afterwards, the general assembly granted the authority to construct the viaduct along that line, the voters of Cleveland gave it their sanction and the work was placed under practical headway. At a cost of more than half a million dollars, the Big Four Railroad tracks were lowered; the canal` was vacated for three miles, virtually from Superior Street to the southern city limits, and the city made a new river entrance to the lake about a mile east of the old one, the moving of the old locks and vacating the canal bed being accomplished at an additional cost of $360,000. The usual number of suits and vexatious delays arose before the entire right-of-way was secured and it was not until the twenty-seventh of December, 1878, that Messrs. Wood and Seymour, representing the most prominent citizen high-levelites of the East and West sides, met at the middle of the Superior viaduct draw and clasped hands in token of a united Cleveland. The great undertaking had .been made a notable engineering reality at the expenditure of administrative and executive talents of the highest order, represented in mere dollars by $2,170,000. It was a free bridge, although the original act allowed the collection of toll. It was 3,211 feet long, the draw being about a. tenth of the total length and seventy feet above high water mark. In the foundation, 7,279 piles were used, 8,508 perch of stone and 15,500 yards of gravel filling; and that same foundation supported over 150,000 tons of stone and iron. FORMAL DEDICATION OF FIRST HIGH LEVEL BRIDGE On the day following the informal meeting of Messrs. Wood and Seymour, the viaduct was formally dedicated to the public. The Cleveland Light Artillery fired the federal salute at daybreak and at 10:30 A. M. there was a parade through the down-town streets by military and civil orders, the fire department and citizens generally participating in it. Of the local military organizations the old time "Cleveland Grays" were favorites. Many of the brightest and most able young men of the city had joined its ranks at some time or other, and one Myron T. Herrick, was a member of it on that eventful winter day, forty years ago, when the united towns celebrated the completion of the first Superior Street viaduct. At 12:30 a mass meeting was held in the old Tabernacle, corner of Ontario and St. Clair streets, at which addresses were delivered by 458 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXV Mayor William G. Rose and Governors Bishop, of Ohio, and Mathews, of West Virginia. In the evening a banquet was given at the Weddell House, at which Amos Townsend, a former member of congress from the Cleveland district, presided. On the twenty-ninth of December, 1878, the bridge was opened for the public use, and well fulfilled its functions for more than thirty years, or until a greater Cleveland demanded a greater viaduct. GREATER VIADUCT FOR GREATER CLEVELAND This splendid structure, officially designated as the High Level Bridge, has been open for traffic since Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, 1917 ; the upper deck was opened to vehicles on the former day, and the lower deck to street cars on the latter day. It is of double-deck steel and reinforced concrete construction and was built under the general superintendence of Frank R. Lander and W. A. Stinchcomb, county surveyors respectively : Mr. Wood is given the credit for being the father of the double-deck plan, which was adopted by the county commissioners after the holding of several stormy meetings. The plans were then prepared by Mr. Lander, under whom the work progressed for two years, being completed under Mr. Stinchcomb. The first actual construction work was started by the O'Rourke Engineering Company, on the fourth of June, 1912. The length of the viaduct from the intersection of West Twenty-fifth and Detroit Avenue to the center line of West Ninth Street is 3,112 feet ; from Superior to West Ninth, 475 feet; in West Twenty-fifth south of Detroit Avenue, 958 feet, and in Detroit, west of West Twenty-fifth Street, 1,085 feet. Total 5,630 feet, or over one mile. There are twelve concrete arches and one steel arch, which spans the river, for a length of 591 feet and 196 feet above the surface of the water. The total cost 1918] - MEANS OF COMMUNICATION - 459 of the viaduct, including subways, has been approximately $3,601,000; of the land acquired for right of way, $1,683,000. Grand total, for land and structural work, $5,284,000. County Engineer Stinchcomb has made the following interesting estimates, and thereby deviated from the typical atmosphere of the dry-as-dust statistician : One hundred and twenty-four thousand eight hundred cubic yards of concrete were used in construction of the piers, foundations, arches, floors and subway approaches. If this concrete were made into a Wall 6 feet high and 18 inches thick, it would be approximately 70 miles long. The earth excavation for bridge and approaches was 199,500 cubic yards. This would make a trench 3 feet wide and 3 feet deep, 110 miles long. If the earth were all thrown to one side, a splendid military trench could be made. Concrete piles 147,840 lineal feet were used under the piers. If placed end to end they would extend 28 miles. If these piles were made into a concrete walk 6 feet wide and 4 inches thick, it would extend from Rocky River to Euclid Beach. The steel used for reinforcing the concrete weighed 9,850 pounds. This amount of steel would make a fence 5 feet high, about 19 miles long. CENTRAL VIADUCT Until this last and greatest of the city viaducts was completed, the Central Viaduct, which crosses the Cuyahoga River at its next pronounced horseshoe bend southeast of the Columbus bridge, as well as Walworth Run which enters the main stream at this point, was the longest, structure of its kind in Cleveland. It was built in answer to the demands of the South Side for more convenient communication with the central districts of the city. The agitation commenced in the common council in the spring of 1879, but the route from Ohio and Hill streets to Jennings Avenue was not adopted until the summer of 1885, and ground was not actually broken until the fifth of May, 1888. In December of that year, the bridge was opened to the public, with appropriate ceremonies. The King Iron Bridge Company did the bulk of the structural work. The Cuyahoga River span of the bridge is 2,839 feet, and the Walworth Run span (Abbey Avenue branch) 1,092 feet; total length, 3,931 feet. The entire cost of the Central Viaduct was $885,000, although the amount authorized was $1,000,000. From the first, 460 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXV both the public and the engineers have viewed this work with some apprehension, especially after it was discovered, a few years subsequent to its completion, that the hillside on the west bank of the river was slowly slipping against the piers and threatening their stability. They were strengthened, but still the settling and progressive pressure continue, as in other ways of nature, slowly but surely. It was at the Central Viaduct, also, that the terrible accident occurred, on the sixteenth of November, 1895, by which an electric car plunged into the valley through the open draw and killed seventeen persons. So that the Central viaduct is in some respects, another name for a "creepy feeling" in the constitution of the average Clevelander. KINGSBURY RUN IMPROVEMENTS Kingsbury Run Viaduct (now East Thirty-fourth Street bridge) was built in 1884-86 over the Run and the Erie tracks for the accommodation of southeastern Clevelanders. The bridge is over 800 feet long and the Kingsbury Run trestle nearly 500 feet. The cost of the improvements was $147,000. BROOKLYN-BRIGHTON CONNECTION WITH THE SOUTHWEST But a much more important and far more recent viaduct connection has been made far to the southwest. It is a handsome and substantial structure completed in 1916 and already widely known as the Brooklyn-Brighton bridge. It crosses the valley of Big Creek, connecting West Twenty-fifth Street with Pearl Road and making it practically one thoroughfare throughout its entire length. In other words, it connects that portion of Cleveland known as Old Brooklyn with South Brooklyn, now entirely within the city limits. The Brooklyn-Brighton bridge was built by the Bates & Rogers Construction Company, of Chicago, and, with right-of-way, cost approximately $800,000. It is of reinforced concrete construction and is 1,726 feet long. OTHER BRIDGES AND VIADUCTS East Thirty-fifth Street viaduct, at the New York Central & St. Louis Railroad (formerly Willson Avenue) was completed in 1898; approximate cost, $94,000. Willett Avenue bridge (now Fulton Road) spanning Walworth Avenue; completed in 1901. 