The Broadway Avenue Historic District is a historic commercial district in the Broadway–Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. The commercial district is the historic center of Cleveland's Czech community, and is an excellent example of a district that grew along a streetcar line. The historic district includes 43 buildings constructed between 1888 and 1930, including the Hruby Conservatory of Music and Our Lady of Lourdes Church and School. The commercial district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 19, 1988.
Emergence of the historic district In 1662, Charles II of England, ignoring existing Native American claims to the area, granted to the Connecticut Colony all lands to the west between the 41st and 42nd parallels of north latitude. These rights began at the western border of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and extended to the Pacific Ocean, although they did not include lands already ceded to the Province of New York or the Province of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, Charles and other English monarchs had also pledged these same lands to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Province of New York, Plymouth Colony, and the Colony of Virginia. In 1786, Connecticut ceded all its land claims to the federal government in exchange for cancellation of its American Revolutionary War debts. Connecticut retained only those lands known as the Connecticut Western Reserve, an area bounded by Lake Erie on the north, Pennsylvania on the east, and the 41st parallel of north latitude on the south. The Western Reserve extended for exactly to the west, and came to an abrupt halt.
On August 3, 1795, the state of Connecticut sold the Western Reserve to the Connecticut Land Company for $1.2 million ($ in dollars). In 1811, Youngs L. Morgan, Sr., an emigrant from Connecticut, purchased from the Connecticut Land Company of land around what is now the intersection of E. 55th Street and Broadway Avenues. He and his heirs continued to farm this land until 1872. Others who owned land nearby were Charles Barkwill (a brickmaker), Eliezar Cable (who founded an orchard and nursery), Samuel Dille, Sr., (whose farm straddled the intersection of Broadway and Dille Avenue), Jabesh Gallup (who founded a nursery), Moses Jewett, and Simeon Streetor (who farmed along Broadway).
In 1808, James Kingsbury, a local judge and former military officer, gave of land at the intersection of Broadway and E. 55th to his son-in-law, Dyer Sherman (who had wed Kingsbury's daughter, Abigail). Sherman erected a tavern there, which became well known among residents of the area. In 1827, John L. Wightman purchased of land on the southwest side of Broadway Avenue between what is now McBride and Fowler Avenues. He erected Wightman's Tavern there, a waystation for travelers which became one of the most famous in the northeast Ohio.
In February 1849, construction began in Cleveland on the northern end of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad. (Construction on the southern leg began in Wellsville, Ohio, in July 1847.) The line reached Hudson, Ohio, in February 1851, and Freedom (now Alliance, Ohio) on July 4, 1851. The northern leg was connected to the southern leg in 1852. Development of the railroad spurred extensive industrial activity along Broadway Avenue, which it largely paralleled until reaching Bedford, Ohio. One of the most important of these was Grasselli Chemical, founded in 1856 by Eugene Grasselli.
For a short time in the late 1850s, the Cuyahoga County Fair was held at Broadway and E. 55th before moving to a more permanent home.
Early Czech settlements in Cleveland Czech people were among the earliest groups to emigrate to the United States in large numbers, with the first wave of Czech immigration occurring in the 1850s. Large numbers of Czech people settled in Chicago, Illinois, and in St. Louis, Missouri. Many Czech immigrants headed for the Midwestern United States used Cleveland as a midway stopping point, intending to move on. But large numbers of Czechs actually settled in the city, and soon Cleveland had one of the largest Czech populations in the nation.
The first Czech neighborhoods in Cleveland were on the east bank of the Cuyahoga River in an area bounded by Hill, Cross, and Commercial streets. By 1853, two more small Czech communities had been built on west bank of the Cuyahoga River south of Ohio City, in what are now the Clark-Fulton and Brooklyn Centre neighborhoods. Many Czech immigrants to Cleveland at this time had been farmers. Cleveland farmer Harvey Rice employed many Czech agricultural laborers, and allowed them to purchase farmland from him at reasonable prices. Over the years, a large Czech community grew up around the intersection of E. 37th Street and Croton Avenue north of Kingsbury Run. The first Catholic church to serve Cleveland's burgeoning Czech community was St. Wenceslas Church, constructed in 1867 at the intersection of E. 35th Street and Burwell Avenue (a block north-northwest of E. 37th and Croton).
The Croton Czech settlement remained the center of Czech life in Cleveland until the late 1870s. On January 10, 1870, John D. Rockefeller and his partners established the Standard Oil company. By March 1872, Standard Oil had absorbed nearly every other petroleum refining company in Cleveland and had a national monopoly on oil refining. At this time, refined petroleum products were still primarily delivered in wooden barrels, and Standard Oil began employing large numbers of Czech Americans as coopers (barrel makers). More and more Czech Americans and Czech immigrants settled in the Croton area due to Standard Oil's need for workers. The Warren School, an elementary school that was the first public school in the North Broadway area, was established in 1871 just north of the intersection of Warren Avenue and Dille Street. (The site is now beneath the Interstate 77-Interstate 490 interchange.)
