67 Fun Facts About Cleveland

Legend says the extra 'a' in the city's original name was dropped so it would fit where?

Another theory is simply that the surveying party misspelled the name on their original map, and the shorter spelling stuck.

How many times did the city's founder return to the settlement bearing his name after 1796?

He never came back: after the 1796 survey Moses Cleaveland went home to New England, practised law and died in 1806, though an 1888 statue of him stands on Cleveland's Public Square.

What ignited the famous June 22, 1969 fire on the Cuyahoga River?

A spark from a passing rail car ignited oil-slicked debris under the railroad trestles; the blaze lasted about 30 minutes, did around $50,000 of damage to two bridges and drew little local coverage at first.

Time magazine's influential 1969 story on the burning Cuyahoga was illustrated with a photograph of what?

Time ran a dramatic photo of the much larger 1952 river fire, because the 1969 blaze was out before photographers arrived and no pictures of it are known to exist.

Which Cleveland brewery named its Burning River Pale Ale after the Cuyahoga's fires?

Great Lakes Brewing Company, Ohio's first microbrewery when it opened in 1988, brews Burning River Pale Ale and has sponsored the Burning River Fest on Whiskey Island.

Who became the first African American mayor of a major US city, in Cleveland in 1967?

Carl B. Stokes beat Republican Seth Taft, grandson of President William Howard Taft, by about 1,600 votes in November 1967, becoming the first Black mayor of a major American city.

Cleveland's pioneering first Black mayor was later appointed U.S. ambassador to which island nation?

Carl Stokes was ambassador to the Seychelles from 1994 until illness brought him home in 1995; between City Hall and the embassy he had been a TV anchor in New York and a Cleveland municipal judge.

Which architect designed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame building on Cleveland's lakefront?

I. M. Pei, who admitted he knew little about rock music before taking the job, designed the glass pyramid and tower that opened on the lakefront in September 1995.

The Rock Hall's tower had to be cut from a planned 200 feet to 162 feet because of its proximity to what?

Burke Lakefront Airport sits just east of the museum, and height limits near its runway forced the tower down from 200 to 162 feet; planners had once considered the vacant May Company store instead.

Which figure joined Little Richard in cutting the ribbon at the Rock Hall's 1995 dedication?

Yoko Ono and Little Richard cut the ribbon at the dedication on 1 September 1995; an all-star concert followed the next night at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

Which record-label chief established the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in 1983?

Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder of Atlantic Records, set up the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in 1983; Cleveland was chosen as the museum's home in 1986 after a long search among several cities.

Alan Freed's 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball, called the first major rock concert, was held where?

The Cleveland Arena on Euclid Avenue held about 10,000, but roughly twice that many ticket-holders turned up on 21 March 1952, and the show was shut down early amid a near-riot.

On which Cleveland radio station did Alan Freed start playing rhythm and blues records in July 1951?

WJW (850 AM) gave Freed his late-night slot in July 1951; record-store owner Leo Mintz sponsored it, and Freed called the show The Moondog House, billing himself King of the Moondoggers.

Alan Freed's 2016 Lake View Cemetery memorial, which holds his ashes, is shaped like what?

The granite memorial is shaped like a jukebox; Freed's ashes had been displayed at the Rock Hall from 2002 until the museum asked for their removal in 2014, and the Lake View monument was dedicated in 2016.

The Cleveland Browns are named after whom?

Paul Brown, their first coach and general manager, gave the team its name after a 1945 fan contest; the franchise won all four All-America Football Conference titles from 1946 to 1949.

The Browns are unique among the NFL's 32 clubs for what reason?

The plain orange helmet with a brown-white-brown stripe serves as the team's official logo.

Which new franchise did Art Modell take his Browns roster to in 1996, leaving the name in Cleveland?

The Baltimore Ravens, named by fan vote after Edgar Allan Poe's poem, debuted in 1996 with Modell's players; Cleveland's Browns were deemed suspended and returned in 1999, restocked via an expansion draft.