1918] - MEANS OF COMMUNICATION - 461 Clark Avenue viaduct. Length of steel work, 5,992 feet. Weight of steel work, 11,173 tons. Approximate cost, $1,398,000. Completed in 1917. Total length, including intervening fills, 6,687 feet. PROPOSED LORAIN-HURON BRIDGE Another bridge over the Cuyahoga River is proposed; it is to be located between Columbus and Central and is to be known as the Lorain-Huron Bridge; its construction was authorized by popular vote in 1914. Surveys, plans and estimates have been made but negotiations are still pending to acquire the right-of-way. The proposed route is from Ontario Street at Huron Road to Lorain Avenue near West Seventeenth Street, and the plans call for a double-deck reinforced concrete bridge, like the Detroit-Superior viaduct, 3,600 feet in length. STREET CAR AND INTERURBAN SERVICE The topography of Cleveland makes numerous bridges and viaducts necessary in order to bind the city together as a united community ; and with the improvement of its streets as continuous thoroughfares came the introduction of various forms of local transportation. It is a long step from the days of the Cleveland & Newburg Railroad, operated in the '30s along Euclid Road on a wooden track, by a tandem team of horses, and running from the stone quarries in Newburg township to the Public Square, to the complex and complete system of electric cars looping, by the hundreds, through that same locality. Omnibuses began to appear and multiply along Euclid, Superior, Prospect, St. Clair, Kinsman, Detroit and other trunk thoroughfares in the late '50s and early '60s, connecting Cleveland also with Collamer, Chagrin Falls, Chardon, Medina and other neighboring towns. In 1859, the street car history commenced with the authorization of the East Cleveland and Kinsman lines by the City Council. In the following year, the East Cleveland line was put in operation between Bank Street and Willson Avenue. It proved to be the father of the great East Side system toward the north, just as the Kinsman line became the backbone of the southeastern system. The line along St. Clair was chartered in 1863 and during that year the West Side Street Railway Company was organized. The Brooklyn Street Railway was chartered in 1869, and a few years later the South Side Railroad commenced to extend its lines southeast toward Scranton, Jennings and the city limits. 462 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXV THE ADVENT OF ELECTRICITY The '80s were marked by a consolidation of various independent street car lines, and on the twenty-sixth of July, 1884, the East Cleveland Street Railroad Company placed in commission the first electric car ever run in America. The Bentley-Knight underground system was adopted. The route of this historic car, which was to be the forerunner of the deadly enemy of the cumbersome cable car, was from Garden (Central) Street, two blocks west of Willson Avenue, to New Street, and thence into Quincy. The tracks of this first electric line were strap rails laid on wooden stringers about eight inches deep. The power was generated from a Brush arc light machine in the Euclid Avenue car barns. GRAND CONSOLIDATION AND EXPANSION The grand consolidation of Cleveland's car lines took place in 1893, when the Superior, St. Clair, Woodland Avenue and West Side cable roads were all merged into the Cleveland City Railway Company, and the Broadway, Newburgh, East Cleveland and South Side companies were consolidated as the Cleveland Electric Railway Company. In 1900, electricity finally triumphed and virtually the entire city system was united under the ownership and management of the Cleveland Electric Railway Company. Followed then the historic street car war, led by Mayor Tom Johnson and continuing through his four administrations. It was fought in the courts, in the streets and in countless political contests, and finally was decided, according to Mayor Tom's ideas, in the United States District Court. Since 1910, when the referendum backed up the court, no city has had a better street car service at a cheaper rate than Cleveland. Seven tickets for a quarter, with an additional penny for a transfer, can hardly be beaten ! Since the foregoing was written, in August, 1918, the amendment to the Tayler franchise was passed, putting in force new rates of fare, during and for six months after the war. The entire matter is fully set forth in Chapter XXI. THE CONNECTIONS OUTSIDE OF CLEVELAND The Public Square is also the center of not only the street car lines which penetrate Cleveland's entire city area, but of a widely extended suburban or interurban system. The pioneer tributary line, and one 464 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXV of the first interurban roads to be chartered in Ohio, was the Akron, Bedford & Cleveland, in November, 1894. The first cars over the line were run on the twenty-sixth of October, 1895. It was over twenty-seven miles long and extended from Akron, through Cuyahoga Falls, to Newburg, where it connected with the Cleveland Electric Railway. Its present route in Cuyahoga County is by way of Sagamore, Bedford Village, Rockside and Garfield Park, where it connects with the Cleveland system. As a whole, it is part of the Northern Ohio Traction system, which places the city in close connection with Canton, Kent, Ravenna and Barberton. The Cleveland & Southwestern Traction Company is the consolidation of a number of old roads, the principal of which were the Cleveland & Berea Street Railway (1876) and the Cleveland & Elyria Electric Railway. The consolidation of these and other lines under the name of the Cleveland & Southwestern was effected in 1902. Its points include Berea, Elyria, Oberlin, Norfolk, Medina, Bucyrus and Mansfield. Into Cuyahoga County its line runs from the southwest and west, by way of the Berea Road and Lorain Avenue. The Cleveland, Painesville & Eastern Railway was opened on the Fourth of July, 1896, and operates from East Cleveland to Painesville. The interurban route joins the Cleveland system through two lines—the main one at Euclid Avenue and the shore line at St. Clair. The Cleveland & Eastern Railway Company was incorporated in 1899 and operates two lines—the Chagrin Falls line, which connects 1918] - MEANS OF COMMUNICATION - 465 with the city system at Kinsman Road and runs to the place named, fourteen miles, by way of Warrensville ; and the Gates Mill line, running through the picturesque Chagrin Valley to the point indicated. In 1897, the Lorain & Cleveland Railway was opened from Rocky River westward to Lorain, nineteen miles, and with other interurban lines organized chiefly in Sandusky, Toledo and Norwalk, was absorbed by the Lake Shore Electric Railway