I'm pretty sure we don't have a thread on this. So I'll start with these two terrific early maps. Click on larger maps and scroll right to view them entirely.....

 

Spafford's 1801 map:

 

 

 

Ahaz Merchant map 1835:

 

 

 

Proposed viaducts, Group Plan station map, 1906:

 

ground zero of cleveland was gravity place - cool!

In the following year {1833}, James S. Clark and Associates laid out, as the main thoroughfare, Columbus Street to the river, through what was then called Cleveland Center. Streets radiating like spokes of a wheel were named after foreign countries -- Russia, British, China, German, French. Many of these street names still survive. Each had a little alley behind the street, and all converged on Columbus road at the proposed river -- landing called "Gravity Place". Even Leonard and Case Streets are side by side along the river in honor of Leonard Case, Jr.

 

http://www.clevelandmemory.org/ebooks/bmc/bmcchap1.html

ground zero of cleveland was gravity place - cool!

 

Well, at least a neighborhood concept near ground-zero of Cleveland was. But note what an awesome neighborhood design that would be today, especially if it was mostly pedestrian-oriented (as it would have been in 1835). So note all the little commercial nodes, confluence market sites and other organic placemaking that were designed into the street patterns to encourage commercial and social interaction in convenient, proximate settings. This was imported from Europe and it lasted in America into the early 20th century. It isn't it sad how much we have forgotten since about urban design? I would love to see that Gravity Place design rebuilt with a neo-traditional neighborhood in that location, or possibly someplace else that doesn't the overhead viaducts, such as on Scranton Peninsula.

^ Thanks KJP.

Main Ave is called Lighthouse street on the 1835 map. cool  8)

 

One question. Did the river naturally alter it's course to directly connect to Erie and bypass that last meander, or was that dug out by the earliest settlers? It's so modified today that I can't seem to figure it out. Looking at the 1801 map it looks like the shoreline had erroded enoughto connect the last loop of the River directly to Erie.

 

One more from Cleveland Memory. Looks by this map that my question is answered. It was like that when they arrived.

 

http://www.clevelandmemory.com/SpecColl/maps/Peas1796b.html

 

Uh-Oh.  I saw a "Pittsburgh Street."

The loss of the lighthouse was one of the great architectural tragedies imho.

 

It used to be quite a chore to find a pic of it, but it was absolutely amazing!

 

Found a pic:

 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lighthouse,_by_Sweeny%27s_Photographic_Landscapes.jpg

 

^ Thanks KJP.

Main Ave is called Lighthouse street on the 1835 map. cool  8)

 

One question. Did the river naturally alter it's course to directly connect to Erie and bypass that last meander, or was that dug out by the earliest settlers? It's so modified today that I can't seem to figure it out. Looking at the 1801 map it looks like the shoreline had erroded enoughto connect the last loop of the River directly to Erie.

 

One more from Cleveland Memory. Looks by this map that my question is answered. It was like that when they arrived.

 

http://www.clevelandmemory.com/SpecColl/maps/Peas1796b.html

 

^ btw the 2nd light house was actually a side by side duplex...There are a couple of good "old maps" in this book as well.

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=OJHecQKjsMAC&lpg=PA14&dq=cleveland%20original%20lighthouse&pg=PA21#v=onepage&q=cleveland%20original%20lighthouse&f=false

That book is amazing....I'll be getting that for sure.

 

Thanks for posting!!

 

One question. Did the river naturally alter it's course to directly connect to Erie and bypass that last meander, or was that dug out by the earliest settlers? It's so modified today that I can't seem to figure it out. Looking at the 1801 map it looks like the shoreline had erroded enoughto connect the last loop of the River directly to Erie.

 

One more from Cleveland Memory. Looks by this map that my question is answered. It was like that when they arrived.

 

 

I think you're right. Look on the 1835 map I posted above. It notes "proposed ship channel" to link up the mouth of the river with the old river channel south of Whiskey Island.

 

 

Uh-Oh.  I saw a "Pittsburgh Street."

 

Is that OK? Some of Pittsburgh Street is still named as such. It leaves Broadway near the main post office and goes through the industrial part of the Flats near I-490.

The outlot pattern is interesting.  I guess the eastern boundary of the outlots was 55th street, so that fanning effect of the streets in the near east side of Cleveland reflects the outlots (such as Payne Avenue).

 

 

 

 

...and on the viaduct plan, you can still see the outline of a basin on the canal, just before it meets the Cuyahoga.  It's on the 1830s map, too, as an actual part of the canal.  I guess by the time of the viaduct plan the canal was filled in? 

Much of the canal was still operational by 1913 when historic floods in March of that year destroyed many of its remaining locks, dams and aqueducts.

 

Some sections were filled in before that, such as in Cleveland. The reason is the Cuyahoga River was widened and dredged to make it more navigable farther upstream. So as each section of the river was made navigable, the parallel section of the canal was closed. By 1913, I believe the canal's northern mouth was just north of Harvard Road, at the bottom of Campbell Road hill.

 

  Ahaz Merchant was the publisher of the second map. I just read a short biography about Ahaz the other day. I found out that some place names such as Merchant Street were named after Ahaz and not just a generic merchant.

Some sections were filled in before that, such as in Cleveland. The reason is the Cuyahoga River was widened and dredged to make it more navigable farther upstream. So as each section of the river was made navigable, the parallel section of the canal was closed

 

It looks like a railroad line is running along the stretch of the (former) canal in that viaduct map.

 

@@@

 

I just noticed it, but the second map has a neat statistical table showing shipping data.  You can actually plot the growth in shipping with that data.  I wonder if stats like that were kept beyond the date of the map.  Could be an interesting source for economic historians.

 

 

ground zero of cleveland was gravity place - cool!

 

Well, at least a neighborhood concept near ground-zero of Cleveland was. But note what an awesome neighborhood design that would be today, especially if it was mostly pedestrian-oriented (as it would have been in 1835). So note all the little commercial nodes, confluence market sites and other organic placemaking that were designed into the street patterns to encourage commercial and social interaction in convenient, proximate settings. This was imported from Europe and it lasted in America into the early 20th century. It isn't it sad how much we have forgotten since about urban design? I would love to see that Gravity Place design rebuilt with a neo-traditional neighborhood in that location, or possibly someplace else that doesn't the overhead viaducts, such as on Scranton Peninsula.

 

yeah, it's like a mini-me charles de gaulle le etoile. maybe fcr can creatively revive gravity place someday when scranton is finally redeveloped? it would certainly be something fun for planners and architects to sink their teeth into.

 

***

 

these are interesting -- here's a map of the alcazar neighborhood from 1926 (it was built in 1923):

 

 

and here is the same area from a 1903 map:

 

 

 

Who remembers these bad boys?! Found them yesterday clearing out my old truck.

 

 

They look like they were 50 years old even back then!

I think I still have one of those somewhere in my house.

Do those guys still exist? They used to be in the Caxton Bldg.

 

^Just checked. It looks like Commercial Survey is out of business, but Cleveland Map Company is still out there.

I used to love the Commercial Survey maps.  I had almost every county they made, but I think now all I have left is an old tattered Cuyahoga County map.

The website Historic Map Works has a digital copy of the 1957 version of the Commerical Survey map(s) for Cleveland

On 11/11/2020 at 1:37 PM, viscomi said:

Who remembers these bad boys?! Found them yesterday clearing out my old truck.

 

 

 

I'd buy a new one everytime I filled an old one with my "corrections" and additions. I started when I was three years old. Finally, my dad bought me their maps in the 1970s when I started redrawing his maps and he couldn't tell which streets were real and which ones weren't. 😆