Creation of the Broadway district Four factors encouraged the growth of the Czech community south of the Croton neighborhood, and the creation of the Broadway commercial district. First, several farms south of Kingsbury Run were subdivided into smaller parcels and into housing plots beginning in 1878. This put this land into the price range of the average worker. Second, a number of new bridges were built over Kingsbury Run in the area, permitting north–south traffic. This allowed workers to move out of the over-crowded Croton area while retaining easy access to their jobs at the Standard Oil plant north of the stream. Third, the rapidly growing Standard Oil refineries, with their concomitant noise and pollution, encouraged residents to leave the Croton area for neighborhoods further away. Fourth, a new wave of Czech immigration to Cleveland began in 1870, and these new immigrants needed homes and land to live on.
The first new substantial Czech American settlement south of Kingsbury Run was at the intersection of Trumbull Avenue and E. 37th Street. This neighborhood became known in Czech as Na Vrsku (On the Hill). In 1892, St. Wenceslas Church began construction of a new church at the intersection of E. 37th Street and Broadway, a block south of Trumbull Avenue. (This structure was not completed until 1899, although services began to be held there much earlier than that). The country road that became Broadway Avenue had existed since the early part of the 1800s, and as more and more Czech Americans moved into the area, development began moving south down Broadway. Czech immigrants brought with them a cultural legacy of gardening, and most new homes in the area consisted of small cottages with front and back yard flower and kitchen gardens. New streets were constructed, many with Czech names like Praha and Svoboda. Bohemian National Hall, believed by historians to be the first structure in Cleveland erected by an immigrant group, was constructed at the intersection of Broadway and Mead Avenues in 1897. Banks, churches, and retail stores were built along Broadway Avenue, and by 1900 the intersection of E. 55th and Broadway had emerged as the center of the new Czech community—supplanting the earlier concentration of homes and businesses at Broadway and Trumbull.
History of the Broadway Historic District
Known as Žižkov, the commercial district on Broadway Avenue began at E. 37th Street and ended at Union Avenue.
Growth: 1870 to 1900 In the 1870s, there were three major developments in the area. The first was the construction in 1872 of Broadway Methodist Church at 5246 Broadway. By 1920, it was the largest non-Catholic Czech church in Cleveland, and one of the richest. A wealthy member paid several artists to travel to Italy in 1957 to measure and study the Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper and paint a life-size copy over the altar at Broadway Methodist. (The replica remains the largest and most accurate Last Supper in the United States.) The burgeoning community received its first public school in 1875 when the city erected South School (later renamed Barkwill School) on the northwest corner of Dolloff Road and Barkwill Avenue, a block southwest of Broadway. The southern edge of the district became defined in March 1880 when Joseph Turner & Sons Manufacturing Company opened its first woolen mill on the southwest corner of Blanche Avenue and Broadway.
The 1880s saw the area receive its first law enforcement presence, when Police Station No. 4 was built in 1883 at 3355 E. 55th Street. Other retail businesses on E. 55th just north of the police station were Janouseck's millinery shop, Eyerdam's barber shop, Kumler's carriage shop, Yost's livery stable, and several funeral homes catering specifically to the Czech community. Five major new developments also occurred in the 1880s. The first of these was the erection in 1883 of the area's second public school, the Fowler School, on the southeast corner of Fowler Avenue and Hector Street (a block northeast of Broadway). The second development was the establishment of Broadway Bank in 1883. Founded by Oliver Meade Stafford and Charles Grasselli (owner of nearby Grasselli Chemicals), it was one of first suburban banks in the United States and the first suburban bank in Cleveland. Its headquarters were at 5455 Broadway Avenue, facing the intersection of Broadway and E. 55th. Later known as the Broadway Savings and Trust Company, the bank became one of the strongest in city, largely due to Czech American business. The third major development was the erection in 1884 of St. Alexis Hospital at 5163 Broadway Avenue. Only the second Catholic hospital in Cleveland, it initially occupied an eight-room brick house. Construction began on a 32-bed acute-care hospital in 1885. The world's first human-to-human blood transfusion occurred at St. Alexis in 1906. The fourth development was the incorporation in December 1886 of the Canfield Oil Company. This new refinery was erected in 1887 on the northeast corner of the intersection of Lufkin Avenue and E. 55th Street. The last development of the decade occurred in 1889, when St. Johannes Evangelical Lutheran Church was built on Cable Avenue a half block northeast of Broadway.