Company. The last named was incorporated in 1901, and in that year commenced to operate through cars from Toledo to Cleveland. It has continued to be a growing system, and joins up with the local lines at Clifton Boulevard. The Puritas Springs is a line of comparatively late construction, built from the southwest. Grayton, this county, is the end of the line, and it joins the Cleveland system by way of the Lorain route. THE PUBLIC SQUARE AND THE GRAND GROUP PLAN Cleveland is bound together by well-improved thoroughfares, great bridges and viaducts, by bands of iron and steel and currents of electricity. Fortunately, the nucleus of its business, civic and corporate life was in such, a condition as to make feasible a grand grouping plan which should present an impressive illustration of its culture and progress. Other great cities had erected massive, magnificent and costly public structures in scattered districts, often separated by mountainous blocks of business houses and office sky-scrapers. What for years had seemed like disgraceful eyesores on the face of Cleveland's downtown, proved to be a blessing in perfect disguise. Outgrown, dirty and shabby tenements and stores lined a prospective mall which was to connect the historic and magnificent Public Square with the grand Lake Front, so alive with artistic and architectural possibilities. Although the first two court-houses were built on the Public Square, for a period of sixty years the ten-acre heart of Cleveland has been dedicated to art and patriotism, or to the purposes of a vast distributing and receiving center of the city's populace. It has always remained the people's commons, open to all, and in the early days the citizens rather rebelled at placing a simple fence around to keep out the four-legged live stock. In 1856, a fountain was placed in the center, at the intersection of Superior and Ontario, and some fifteen years later the lily fountain was transferred to the Square from Franklin Circle, West Cleveland. The Perry monument was erected in 1860, and commemorated the forty-seventh anniversary of the battle of Lake Erie. It was shifted several times within the Public Square before being moved to Wade Park in 1894. In the meantime Vol. I-30 466 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXV (1890), the last of the beautiful elms which so long upheld the name of the Square as a park had been moved away, and hotels, banks, churches and residences had been built around it. Carts and express wagons lined its boundaries and it was anything but a beautiful heart. At this period of its decadence, the "city hall," on its southwest corner, and the court-house on the north side of the Square near the old stone church, were its promises as a public center. Several years after the civil war, the Society for Savings erected a banking house on the site now occupied by the Chamber of Commerce at the northeast corner of the Public Square, not far from the postoffice. The Moses Cleaveland statue was unveiled in 1888 and on the Fourth of July, 1894, the grand memorial to the soldiers and sailors of Ohio was dedicated. The orations were delivered by Governor William McKinley and United States Senator James B. Foraker. That memorial is the central architectural feature of the Public Square. The antiquated little field piece, spiked to the pavement on Ontario Street near the monument, represents a civil war capture from the Confederates who surrendered it to the Cleveland Light Artillery Company at Laurel Hill, Virginia. The real rejuvenation and worthy improvement of the Square commenced in 1900, when the street railway and the city joined forces to erect shelter houses and comfort stations for the people and to lay out what remained of the grounds into attractive designs. This center has become so congested that the next union of the railway and municipal corporations will eventuate in the building of a great subway under the Public Square, after which the latter may be transformed into a really beautiful Central Park with real trees and expanses of sward and flower beds, with other landscape auxiliaries worthy of Cleveland's taste and artistic achievements. ORIGIN OF THE GROUP PLAN OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS But first the plan of grouping the city, county and federal buildings into a grand civic center—in short, the Group Plan—must be fully developed. Its origin is credited to the Cleveland Architectural Club, which, in 1895, instituted a competition for "the grouping of Cleveland's public buildings." Although the county court-house facing on Seneca Street was fairly creditable, it was twenty years old ; the municipality had never erected a city hall and had been occupying Case block for the same length of time. So the proposal of the Architectural Club fell on fertile soil and the plan, which was evolved after several years of discussion, stood for the first prearranged 1918] - MEANS OF COMMUNICATION - 467 grouping of public buildings in America. Professor Charles F. Olney, owner of the Olney Art Gallery, was one of the judges in the competition inaugurated by the Cleveland Architectural Club. He was also a leading member of the Chamber of Commerce, to which he introduced a resolution in January, 1899, providing for a special committee to consider and report upon the Group Plan. The Architectural League of America, which met at Cleveland in the following June, also considered the innovation with much interest. GROUP PLAN COMMISSION APPOINTED AND PLAN ACCEPTED Two bills were finally prepared for legislative action—one by the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the other by the Chamber of Commerce. The latter was the bill which passed the Ohio legislature and under which Governor Nash created the Group Plan Commission on the twentieth of June, 1902. It is no secret that the ambition to create and work out this group plan had its inspiration in the magnificent grouping of the World's Fair buildings at Chicago, especially those around its superb Court of Honor. The appointment of Daniel H.Burnham,the director-general of public works for the World's Columbian Exposition, as a member of the Cleveland Commission, aroused general satisfaction and enthusiasm. The other members were John M. Carrere, of New York, who had made a thorough study of such groupings in European cities, and Arnold W. Brunner, a national expert on the planning and erection of public buildings. There was no change in the personnel of the Group Plan Commission as originally formed until 1911, when Frank B. Meade, of Cleveland, and Frederick Law Olmstead, of Brookline, Massachusetts, succeeded Daniel H. Burnham and John M. Carrere, both deceased. The report of the Group Plan Commission was presented to Mayor Johnson and the director of public service on the seventeenth of August, 1903, and was formally accepted by them for the city. The plan, in general terms, provided for a great plaza and esplanade running from the Public Library and postoffice at one end to the Union Passenger Station on the Lake Front at the other extremity. In the lake section were also to be the sites for the new county court-house and the city hall. The proposed Federal Building was to be the structural connection between the mall and the Public Square, the northern side of which was the massive Chamber of Commerce. The court-house was to front on Ontario Street, the city hall on Bond Street, and the federal building and library on Superior. 