In 2017 the Browns became only the second NFL team to finish a season 0–16. Which team was the first?

The 2016 and 2017 Browns went a combined 1–31, the worst two-year stretch in NFL history.

Which Browns defender coined 'The Dawgs' in 1985, giving the Dawg Pound its name?

Hanford Dixon, with fellow cornerback Frank Minnifield, started calling the defense the Dawgs in 1985 and barked at fans in the bleachers, who barked back and became the Dawg Pound.

The 2016 Cavaliers were the first team to win the NBA Finals after trailing by what margin?

Down 3–1 to the 73-win Warriors, the Cavaliers won Games 5, 6 and 7, the first Finals comeback from that deficit; about 1.3 million people lined the parade route on June 22, 2016.

The Cavaliers' 2016 title ended a Cleveland championship drought dating back to which year?

The 1964 Browns, coached by Blanton Collier, beat the Baltimore Colts 27–0 for the NFL title; no Cleveland major-league team won another championship until the Cavaliers in 2016.

The NBA rule barring trades of first-round picks in successive seasons is named after which Cavaliers owner?

Ted Stepien, owner from 1980 to 1983, traded away so many first-round picks that the NBA created the Stepien Rule; his teams went 66–180 and churned through six coaching changes.

In 2010's The Decision, LeBron James announced he was leaving Cleveland for which team?

'I'm going to take my talents to South Beach': LeBron chose the Miami Heat, joining Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh; the ESPN special raised $2.5 million for Boys & Girls Clubs.

LeBron James, drafted first overall by the Cavaliers in 2003, was born and raised in which nearby city?

LeBron James was born in Akron in 1984 and starred at St. Vincent–St. Mary High School there; he went straight to the NBA and was the 2003-04 Rookie of the Year with the Cavaliers.

The Cleveland Guardians take their name from eight Art Deco statues on which bridge?

The Guardians of Traffic stand on the Hope Memorial Bridge, the 1932 Lorain–Carnegie span renamed in 1983 for Bob Hope's stonemason father; each figure holds a different vehicle, from hay wagon to 1930s automobile.

Cleveland's AL club was nicknamed after which star player-manager from 1903 to 1914?

Nap Lajoie, the second baseman who had hit .426 in 1901, joined Cleveland in 1902 and a 1903 newspaper poll renamed the club the Naps; when he left after 1914, sportswriters chose Indians.

The 1899 Cleveland Spiders finished with the worst record in major league history. How many games did they win?

Their owner had shipped the best players, including Cy Young, to his other club in St. Louis before the season.

Which Cleveland owner signed Larry Doby in 1947, breaking the American League's color barrier?

Bill Veeck, who bought the Indians in 1946, signed Larry Doby in July 1947, eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson's debut; in 1948 he added 42-year-old Satchel Paige, the oldest rookie ever.

Cleveland's 1974 Ten Cent Beer Night riot erupted during a game against which visiting team?

The Texas Rangers were the visitors on June 4, 1974; a brawl between the teams in Arlington six days earlier had primed the crowd, and drunken fans storming the field forced a forfeit to Texas.

Which building surpassed Terminal Tower in 1964 as North America's tallest outside New York?

It also housed the studios of classical station WCLV for decades.

How fast were baseballs dropped from Terminal Tower estimated to be traveling in a 1938 publicity stunt?

The balls were estimated at 138 mph when catchers Hank Helf and Frankie Pytlak caught them on August 20, 1938; the 708-foot drop broke the 1908 Washington Monument record set by Gabby Street.

Which brothers built Terminal Tower atop the city's new Union Terminal rail station in the 1920s?

Originally planned at 14 stories, it grew to 52 floors and 708 feet.

Key Tower ended Terminal Tower's 60-year run as Ohio's tallest building in which year?

Key Tower, opened in 1991 as Society Center, rose to 947 feet; it stayed the tallest building between New York and Chicago until Philadelphia's Comcast Center topped out in 2007.

