Cleveland Trivia
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67 free Cleveland trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
63 free Cleveland trivia questions with answers. Cleveland has a knack for firsts, feuds and comebacks. This quiz covers the whole story: the general who founded the city and never came back, the mysterious missing letter in its name, the river that caught fire and helped launch the modern environmental movement, and the radio DJ whose Moondog Coronation Ball became the first big rock and roll concert. Sports fans get plenty to chew on too, from the logo-less Browns and the 2016 Cavaliers comeback to the Guardians of Traffic that gave the baseball team its new name. There are also questions on Terminal Tower, the West Side Market, the teenage creators of Superman, the A Christmas Story house and the Cleveland Clinic. It is built for locals, transplants, visitors and anyone who likes a city with character. Every answer has been checked against primary sources, and each explanation adds one detail worth remembering.
30 of 67 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Legend says Cleveland dropped the first 'a' of 'Cleaveland' to fit the name where?
On a newspaper's front-page banner
On a newspaper's front-page banner: the story credits the Cleveland Advertiser's first issue in 1831, yet some of the founder's own surveyors had already dropped the letter on their 1790s maps.
Q 02What did Moses Cleaveland do after founding his namesake settlement in 1796?
Went home for good
Went home for good: Cleaveland, sent by the Connecticut Land Company to survey its holdings, left that October and practised law in Connecticut until he died in 1806.
Q 03What is thought to have ignited the June 22, 1969 fire on the Cuyahoga River?
A spark from a passing rail car
A spark from a passing rail car is blamed for lighting oily debris under two railroad trestles; the fire was out within half an hour, did about $50,000 of damage and made little news at first.
Q 04Time magazine's 1969 story on the burning Cuyahoga ran a photograph of what?
The much larger 1952 river fire
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.
Q 05Which Cleveland brewery named its Burning River Pale Ale after the Cuyahoga's fires?
Great Lakes Brewing Company
Great Lakes Brewing Company, which the Conway brothers opened in 1988 as Ohio's first craft brewery, also founded the Burning River Foundation to protect the region's fresh water.
Q 06Who was elected in 1967 as Cleveland's first Black mayor, among the first in any major US city?
Carl B. Stokes
Carl B. Stokes, who had narrowly lost the 1965 race, beat Seth Taft, grandson of President William Howard Taft, to become one of the first Black mayors elected in a major American city.
Q 07Which film star, raised in suburban Cleveland, put his name on a salad dressing?
Paul Newman
Paul Newman: raised in Shaker Heights, he and writer A. E. Hotchner bottled dressing as gifts for friends, then founded Newman's Own in 1982 and gave away all its profits, more than half a billion dollars.
Q 08Which architect designed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame building in Cleveland?
I. M. Pei
I. M. Pei, who admitted he knew little about rock music when he took the job, designed the glass pyramid and tower that opened in September 1995.
Q 09The Rock Hall's planned tower had to be made shorter because of its proximity to what?
Burke Lakefront Airport
Burke Lakefront Airport: when the museum moved to its harbour site, the planned glass tower was too tall to stand so near the runways, so a shorter tower and pyramid emerged.
Q 10Who led the ribbon-cutting alongside Little Richard at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 1995 dedication?
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono and Little Richard led the ribbon-cutting on 1 September 1995; Aretha Franklin, Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan were in town too, playing the all-star stadium concert the following night.
Q 11Which record-label chief established the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in 1983?
Ahmet Ertegun
Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder of Atlantic Records, set up the foundation in New York in 1983; three years later it picked Cleveland for the museum after a year of lobbying by city officials, who cited Alan Freed's role in early rock.
Q 12Alan Freed's 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball, called the first major rock concert, was held where?
Cleveland Arena
The Cleveland Arena on Euclid Avenue held about 10,000, but counterfeit and misprinted tickets drew thousands more than it could hold, and police shut the show down early.
Q 13Which style of music did DJ Alan Freed start playing on Cleveland's WJW in 1951?
Rhythm and blues
Q 21Which team lost the 2016 NBA Finals to the Cavaliers?
Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors had won a record 73 games, but Cleveland took Game 7 in Oakland for the city's first major title since the Browns won the NFL championship in 1964.
Q 22The NBA rule barring trades of first-round picks in successive seasons is named after which Cavaliers owner?