468 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXV BUILDING SITES PURCHASED Promptly after the adoption of the report, the city, county and federal authorities commenced to negotiate for the purchase of the required sites. Such transactions always consume much more time than is anticipated, and although, as a rule, property owners were reasonable and public spirited, decisive condemnation proceedings had to be resorted to at times. Being a civil project, these steps were legally taken, as a matter of course. The first parcels of land purchased (in 1902) were on Lakeside and Summit avenues, along the lake front, and between these thoroughfares, along East Sixth Street. In 1906, the Case property was purchased, including the city hall block bounded by Lakeside and Summit avenues and Third and Ninth streets; the site for the federal building had already been bought and ground broken for that structure. The payment for the entire purchase from the Case estate amounted to $1,900,000, and up to 1910, when the sites for the three main structures planned in the civic group had been bought, over $3,655,000 had been expended on these items—for the court-house site, 5.65 acres, $1,095,675; the city hall site, 4.50 acres, $404,899 ; the mall, 5.06 acres, $2,155,180. Total 15.21 acres, at a cost of $3,655,754. It is estimated that about $1,500,000 of property along the mall is yet to be acquired before the group plan will be practically completed. 470 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXV THE FEDERAL OR POSTOFFICE BUILDING The federal building, on the east side of the Public Square and fronting on Superior Avenue, was the first of the Group Plan structures to be completed. It was designed and erected by Arnold W. Brunner, New York, the only one of the original plan commissioners now living, and was dedicated in March, 1911. The cornerstone was laid in 1905. It is a massive, modern government building of granite with interior corridors of marble. The north and south facades are ornamented by Corinthian columns forty-two feet high; on the east and west facades, pilasters take the place of columns. The architectural impression made is typically American, conveying the idea of grace as well as strength. Two groups of statuary, representative of "Jurisprudence" and "Commerce," adorn the Superior Avenue front. The cost of the building was $3,230,000. THE COUNTY BUILDING The county court-house on the lake front was completed later in the year 1911. Its cost was over $4,500,000, and it is undoubtedly one of the finest structures devoted to county purposes in the country. It is of the classic style, built of pink granite, its interior decorations of marble being superb. When one is told that they were placed there in all their beauty at a cost of half a million dollars, no wonder whatsoever follows the information. The court-house contains eighteen handsomely appointed courtrooms and spacious and elegant accommodations for the county officials, grouped around a superb court. The corridors on the second floor, upon which are situated all the court appointments, are approached by a series of broad marble staircases, the eastern recess being graced with a beautiful stained-glass window, representing Justice and bearing the names of famous American jurists. The walls are richly frescoed and the oval panels in the north and south walls, on the second floor, are devoted to finely executed paintings representing the leading figures in the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and a well-conceived classical and symbolic subject. On either side of the main entrance to the county building are seated, in their historic chairs of state, the striking figures of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. THE MUNICIPAL HALL The city hall, companion building to the court-house on the lake front at the foot of East Sixth Street, is somewhat smaller and less 1918] - MEANS OF COMMUNICATION - 471 expensive, but none the less elegant or appropriate. It cost, with furnishings, more than $2,600,000, and is a municipal hall well worth the waiting all these years. The city hail is finely planned for its purposes, and occupies a superb site. The massive and imposing armory is opposite the building, and on the lake front, east of the grounds, are the United States Marine and Lakeside hospitals. The interior finish of the municipal hall is chaste and elegant, and when the visitor enters its handsome court he is greeted from a northern recess with one of the most inspiring works of art ever executed in America—"The Spirit of '76." Everyone is familiar with it ; its veteran author-painter, A. M. Willard, a Clevelander, recently died; the original of the sturdy youth who marches for the third generation of the Revolutionary patriots, is yet living in the Forest City. The building occupied for years as a city hall and the one formerly used for public library purposes at East Third Street and Rockwell Avenue were wrecked in 1918 ; on their site it is planned to erect a public library which shall be a worthy companion to the federal building opposite. The architectural beauties of the new public library, which is to be so noteworthy an expression of Cleveland's higher life, are set forth in an illustration on page 420. In the minds of many the group plan is so involved with details as to be nebulous. But the matter should readily be cleared by a reference to the simple outline diagram presented with this narrative. With this diagram before him, the reader may also follow the writer in simply considering what has been accomplished in the working out of the group and what is still planned, but yet to be accomplished. Three buildings of the five originally planned have been completed. At the east of the Public Square, with its main front on Superior Avenue, stands the federal building. It occupies the site of the old post-office and Case Hall. On the western portion of the Lake Front tract is the county building, its central facade looking south on Ontario Street, with a northern view extending over Lake Erie; on the eastern portion, its central facade looking south on East Sixth Street, with a northern lake view, is the city hall. The proposed jail and criminal court building, west of the court-house, will cost $1,250,000 and is designed to harmonize with the other structures in the group plan. The original site for the Union Depot comprised thirty-five acres of land, and was turned over to the railroads by the city for $1,400,000, with the understanding that this sum was to be used for depot approaches and the acquiring of additional right-of-way for the mall. This, therefore, is a reserve fund which will go far toward the ulti- 472 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXV mate completion of the group plan. Other public buildings have been suggested as appropriate structures to grace the mall, such as a board of education block, a criminal court building and a municipal emergency hospital. When the main features have been perfected, such projects will also enter into an even greater group plan than the present. Since the foregoing was written and after the diagram of the group plan was engraved, an ordinance was introduced in the common council proposing to locate the passenger station at the southwest corner of the Public Square near the new Hotel Cleveland. In November, 1915, the voters of Cleveland approved the lake front location, but matters connected with the solution of freight and transportation problems brought about its reconsideration. The proposed change of location to the Public Square will be finally decided by popular vote. The new passenger station will not be completed until after the war, but when its site is determined the foundation for the building will be laid and due provision made for trackage area. THE CITY PLANNING COMMISSION There is also a City Planning Commission of Cleveland, not to be confounded with the Group Plan Commission. "In 1912," says the magazine, City Planning