The New Student's Reference Work/Cleveland

Cleveland, county-seat of Cuyahoga County, now the largest city in Ohio and seventh largest in the United States, lies on the southern shore of Lake Erie, occupying an area of about 33 square miles. It lies about 180 miles west of Buffalo, N. Y., and 345 miles east of Chicago, Ill. The Cuyahoga River divides the city into the east and west sides. The river is much lower than the general city-level and is spanned by two long viaducts, one 50 and the other 100 feet high. Shipyards, ore-sheds, car-tracks, car-shops, lumber, etc. are in this valley.

One of the features of this city is a public square. It is the center of the business district, the center of the street-railway system, and several streets radiate from or near it. A bronze statue of the city's founder, Moses Cleaveland, and a Soldiers and Sailors monument, to the dead of the Civil War are located here. Monumental Square as it is called, was originally a tract of 10 acres. Two broad avenues, Superior and Ontario intersecting at right angles, have divided it into four sections. Euclid Avenue which begins at this square is one of the finest streets in America. The present public buildings are to be replaced by fine structures now under construction, grouped in a quadrangle north of the center of the city.

The Forest City, so styled because of its wide and beautifully shaded streets, has a fine system of parks and numerous beautiful cemeteries. Prominent among these are Riverside, Woodland and Lake-view. This latter occupies a ridge 250 feet above the lake, and on this height is the famous Garfield Monument.

Among many fine buildings are the Arcade, the Caxton Building, Williamson Building, Y. M. C. A. Building, the Cleveland Medical College and the music-hall seating 5,000 persons.

The Cleveland public-schools are maintained at a cost of about $2,000,000 a year. There are 72 grammar-schools, five high-schools, six manual-training schools, one deaf-mute, one normal, and more than 1,000 teachers. Private and parochial schools are numerous. Chief among the higher educational institutions are Western Reserve University, which has been formed by merging older schools and adding new ones Adelbert College, one of these affiliated members, was founded in 1826 as Western Reserve College. A flourishing and important school of technology is the Case School of Applied Science, founded in 1881 and endowed in 1887 with $2,000,000 by Leonard Case. Here also are St. Ignatius College (R.C.) and St. Mary's Theological Seminary (R.C.).

Cleveland is a very important manufacturing city, being first among the lake-ports in iron and steel shipbuilding and one of the foremost in the country in the manufacture of iron and steel and their products. Among its manufactures are rails, car-wheels, engines, boilers, cranes for unloading vessels, printing-presses, sewing-machines, oil and gas-stoves, electrical apparatus, etc. Optical instruments and other specialties requiring scientific skill are made here in a great variety. Meat-packing also is a leading industry, and the manufacture of men's and women's clothing, liquors, paints, chemicals, automobiles and oil-refining.

Cleveland was laid out in 1796 by Moses Cleaveland, and incorporated in 1836. The village bore his name and its spelling. This, however, from time to time changed, but the present spelling became permanent, it is said, in 1831, because the “a” made the word a misfit in the head-line of a newspaper. In a measure the growth and prosperity of the city are due to its having coal and limestone near by, with which to work the Iron-ore of Lake Superior. Population, 560,663.