Ted Stepien
Ted Stepien, owner from 1980 to 1983, traded away so many first-round picks that the NBA wrote the rule; his teams went 66–180 and he lost about $15 million before selling the club.
Q 23In 2010's The Decision, LeBron James announced he was leaving Cleveland for which team?
Miami Heat
Rhythm and blues records were drawing white teenagers to Leo Mintz's Cleveland record store, so Mintz sponsored a late-night WJW show where Freed played them, calling himself Moondog.
Q 14Alan Freed's memorial at Lake View Cemetery, which holds his ashes, is shaped like what?
A jukebox
A jukebox is the shape of the memorial over his ashes, which had rested in the Rock Hall from 2002 until the museum asked his son to remove them in 2014.
Q 15The Cleveland Browns are named after whom?
Paul Brown, their first coach
Paul Brown, their first coach, is the namesake: after a 1945 contest winner, Panthers, was dropped, the owner bowed to popular demand, though Brown objected and long claimed the name was short for Brown Bombers.
Q 16The Browns are unique among the NFL's 32 clubs for what reason?
They have no logo on their helmets
They have no logo on their helmets: the plain orange shell itself serves as the team's logo, and a 'CB' helmet decal drawn up in 1965 went unworn.
Q 17Which new franchise did Art Modell take his Browns roster to in 1996, leaving the name in Cleveland?
Baltimore Ravens
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.
Q 18Which team was the only one before the 2017 Browns to finish an NFL season 0–16?
2008 Detroit Lions
The 2008 Detroit Lions won all four preseason games, then lost all 16 that counted; nine years later the Browns repeated the trick, 4–0 in preseason and 0–16 after it.
Q 19Which Browns cornerback began calling the defense 'the Dawgs' in 1985, inspiring the Dawg Pound's name?
Hanford Dixon
Hanford Dixon gave his fellow defenders the nickname before the 1985 season; when fans at training camp began barking along, he and Frank Minnifield hung the first 'Dawg Pound' banner in front of the stadium bleachers.
Q 20The 2016 Cavaliers were the first team to win the NBA Finals after trailing by what margin?
3–1
Down 3–1, the Cavaliers won Games 5, 6 and 7, a comeback no team had managed in the Finals; more than a million people turned out for the victory parade on June 22, 2016.
'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.
Q 24LeBron James, drafted first overall by the Cavaliers in 2003, was born and raised in which nearby city?
Akron
LeBron James was born in Akron in 1984 and went straight from St. Vincent–St. Mary High School there to the NBA; in 2018 his foundation helped open the I Promise School for the city's at-risk children.
Q 25The Cleveland Guardians take their name from eight Art Deco statues on which bridge?
Hope Memorial
The Hope Memorial Bridge's sandstone Guardians each hold a different vehicle, from hay wagon to 1930s automobile; the 1932 span was renamed in 1983 for comedian Bob Hope or his stonemason father, depending on the account.
Q 26Cleveland's AL club was nicknamed after which star player-manager from 1903 to 1914?
Nap Lajoie
Nap Lajoie, a second baseman who had hit .426 in 1901, was so popular that fans voted in 1903 to rename the club the Naps; when he left after 1914, baseball writers picked Indians.
Q 27Which pitching great did the Cleveland Spiders' owners move to St. Louis before their record 20–134 season in 1899?
Cy Young
Cy Young went to St. Louis because the Robison brothers, who owned both clubs, were fed up with thin crowds in Cleveland; stripped of their stars, the Spiders never played another season.
Q 28Which Cleveland owner signed Larry Doby in 1947, breaking the American League's color barrier?
Bill Veeck
Bill Veeck bought Larry Doby's contract from the Negro leagues' Newark Eagles in July 1947, three months after Jackie Robinson's debut; a year later Doby and Satchel Paige helped Cleveland win the World Series.
Q 29Cleveland's 1974 Ten Cent Beer Night riot erupted during a game against which visiting team?
Texas Rangers
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.
Q 30Which Italian-food brand began in Cleveland in the 1920s?
Chef Boyardee
Chef Boyardee is how Hector Boiardi spelled his name for shoppers: diners at his Cleveland restaurant kept asking for his spaghetti sauce to take home, and by 1928 demand called for a factory.