Progress, "following the enactment of a state law permitting home rule to Ohio cities, the Cleveland Chapter of the American Institute of Architects undertook to secure a provision for a City Planning Commission in the new city charter which was then being drafted. The chapter, by the grace of the mayor, the Hon. Newton D. Baker, now secretary of war, was permitted to write the actual law governing the appointment of the commission. As prepared by the chapter, the law provided for the appointment of a commission of citizen members only, and it was so written into the charter adopted by the electors in 1913. This provision was not acceptable to the city officials as a whole, and the charter was amended to provide for official members only. In this form the charter amendment was criticized, and eventually redrafted to provide for a commission composed of official and citizen members. In that form the charter amendment has been adopted and the commission appointed. "In 1916, the mayor named as the members of the city planning commission five citizens—F. F. Prentiss (chairman), Morris A. Black, H. M. Farnsworth, William G. Mather and 0. P. Van Sweringen and six directors of city departments—Messrs. Beeman, Bernstein, Farrell, FitzGerald, Neal and Sprosty. William G. Rose is secretary. 1918] - MEANS OF COMMUNICATION - 473 The city council, in its budget for 1917, appropriated $20,000 for the work of the city planning commission, which is now engaged in the selection of experts to advise them in the preparation of a comprehensive city plan." Always prominent in the final preparation and adjustments of any far-reaching municipal plan is the subject of its parks and boulevards; and with Cleveland the subject has been growing in vitality and importance since the very infancy of the village. CHAPTER XXVI PARKS AND MARKETS By H. G. Cutler Although of slow growth, there is no feature of Cleveland's history which is more worthy of enthusiastic comment than the parks and the park system of what was long known as the Forest City. The molding of its parks into a system, connected by boulevards and parkways and distributed wisely with reference to the sectional needs of the city, really dates from the creation of its first board of park commissioners in 1871. Fortunately, such wealthy and old-time citizens as Jeptha H. Wade, William J. Gordon and John D. Rockefeller had not only acquired property of rare natural beauty within the city limits, but were possessed of a civic pride and a far-sightedness as to the needs of the people for recreation and rest and outdoor refreshment which were indeed rare among men of large means. Some would date the origin of Cleveland's present system from the year 1882, when Mr. Wade deeded to the city more than sixty acres in the picturesque valley of Doan Brook, which dances and sparkles through a series of rocky, wooded glens and ravines, meandering through the central sections of eastern Cleveland to Lake Erie. Mr. Wade had planned the park which bears his name as early as 1872 and had spent many thousand dollars of his private fortune in beautifying it before it became city property. Its magnificent groves of forest trees and stretches of open land, bound together by the charming courses of the brook, had made Wade Park a popular resort from the first. It naturally became the nucleus for the creation of the continuous stretch of parks and connecting ways which has made East Cleveland famous. That series from Shaker Heights Park to Lake Erie, including Ambler Parkway, Rockefeller Park, Wade Park and Gordon Park, is not excelled in the country as an illustration of skilful and artistic combination of Nature's contributions and man's modifications and so-called improvements. In fact, there is no city in the United States which has retained in its richly developed residence districts so many natural beauties as has Cleveland, especially in this eastern chain of seven miles, strung together by Doan - 474 - 476 - CLEVELAND. AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXVI Brook. When the park system has been fully developed, the city will be decked with one of the most beautiful necklaces of the kind in the world, connected by the brook and various parkways. The jewels pendant on the south are Garfield, Washington and Brookside parks; along the lake shore, Edgewater Park, the grounds surrounding the county court-house and the city hall and Gordon Park. The magnificent Public Square and the mall of Cleveland are scarcely to be classed as parks, although the former was originally the mother of them all ; but ground in that part of the city has long since become too valuable to be devoted solely to green grass or trees. RECREATION PARKS There are smaller parks within these belts, or this necklace—as it will be when perfected. Woodland Hills Park, on Woodhill Road, is a natural park of forest trees about a mile south of Ambler Parkway. At the corner of Woodland Avenue and Woodhill Road is Luna Park, one of the recreation centers of Cleveland, and given over to all the novelties and some of the well-worn features of amusement parks. The largest and most pretentious of the recreation or amusement parks is Euclid Beach, in the extreme northeast corner of Cleveland on the lake shore. It covers nearly 150 acres and furnishes not only the usual forms of amusements, but bathing and swimming accommodations, as well as cottages and tents for those who wish to spend the season, or portions of it, upon the grounds. OLD CLINTON PARK Clinton Park, now in the crowded railroad district of the lake front, was, after the Public Square, the first plat of ground to be set aside for public purposes within the city limits. One of the first real estate plats filed in Cleveland, while it was still a village, was recorded by Messrs. Canfield, Dennison, Foster and Pease, in 1835. It set aside the following described tract for public purposes: "Clinton Park, 364 feet, 8 inches, by 198 feet, the north line being the south line of Park Place, and the east line is 314 feet distant from the west line of 10 A, lot No. 137, the south line being the north line of Lake Street, and the west line being 314 feet distant from the east line of 10 A, lot No. 136. Lots Nos. 1-33 are subject to a taxation for the improvement of said park under the directions of the trustees, or a committee appointed by the owners of said lots, and each of the said lots to enjoy every privilege and accommodation 1918] - PARKS - 477 of said park as a promenade or walk." The plan of the village was to make Clinton Park the nucleus of a fine residence district, and, for a time, it, seemed to expand favorably, but the railroads came in, stores and industries encroached upon the residences, and the homes and dwellers therein were crowded to the east and the west. The park fell into decay, although in 1853 it was fenced and slightly improved. For a number of years past it has been one of the playgrounds for children which have been established in the congested districts of the city, and which have become such a credit to the good heart and humane instincts of Clevelanders. CHANGES IN PARK MANAGEMENT With other public grounds which were laid out, Clinton Park was controlled by the village board of trustees and the city council until August, 1871, when a board of park commissioners was created. That body was in control for twenty years, when, in 1891, the director of public works was placed in charge of the constantly expanding system. In 1893, the legislature again created a board of park commissioners, the duties of which were superseded by those given to the department of public works in 1900. Under the home rule form of government, the parks are under the immediate control of the division of parks and public grounds (Samuel Newman, chief engineer), in the. department of public service. FRANKLIN CIRCLE Another park which was laid out in very early days was known as Franklin Circle, or Franklin Place, and was platted by the county surveyor in October, 1836. It was dedicated to public uses by the original proprietor of Brooklyn township, who then controlled the property. Until 1857, it was an open market place for neighboring farmers, but in that year the city council fenced its central section leaving a street around the outer circle. A pavilion and a fountain were placed in the park proper, the latter being moved to the Public Square in 1872. Then Franklin Street was projected through the Circle and other improvements followed, including the erection of a stone pavilion to replace the old wooden one. It was nicknamed "Modoc Park" and became quite a political center, William McKinley, among others, holding forth therein when young as a congressman. But Modoc Park and Franklin Circle received its death-blow when the common council authorized the Forest City Railway; in 1907, to extend its line through the grounds. 