The City Sights Network

Introduction: Cleveland’s Early History


In the 1790’s, parts of an area then called the Western Reserve were put up for sale by the state of Connecticut in order to raise funds for its school system.  A group of investors known as the Connecticut Land Company purchased 3 million acres of this land, some of which was located in between the shore of Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River. Several Indian tribes populated the area. They obtained the soon to be unfulfilled promise that they would retain ownership of the land located on the western bank of the river.  The lake retained the name of one of the first tribes populating the lakeshore, the Eries. The name Cuyahoga also of Indian origin means “crooked water”.  It was in 1796 that Moses Cleaveland, one of the directors of the Connecticut Land Company, chose an area on the eastern bank of the river to settle a town. Moses Cleaveland had planned to name the city “Cuyahoga” but his surveyors convinced him to give it his own name, after the town was established around Public Square with Superior Street as a main road.

    Their main purpose being to sell the land in parcels, Cleaveland and his entourage would eventually move back to Connecticut, leaving behind a town in which very few improvements were made. Moreover, the flood plain at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River causing epidemics of malaria among the population, the remaining settlers would progressively craft their path inland. Thus, the New England style town built around the same Public Square as we know it today slowly became empty. Its population declined to finally come down to one inhabitant, Lorenzo Carter, originally from Vermont, who by the spring of 1800 was one of the sole residents. Today, a reproduction of Carter’s log cabin stands in its original location.  

    It was not until the 1820’s that the deserted city of Cleaveland started experiencing growth due to the building of a new canal. Finally completed in 1832, the Ohio and Erie Canal sparked a significant growth of the population located at the northern end of the city. By 1831, the population of the city had more than doubled.  During the same year, the city’s name was shortened by an “a” by the editor of the local newspaper, The Cleveland Gazette and Commercial Register, to make it fit its masthead.  

    The "Northwest Ordinance" of 1787 had prohibited slavery in the new federal territories of which Ohio became a part on February 19^th 1803, as the 17^th state of the Union. Due to the geographical position of the port of Cleveland on Lake Erie, the city naturally came to become an important part of the Underground Railroad.  The slaves who were hopeful to achieve freedom in Canada, where slavery had been abolished in 1800, were leaving from the Underground Railroad station located at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River and known as “station hope”.  In 1853, abolitionist William Howard Day began the first U.S. newspaper for African-Americans, the title of which was The Aliened American.  

    Due to its vast amount of natural resources and thanks to capital from European investors, railroads were built and iron and steel industries started in Cleveland, which then became a pioneer of the first industrial revolution. In the 1860s, Cleveland had become a very important rail and manufacturing center. The production of munitions and uniforms for the Union Army considerably accelerated its growth. Cleveland’s position as a port city was strengthened as considerable improvements were made in the 1880’s and 1890’s. The ore dock area was protected when unloading methods were revolutionized throughout the world by the invention of Cleveland engineer and bridge builder Alexander Brown. This breakthrough facilitated the expansion of shipbuilding on the west side of the river and the new boat designs that ensued generated much progress in the shipping industry. By 1900, Cleveland was one of the largest cities in the nation as the steel and coal mining industry flourished under the control of Mather, Carnegie, Otis, Morgan and Rockefeller.  

    It is after the Civil war that Cleveland really became a fast growing city. Many important industries were then developed, as important industrialists realized the benefits there were to expand in Cleveland. Due to its location and developed access ways, the city attracted Jephtha Wade, founder of The Telegraph Company, which would later become The Western Union. Charles Brush, the inventor of the carbon arc lamp used to light the city street lamps, Sam Mather and Mark Hanna, both in the steel and shipping industry, also settled in Cleveland. John D. Rockefeller, the world's first billionaire, was a part of Cleveland's history as he pioneered the industry of oil refining with his Standard Oil Co. By the 1890s, the United States had overtaken Great Britain as the world's leading industrial nation.

     The city was now in need of a civic center. Then in 1903, the city planners adopted the Group Plan, an architectural initiative consisting in the construction of buildings, eastward around Public Square for the purpose of housing governmental and cultural institutions. Completed from 1911 to 1930, these magnificent buildings in the ancient Roman style are still filling the purpose for which they had been designed, giving an air of permanence and solemnity to the institutions that they house. 

     The Cuyahoga River and Erie Canal still exhibit the old bridges of the first industrial revolution. Cleveland boasts the largest number of historical working bridges in the country.  

     Ideas and services that we take for granted today actually started in Cleveland during its industrial peek. For example, it is in 1863 that Joseph Briggs pioneered the first free home delivery of mail and first mailman’s uniform in the United States. Having convinced the government of the feasibility and usefulness of his idea, he became the first mailman in the country.