The West Side Market stands at West 25th Street and Lorain Avenue in which Cleveland neighborhood?

Ohio City, across the Cuyahoga from downtown, began as the rival City of Ohio, which Cleveland annexed in 1854; the West Side Market is the neighborhood's centerpiece.

The West Side Market building, with its landmark clock tower, was completed in which year?

The yellow-brick market hall with its landmark clock tower opened on November 2, 1912, designed by Hubbell and Benes, the architects of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Superman's creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster met as students at which Cleveland high school?

They met at Glenville High School in the early 1930s and worked together on the student paper, the Glenville Torch, before creating Superman; Jerry Siegel Lane was named in 2009.

In 1938, Siegel and Shuster sold all rights to Superman to Detective Comics for how much?

They signed away Superman for $130, a cheque split $65 each, as part of their payment for the 13-page story in Action Comics #1, cover-dated June 1938.

Superman artist Joe Shuster moved to Cleveland as a boy from which city?

Shuster was born in Toronto in 1914 and moved to Cleveland around age ten; Clark Kent's paper was originally the Daily Star, named for the Toronto Daily Star he had delivered as a boy.

Ralphie Parker's house from A Christmas Story is a museum in which Cleveland neighborhood?

The house on West 11th Street in Tremont, bought and restored by fan Brian Jones, opened as a museum in 2006; the location was picked partly for its view of the Cuyahoga valley steel mills.

Cleveland was chosen for A Christmas Story's exterior filming largely because of which department store?

Higbee's on Public Square agreed to let the crew film inside, which stores in other cities had refused; it appears in three scenes, including the Santa Claus slide.

In 2004, fan Brian Jones bought the A Christmas Story house on eBay for how much?

Jones paid $150,000 for the house in December 2004, bankrolled by his replica leg-lamp business; he restored it to its movie look and opened it as a museum in 2006.

Cleveland Clinic was founded in which year?

Cleveland Clinic opened on February 28, 1921, founded by surgeons George Crile, Frank Bunts and William Lower with physician John Phillips; it registered 42 patients on its first day.

A 1929 disaster at Cleveland Clinic killed 123 people, including one of its founders. What caused it?

Patient care resumed in temporary quarters across the street just five days later.

In 2015 the Cleveland Clinic opened an overseas hospital in which city?

Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, a hospital on Al Maryah Island developed with Abu Dhabi's Mubadala, opened to patients in 2015; a London hospital followed in 2022.

In August 1914 the first electric traffic light was installed at which Cleveland intersection?

The signal at East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue went live on August 5, 1914, with red and green lights and a buzzer; Salt Lake City policeman Lester Wire had devised an electric signal in 1912.

Cleveland's airport was the first in the US with a radio-equipped what, in 1930?

Its air traffic control tower, opened in 1930, was the first in the United States to direct aircraft by two-way radio; the airport had opened as Cleveland Municipal in 1925.

Which group allegedly bombed the Cleveland Museum of Art's cast of Rodin's The Thinker in 1970?

The Weathermen were suspected, though no one was ever charged, after a pipe bomb on 24 March 1970 blew off the statue's legs; the museum left the damage as is, unique among the large castings.

Which institution displays the mounted body of Balto, the famous 1925 Alaska serum-run sled dog?

Balto's mounted body has been at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History since his death in 1933; in 1927 Cleveland schoolchildren helped raise the money to rescue him and his team from a Los Angeles dime museum.

Who founded the Cleveland Orchestra in 1918?

Adella Prentiss Hughes, the impresario who ran the Musical Arts Association, founded the orchestra in 1918; Nikolai Sokoloff conducted its first concert at Grays Armory on December 11, 1918.

Comedian Bob Hope, who grew up in Cleveland, was born in which country?

Bob Hope was born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, London, England, in 1903 and moved to Cleveland at four; he worked briefly at the Chandler Motor Car Company before vaudeville.