478 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXVI EARLY ATTEMPTS TO FOUND EAST CLEVELAND PARKS It took years before the citizens of Cleveland, as a mass, became fully alive to the sanitary and elevating necessity of public parks, as breathing places for the public. The city authorities, in 1853, spurned Nathan Perry's offer of seven acres on Euclid Avenue near Perry Street at $2,000 per acre, and later the proposal of Philo Scovill to sell the municipality twenty acres bounded by Greenwood, Perry, Scovill and Garden streets for $3,000 per acre. In 1856, a third attempt to secure a park in East Cleveland failed. A special committee of the council recommended the purchase of Williams Park, bounded by Case, Willson, Kennard and Garden avenues, but its members could not obtain the unitedpurchase af that body. Somewhat later, a movement to purchase.a park for each side of the river was smothered, and then the park enthusiasts rested for ten years. THREE CITY PARKS PROPOSED In September, 1865, the agitation was renewed and in November the special committee of the city council appointed to examine the question made an illuminating report in which was earnestly recommended the purchase of three parks—one on the lake front, another in the east and near Willson Avenue, and a third on the west side on Detroit Street. The greatest stress was laid on the necessity of providing for a lake-front park. MILES PARK, NEWBURG Newburg Village, adjoining the city limits on the south, through the county surveyor of 1850, Ahaz Merchant, set aside a public square, or commons, from Gaylord Street (East Ninety-third Street) to Walnut (Sawyer) Street. Theodore Miles, the original owner of the commons, a Newburg pioneer, gave his name to it in 1877, after his village had been annexed to Cleveland for several years. At that time, the old town hall became a public library and, in 1894, the library board leased Miles Park from the park commissioners for a term of years. In 1907, a new library building was completed on that site, thus almost obliterating the park feature of it. THE OLD SOUTH SIDE PARK What was known as the old South Side Park has been called Lincoln Square since 1897, when the park commissioners changed 1918] - PARKS - 479 many names of the public grounds. The original name was Pelton Park; it comprised nearly seventy acres purchased by Mrs. Thirsa Pelton, in 1850, as the grounds for a girls' school. Her death, in 1853, ended both her school and her private park schemes and the grounds were fenced in and the gates locked. The people thought it should be reserved for public purposes, the gates were torn down several times, and for a decade the dispute was also fought out in the courts. In 1879, the city purchased the property and it was thrown open as a public park. It has since had rather a varied career. LAKE VIEW PARK On the twenty-second of January, 1867, the common council recommended the purchase of lands on Seneca, Wood, Ontario and Erie streets. The land thus bounded was covered by an unsightly collection of huts called Shantytown. The ground was purchased and put under the control of the board of park commissioners in 1873, but, with the growth of railroad traffic, the improvements made were immaterial. The founding of Lake View Park marks an important advance in the municipal and public support of the park system, as during 1873, the first general tax (two tenths of a mill) was levied for the purchase of Lake View Park and the improvement of the Public Square and Franklin Circle. GORDON PARK In the meantime, William J. Gordon, a wholesale grocer and citizen of large and clear vision, had been purchasing groves ravines and stretches of pasture land along the lake shore and on both sides of Doan Brook for a quarter of a mile south. He had commenced this noble work as early as 1865, and when he died in 1892 he had laid out the grounds with such rare skill that when they passed to the city from his estate, in the following year, there was little to change in their basic features; before Mr. Gordon's hand and artistic taste commenced to mold them, the lines of the varied landscape, cut by Doan Brook, had been sharply drawn. The conditions imposed by his will were that the city should maintain the grounds under the name of Gordon Park; that the shore on the lake front should be protected from encroachments; that the drives and ponds should be maintained; that no fence should obstruct the land view 1918] - PARKS - 481 and that the city should preserve the burial lot of the Gordons. These provisions have been faithfully observed. In 1894, a tract of thirty acres adjoining the park and known as the "picnic grounds" was purchased from the Gordon estate and added to the original gift from Mr. Gordon. Wading pools for children were made in the brook and a large bathhouse and pavilion erected in 1901. The bathhouse was burned in 1918. In the way of artistic embellishments, provided within the past decade, was the Perry memorial. The Perry statue proved to be quite a wanderer. A noble conception, as it originally stood in the Public Square the dignity and effectiveness of the figure representing the naval hero of the Lake Erie engagement were somewhat modified by its ostensible earnestness in directing the attention of the spectator to the well-known frog pond in the immediate vicinity. In 1894, the statue was moved to Wade Park, then the only plat of ground worthy the name; in 1913, when ground was broken for the Art Museum there, it was again shifted to Gordon Park and appropriately placed where Commodore Perry could overlook Lake Erie. Of late years, the improvements and attractions added to Gordon Park have been numerous. Its flower gardens and conservatory are leading features. Within the past few years several tennis courts have been added to those already provided and, as late as 1915, the shallow portions of Doan Brook north of the viaduct were dredged so as to make that portion of the stream available for harboring motor boats. Thousands of city-weary people in the open season have cause to bless the generosity and forethought of William J. Gordon. WADE PARK As already stated, Jeptha H. Wade, in 1872 had planned a park in the central districts watered and beautified by Doan Brook. After ten years of individual work he decided to deed the tract to the city. the condition of the transfer being that the municipality should expend at least $75,000 in improving the park. The deed was executed in September, 1882, and the city council formally accepted the gift, under the condition stipulated, on the twenty-sixth of the