Peculiarities of American Cities

by Willard W. Glazier

Newburg, once three miles from the city, and the site of the first saw and grist mill on the Reserve, is now included as a suburb of Cleveland, and contains extensive iron manufactories.

The Union Depot, erected in 1866, is one of the finest and largest in the country. It is built on the shore of the lake, below the bluff, and near the mouth of the Cuyahoga. Streets more or less steeply graded furnish access to it for carriages and vehicles of all descriptions, while a long flight of massive stone steps conduct the pedestrian directly to the summit of the cliff, where horse-cars, leading by various routes to all quarters of the city, are waiting for him. All the railroads leading out of the city centre here. In the keystone over the main entrance of the depot is a bas relief portrait of Mr. Amasa Stone, under whose supervision it was built. Similar portraits of Grant and Lincoln are found upon keystones at either end of the building.

The waterworks stand near the lake, west of the river, and by means of a tunnel extending some six thousand feet out under the lake, pure water, forced by two powerful engines into a large reservoir upon the cliff, is supplied to the entire city. This reservoir is a popular resort for pleasure seekers, and furnishes a fine view of the city, lake and surrounding country.

Cleveland enjoys superior educational facilities. Her schools are not excelled by any in the country, and she has, besides, several large libraries. The Western Reserve College, until recently located at Hudson, a small village about twenty miles to the southeast, has been, within the last few years, removed to this city. The Medical College, a branch of the Western Reserve College, founded in 1843, occupies an imposing building at the corner of Erie and St. Clair streets. Near this college, on the shore of the lake, stands the extensive United States Marine Hospital, surrounded by grounds nine acres in extent, beautifully laid out and well kept.

There are a number of parks and gardens in the suburbs of Cleveland, one of the most extensive having been a donation to the city by Mr. Wade, one of her millionaires. The favorite drive, however, next to the avenue, is across the Cuyahoga and seven miles westward to Rocky River, which flows into the lake through a narrow gorge between perpendicular cliffs which project themselves boldly into the lake. Here a park has been laid out, and all that art can do has been done to add to the natural beauties of the place. From this point a distant view of the city may be obtained, its spires pointing to the sky out of a billow of green. To the west is Black River Point, with its rocky promontories, and on the north stretches out an unbroken expanse of water, with here and there the long black trail of a steamer floating in the air, its wake like a white line upon the water; or white specks of sails dotting the horizon. The coast between Cleveland and Rocky River is high and precipitous, the emerging streams rushing into the lake by means of rapids and waterfalls. On this inhospitable coast, which affords no landing for even a small boat, more than one frail bark came to grief in the early days of the white man's possession of the land, and nearly all its living freight found a watery grave. In 1806 a man by the name of Hunter, his wife and child, a colored man named Ben, and a small colored boy, were driven by a squall upon these rocks. They climbed up as far as possible, the surge constantly beating over them, and finally they died, one after the other, from exposure and hunger, and after five days only the man Ben was rescued alive. A similar occurrence transpired the following spring. Of the eighteen deaths which took place at Cleveland during the first twelve years after its settlement, eleven were caused by drowning.

Twenty or thirty years ago nothing more desolate or devoid of beauty can be imagined than was the lake and river approach to Cleveland. The cars ran along the foot of the cliff, while the space between the tracks and the table land upon which the city is built was given up to rubbish and neglect. Little huts, the size of organ boxes, were perched here and there, swarming with dirty, half-clad children and untidy women, and festooned with clothes-lines, from which dangled a motley array of garments. Blackness, dirt and decay were visible everywhere; and the vestibule of the most beautiful city in America presented to the visitor the opposite extreme of repulsiveness. But now all this is changed; one enters the Forest City through a continuous park. Coming from the east, the waves of the beautiful inland sea almost wash the tracks. On the left the steep slope is covered by green grass, shrubbery and trees, the line broken here and there, perhaps, by private grounds no less beautiful, while the United States Marine Hospital crowns the cliff, at Erie street, with its ample and well-kept grounds. Reaching the depot the traveler at once ascends the cliff, and avoids the necessary ugliness of the immense railroad yard, with its gridiron of tracks. Even the river, once so unsightly, presents to view the ceaseless movements of multifarious business, all of which indicate the prosperity and thriving industry of the city.

It is a peculiarity of western cities that they give so much thought and spend so much money in public improvements, and especially those which are merely decorative. Cleveland is in no wise behind the rest. No city in the east, though many of them boast extensive and expensive public parks, bestows so much thought, labor and money, to make her general appearance beautiful and attractive to the stranger. If first impressions count for much, as it is said they do, then Cleveland has proved herself wise. She possesses many natural advantages of position. She is not in a slough, like Chicago, being built on a gravelly plain about one hundred feet above the lake. Nor is she subject to inundation, like Cincinnati, most of her business sites and residences being far above the water. The Cuyahoga River sometimes, however, does damage to the manufacturing establishments along its shores. In February, 1883, a freshet occurred, which raised the river ten feet above its ordinary level, and flooded all its valley. Enormous quantities of lumber and shingles were washed from the lumber yards. The Valley Railroad was several feet under water; paper mills, furnaces and other property submerged nearly to the top of the first story. The Infirmary Farm, further up the river, was under water, and the damage of the flood was estimated at not less than a million dollars. The water was higher than at any period since 1859, when a similar disaster occurred.

All eyes were turned towards Cleveland, when, in September, 1881, a mournful cortege proceeded thither, accompanying the remains of the murdered Chief Magistrate. A mighty concourse of people assembled in the park to assist at the last sad rites, and then the funeral procession passed out the beautiful Euclid avenue to Lake View Cemetery, where the casket was deposited in a vault prepared for it, and was guarded by soldiers night and day; and there, on a spot overlooking the lake, and surrounded by a lovely country, varied by hill and dale, cultivated farms and elegant suburban residences, all that is mortal of James Abram Garfield has found its last resting-place, while his memory lives in fifty millions of hearts, and his fame is immortal. The youngest son of his mother, and she a widow, reared in poverty and obscurity, by dint of his unswerving integrity and overmastering intellect, he rose to occupy the highest position which man can accord to his fellow man, that of being the chosen head of a free, intelligent and powerful people. Cut off as he was, in the prime of his life, a nation mourned her dead, and Lake View Cemetery is to-day a spot of national interest. It is five miles from the city, contains three hundred acres, and lies two hundred and fifty feet above the level of the lake. It commands extensive views, and though opened as late as 1870, is already very beautiful. It was here that Garfield expressed his desire to be buried. Here, on a knoll commanding one of the finest views the cemetery affords, his tomb will be eventually constructed, and a monument reared to him, as a mark of the nation's appreciation of his character and sorrow at his untimely death.

EUCLID AVENUE, CLEVELAND, OHIO.