Which industrialist founded Standard Oil in Cleveland in 1870?

John D. Rockefeller, a Cleveland commission merchant turned refiner, incorporated Standard Oil of Ohio on January 10, 1870; his family monument stands on one of Lake View Cemetery's highest points.

Which assassinated U.S. president is entombed in a memorial at Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery?

James A. Garfield, shot in July 1881 and dead that September, lies in the 180-foot Garfield Memorial dedicated in 1890; he was born in Orange Township in Cuyahoga County.

The Cleveland Metroparks system that encircles the city is known locally by what nickname?

The Emerald Necklace is the ring of reservations begun in 1917 under William Stinchcomb; the system also runs the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, whose origins go back to 1882.

By 1910 Cleveland had earned the nickname 'Sixth City'. What did the number refer to?

By 1920 it had climbed to fifth, with a population near 800,000.

In December 1978, Cleveland became the first major American city since the Great Depression to do what?

The city did not emerge from default until 1987.

In James Gunn's 2025 film Superman, downtown Cleveland stood in for which fictional city?

Downtown Cleveland played Metropolis during filming in summer 2024, with Public Square and the Cleveland Arcade, site of a flying kiss scene, among the locations.

What job did Eliot Ness of 'Untouchables' fame hold in Cleveland during the 1930s Torso Murders?

Ness was Cleveland's Public Safety Director from 1935 to 1942, overseeing police and fire; the Torso killer was never caught, and Ness lost a 1947 run for mayor.

The Cavaliers began play as an NBA expansion team in which year?

The Cavaliers debuted in the 1970-71 season alongside fellow expansion teams Portland and Buffalo; their original wine and gold colors returned decades later.

Cleveland once had the largest concentration of Hungarians in the world outside of which city?

In the 1920s only Budapest had more Hungarians than Cleveland, whose Buckeye Road district was the heart of the community; chicken paprikash became a local mainstay.

Which Case professor was the first American to win a Nobel Prize in science?

Albert A. Michelson, a Case physics professor when he ran the 1887 Michelson–Morley experiment with Western Reserve's Edward Morley, won the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physics, the first American Nobel in a science.

Garrett Morgan sold the rights to his 1923 traffic signal to which company for $40,000?

General Electric paid Garrett Morgan $40,000 for his three-position traffic signal, patented in 1923; in 1916 he had used his own smoke hood to rescue workers trapped in a waterworks tunnel under Lake Erie.

Cleveland's Playhouse Square is the second-largest US performing arts centre after which venue?

Only New York's Lincoln Center is larger; Playhouse Square's restored State, Palace, Allen, Hanna and Ohio theatres, built in the early 1920s, host Broadway tours and resident companies.

Which Cleveland institution, founded in 1915, is the oldest African American theatre in the nation?

Karamu House, founded in 1915 as a settlement house in the Central neighborhood, is the oldest African American theatre in the country; Langston Hughes, a Cleveland Central High student, later had plays premiered there.

Which Cleveland street food, sold from downtown hot dog carts, is a local original?

The Polish Boy is a kielbasa in a bun piled with French fries, coleslaw and barbecue sauce, a Cleveland creation; other local signatures include Bertman Ballpark Mustard and cassata cake.

The Cleveland Public Library's John G. White collection holds the world's largest library on what?

The John G. White Collection is the world's largest chess library, from the bequest of a lawyer and chess enthusiast who died in 1928; Linda Eastman, head librarian from 1918, was the first woman to run a major US library.

Cleveland hosted Republican National Conventions in 1924, 1936 and which later year?

The 2016 convention at Quicken Loans Arena nominated Donald Trump; Cleveland also staged the 1864 Radical Democracy convention that nominated John C. Frémont and the first 2020 presidential debate.

The Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival is the largest festival of what outside India?

The festival of Indian classical music and dance, begun in 1978 and held over Easter weekend at Cleveland State University, honours the Carnatic composer Thyagaraja and draws thousands of performers.