month. Thus the bulk of the land constituting Wade Park became public property eleven years before Gordon Park was transferred to the city ; for that reason the former is usually considered the pioneer of the modern city parks, although Mr. Gordon conceived and partially created the gem which bears his name seven years before Mr. Wade Vol. I-81 482 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXVI entered the work of making Cleveland a City Beautiful. The original donation was about seventy-five acres; eleven acres have since been added. The $75,000 first expended on Wade Park was applied to the construction of the Centaur Pond and the laying out of walks and drives. In 1889, a zoological collection was begun and, for twenty-five years, the birds and animals there, including a fine herd of American deer and a good collection of bears, were the delight of crowds of Clevelanders. In 1914, the last of the "Zoo" was moved to Brookside Park, the proper dens for Bruin having been completed. The building of the massive, imposing and beautiful Art Museum in Wade Park had made necessary a rearrangement and excision of several of its older features. Considering that the museum was first open to the public in June, 1916, remarkable progress has been made in 1918] - PARKS - 483 gathering its collections of American, French, English, Italian and other European paintings; its tapestries, antiques, and specimens of middle-age armor and weapons; and the founding of its beautiful conservatory at one extremity of the central courts. One large section is given lip to a striking collection of mediaeval accouterments of war, now very interesting as material for comparison with the weapons of defense and offense introduced by the World War. Most noteworthy of any single attraction of the museum is the grand memorial room presented to the public, with its magnificent decorations and rare old paintings, by Mrs. Liberty E. Holden. Notable monuments on the grounds of Wade Park are the statues of Harvey Rice and of Goethe and Schiller, opposite the museum, and of Kosciusco and Mark Hanna. The last named stands on an imposing elevation at the southern extremity of the park. Boating on the Centaur Pond—so called from the figure which rears itself from the center of the pond—has always drawn many to Wade Park, and, during the American participation in the World War, its commons made ideal drill grounds for training the citizen soldiery. In short, Wade Park has always been among the most popular,. as well as beautiful, of the city pleasure grounds, but being in the heart of a cultured resident district its attractions have become more and more of an elevating nature, and the location of the Art Museum at its present site was especially appropriate. Directly southeast of the park is the picturesque group of buildings representing the Western Reserve University and the Case School of Applied Science. FAIRVIEW PARK After Wade Park, the next tract to fall into the hands of the city was the site of the old Kentucky Street reservoir. It was abandoned for water works purposes in 1890, was transferred to the park commissioners and named Reservoir Park. In 1897 it was given the more euphonious title Fairview Park. THE CLEVELAND PARK PLAN ADOPTED The early '90s form an eventful period in the creation of a real park system, as well as in its actual development. From the year 1893 dates what is known as the Cleveland Park Plan which originated in the definite ambition of the park advocates to make Doan 484 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXVI Brook the backbone of an enchanting body of pleasure grounds stretching through East Cleveland. Ten years before the passage of the park act, such men as J. H. Wade, J. M. Curtiss and A. Everett, as park commissioners, had advocated such a move, but they seemed to have been ahead of public sentiment and failed of adequate support. But in the spring of 1893 (April 5), after much previous agitation and many public conferences of citizens, an act passed the legislature providing for a board of five commissioners, composed of the mayor, the president of the city council and three other members to be appointed by the trustees of the park sinking fund. The first board consisted of Robert Blee (mayor), A. J. Michael (president of the council), Charles H. Bulkley, Amos Townsend and John F. Pankhurst. Charles A. Davidson soon succeeded Mr. Michael, and F. C. Bangs was appointed secretary. The plan finally adopted by the board included "a large park on the outskirts of the city in each of the seven main sections, the same to be so located that in case the future should so determine and the needs of the city so require that such outlying parks could be readily united and connected by a broad, smoothly paved boulevard enclosing the city." E. W. Bowditch, the Boston landscape architect, was engaged to carry out the plan, or such features of it as were feasible at that time. The special park commission soon issued bonds to the amount of $800,000 and proceeded to acquire the primitive valley of Doan Brook and sites for Edgewater, Brooklyn (Brookside) and Newburgh (Garfield) parks and Ambler Parkway. The upper drive was also laid out to connect Gordon and Wade parks and bridges constructed at Wade Park, Superior and St. Clair avenues. . In 1897, many of the parks, including Brooklyn and Newburg, were renamed as indicated. EDGEWATER PARK Edgewater Park, most of which was purchased in 1894, is the most extensive, beautiful and elaborately improved of the public grounds lying along Lake Erie. It comprises over one hundred acres, is about three miles west of the down-town district and stretches along the lake front for six thousand feet, with its bathing beaches, massive breakwaters, boat landings, great bathhouse and dining pavilion, and, further inland, tennis courts, picnic grounds, groves and ravines, flower beds, shaded walks and broad drives. In 1896, work was commenced on the boulevard that skirts the lake and connects Edgewater 486 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXVI with Detroit Street. The first of its bathhouses and pavilions were completed in 1902. Within late years, the most noteworthy improvement realized was the completion of an immense bathhouse, capable of accommodating, with rooms and lockers, nearly a thousand men, women, girls and boys. It was opened in July, 1914. The upper story of the building is occupied by a refreshment and dining room. Including the construction of the bathhouse, equipment and grading of the grounds, and the building of more than 800 feet of jetties and other stone shore-protection, $157,000 was expended in the completion of these improvements. In the following year (1915), a new boat landing was built and Edgewater Drive laid out between Lake Avenue and Lake Erie, the eventual plan being, to extend the latter to Rocky River four miles to the west. For lovers of boating and bathing Edgewater Park leads the Cleveland system. No more sweeping and magnificent view of the lake and the harbor, with the great city of Cleveland as the eastern background, can be obtained than from the bold promontory which juts out from the western extremity of Edgewater Park. BROOKSIDE PARK Brookside Park comprises about 160 acres in southern Cleveland, on either side of Big Creek, the original tract of which, or half its present area, was purchased in 1894. Portions of the park 1918] - PARKS - 487 were at one time included in the Barker, Poe and Quirk farms. Aside from its natural attractions along Big Creek, which is spanned by a massive concrete bridge, Brookside Park presents the "Zoo" as its most popular feature. The deer park and bear dens occupy well chosen ground on the heights. The nucleus