Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Streetcars


Huron at Euclid Avenue
(facing what is now PlayhouseSquare)

Cleveland streetcars were operated by the Cleveland Railway. In the late 1800s "electrified" streetcars, which were three times faster than horse-drawn streetcars, expanded suburban development out from the city for ten miles in every direction (except, you know, North.) People working in the city could escape the major influx of Southern and Eastern European immigrants and industrial-strength pollution.

Beginning in the 1890s we soon had the incorporation of East Cleveland (1895), Lakewood and Cleveland Heights (spiritual sister cities, each founded in 1903) and by the 1930s we saw the villages and new suburbs of Bedford, Berea, Euclid, Garfield Heights, Maple Heights, Parma, Rocky River and Shaker Heights all attain city status.



Sources:
Wikipedia
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

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