An integral part of the American Rust Belt for centuries, Cleveland, OH is full of interesting history and facts. And since that history is so often overlooked, we thought we'd share with you 20 interesting facts about our hometown!
-The land Cleveland sits on was, during the United States' earliest days, claimed by Connecticut as part of its "Western Reserve."
-John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, the world's first true multinational corporation, was founded in Cleveland in 1870 before it moved to New York City in 1885.
-"Cleveland Rocks" was originally released as "England Rocks."
-Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman while students at Cleveland's Glenville High School, which explains why the "Metropolis" skyline, which would later be a comics stand-in for Midtown Manhattan, is, in the earliest Superman comics, very clearly Cleveland!
-Even though it's now the nation's 48th largest city by population, the industrial boom of the late 19th/early 20th centuries made Cleveland the 5th largest American city at the 1920 Census, and it remained in the top 10 from the 1890 Census to the 1970 Census.
-The 20th President of the United States, James A. Garfield, was born in nearby Moreland Hills, OH, and was buried in Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery after he was assassinated in 1881.
-The Terminal Tower was the tallest building in North America outside of New York, NY from its construction in 1930 until the Prudential Center in Boston, MA was built in 1964.
-The United States' very first interracial, co-ed institute of higher learning, Oberlin College, is located in Cleveland.
-Although the phrase "rock and roll" had been appearing sporadically since the style of music first appeared in the 1940s, it wasn't until Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed began using the term in 1951 that it became widespread.
-Cleveland became the first city on Earth to be lighted electrically in 1879.
-The world's largest rubber stamp, created for the Standard Oil Company, can be found in Cleveland's Willard Park.
-When Cleveland International Records published Meat Loaf's seminal rock album, "Bat Out of Hell," in 1977, the label was known as a publisher of polka music!
-The first bank robbery to be caught on security cameras occurred in Cleveland on St. Clair Avenue in 1957.
-Jesse Owens, hero of the 1936 Olympics, was born and raised in Cleveland.
-Originally settled by Moses Cleaveland, the city came to be known as "Cleveland" instead of "Cleaveland" when a local newspaper, The Cleaveland Advertiser, changed its name to The Cleveland Advertiser because the one letter longer name wouldn't fit on the paper's masthead in 1831!
-Euclid Avenue through University Square was called "the most beautiful street in the world" by writer Bayard Taylor in the 1880s.
-Parts of Downtown Cleveland have doubled for parts of New York City in two recent superhero films, 2007's "Spider-Man 3," and 2012's "The Avengers."
-Carl B. Stokes, Mayor of Cleveland from 1968 to 1971, was the first African-American mayor of a large American city.
-Ettore Boiardi, better known as "Chef Boyardee," got his start in America when he opened Il Giardino d'Italia Restaurant at East 9th Street and Woodland Avenue in Cleveland in 1924.
-Cleveland is home to the world's largest indoor Ferris wheel, built in 1985. It stands more than 120 feet high.