of the collection was transferred from Wade Park in 1913-14, the finishing touches to the bear dens and the deer runs, with their surroundings, being given in the latter year. In 1915, the acquatic fowl were treated to a fine new pond and house, and the public was provided with another entrance from West Twenty-fifth Street. Brookside is a gem of the park necklace. GARFIELD PARK Garfield, at the southeastern extremity of the encircling system, is one of the largest of the city parks, comprising more than 180 acres Mill Creek breaks it into numerous ravines, some of which stand out in the open and others wind between wooded heights. A pretty lake for boating was constructed in 1915 between the old lake and Mill Creek. There are tennis courts, picnic grounds and countless walks and drives, winding through the woods, along broad stretches of meadow, and over hills. The car line enters the heart of Garfield Park, and it is one of the most extensive, popular and naturally varied of all the city parks. It adjoins the grounds of the Cleveland State Hospital to the northwest, that portion of the park having been purchased from the institution mentioned. The original tracts, bought by the commissioners in 1896, were the Carter, Rittberger and Dunham farms. AMBLER PARKWAY CONNECTION Ambler Parkway connects Rockefeller Park south with Shaker Heights Park, which is the southeastern extremity of the chain stretching across East Cleveland from Lake Erie. The original tract was a gift from Mrs. Martha B. Ambler, made in 1894, and lying between Cedar Avenue and Ambler Heights, the balance to complete the parkway being purchased. Its striking natural feature is a deep ravine bordered with some of the finest forest trees in Cleveland. SHAKER HEIGHTS PARK The Shaker Heights Park, the site of which was donated by the land company thus named, in 1895, comprises the largest area of any 488 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXVI of Cleveland's public grounds. It includes the site of the old Shaker settlement, founded in Warrensville township in 1823. For years, it was quite flourishing as an industrial community, but declined after the civil war and, in 1892, was purchased of the colony, or what remained of it, by a land company. Shaker Heights Village, which surrounds the park, has since developed into a district of handsome residences. It is at Shaker Heights Park that Doan Brook expands into a series of small lakes, the largest of which are known as Upper and Lower Shaker lakes. The canoeist finds a fair scope for his paddle in that region and a large canoe house has been built on the lower lake for his accommodation. It is the only natural lake region of considerable extent in the Cleveland system. THE ROCKEFELLER PARKS But the climax to the persistent and often discouraging activities of those who had so long been working for a continuous park system, especially in East Cleveland, came in 1896. At a meeting held on the twenty-second of July of that year, President J. G. W. Cowles, of the Chamber of Commerce, made the announcement that John D. Rockefeller had given to the city for park purposes 275 acres along Doan Brook, valued at $270,000, as well as $300,000 to improve the tract. Thus was completed the broad band of parks and ways on both sides of Doan Brook from its source to its mouth, some seven miles in extent. Below Wade Park the tract is known as Rockefeller Park North and above it as Rockefeller Park South; it embraces respectively, over two hundred, and nearly seventy acres. At the southern extremity of North Rockefeller Park a broad artificial waterway has been formed of considerable length which is a great source of pleasure for lovers of boating, and from that point north for several miles to St. Clair Avenue there is a constant succession of picturesque walks, picnic and play grounds and winding driveways. OTHER CONNECTING BOULEVARDS In order to complete the development of Rockefeller Boulevard near its junction with Euclid Avenue, the Case School of Applied Science, J. H. Wade and Patrick Calhoun gave strips of land on Euclid Avenue, Doan Street (East One Hundred and Fifth Street), Cedar Avenue and in Cedar Glen. In 1904, surveys were made for the connecting boulevard between Edgewater and Brookside parks and broad parkways have been 1918] - PARKS - 489 planned, binding Brookside with Washington, Washington with Garfield, and Garfield with Shaker Heights and the eastern belt. WASHINGTON PARK Washington Park, between Brookside and Garfield in the southern system, is located in a valley near the intersection of Harvard Street and Independence Road. The original tract was purchased from the Forest City Park in 1899, and additions have since been made by which its area has been increased to over 100 acres. The first bridge across the deep ravine which traverses the park was built in 1909. PARKS IN TILE MAKING Some fifty acres between East Fortieth and East Fifty-fifth streets, cut by the Erie Railroad and Kingsbury Run, a tributary of the Cuyahoga River, have been partially improved of late years, and eventually may earn the title bestowed upon the tract, Kingsbury Run Park. In 1916, the lowest lands in that locality were raised about four feet, a culvert having previously been built to bridge the stream or Run. Library Park is a triangular tract of about two acres on Lorain Avenue and west of West Thirty-eighth Street. The Johnson Memorial, which was completed in 1914, stands in the center of the park. THE PARKS TRULY POPULARIZED A number of features which apply more or less extensively to the park system as it has developed, through study and experiment, should be noted. Especially during the decade in which Tom L. Johnson was mayor, in 1901-09, persistent efforts were made really to give the people access to the beauties and comforts of the parks. "Keep off the grass" signs were removed, children's playgrounds were established, baseball diamonds multiplied, shelter and comfort houses were built and even winter sports, such as slides and ice rinks and ponds, were inaugurated in the public parks. Band concerts were also provided for in all the large parks. Perhaps the most far-reaching of these movements designed really to dedicate the city parks to the full use of the people and also to establish smaller centers of recreation were inaugurated in 1904 in the opening of the playgrounds and public bathhouses in different sections of the congested 490 - CLEVELAND AND ITS ENVIRONS - [Chap. XXVI population. When the proceeds of the old sinking fund created from the city's investment in railroad stock became available for the first seven wards, several bathhouses were erected, and playgrounds established near the Orange Street bathhouse and in the vicinity of Marion and Waring schools. At the present time, there are more than a dozen of these playgrounds in the section of the city where they will do the most good. An indispensable adjunct to the parks is the force of special park policemen. Although they commenced to be assigned to the duties of guarding the welfare of the patrons in 1894, they were not fully organized until 1903. Since 1897, the city government has included a department of forestry, the members of which, headed by the forester, carefully guard the welfare of the beautiful trees and shrubs in the parks, along the parkways and in all the thoroughfares within the limits of the city. It is this force, as much as any one agency, which has so well maintained Cleveland's early reputation as the Forest City of the West. THE PARKS STATISTICALLY CONSIDERED As some of the readers of this chapter are undoubtedly statistically inclined, the following table, taken from the last report of the park engineer, is given in conclusion: