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A STREETCAR SUBURB
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| Cedar Road Streetcar Line |
Cleveland Heights is a city that can be characterized as a 'streetcar suburb.' This is a community whose development was largely shaped by the advent of the electric streetcar, an invention that made suburban properties easily accessible to those who worked in Cleveland, but desired suburban living. Streetcar access appealed to people of all means. Both the affluent and working class utilized streetcars as their primary transportation from the turn-of-the-century through the 1920s, when automobiles gained popularity. Streetcars, also referred to as trolleys or dinkys, continued in Cleveland Heights through the late 1940s, when
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Cedar Hill intersection looking northeast
from Chestnut Hills neighborhood
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automobiles and bus service took over as the primary form of public transportation. Proximity to a street railway greatly increased the marketability of property, and early homes, apartments buildings and other multiple-family dwellings in subdivisions often clustered along streetcar lines, with prime locations nearest railway stops.
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Mayfield Road streetcar line to
Garfield monument, Lakeview Cemetery |
About 1891, the first rail line to what would become Cleveland Heights was established to service a small strip of still-intact residences near the former town center of 'Fairmount,' just east of Coventry Road near Middlehurst Road. This streetcar line also provided access to Lake View Cemetery and would eventually become an interurban rail line that would extend to Gates Mills. An interurban was a type of electric streetcar intended for travel between urban areas, often sharing tracks with local streetcars. Cleveland interurban lines connected into interurban routes in New York and New England, making long distance travel more accessible.
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Euclid Heights Boulevard streetcar line prepares
for its turn onto Coventry Road. Heights Theatre
(now Centrum Theatre) is in the background |
In 1897, the Cleveland Railway Company brought a rail line up Cedar Glen and along Euclid Heights Boulevard where it circled back near Edgehill Road. This line made the primarily undeveloped area which would become Cleveland Heights easily accessible, and a good deal of residential construction was initiated following the railway's completion. In 1904, in an effort to make more of the Heights marketable for residential use, the Euclid Heights line was extended to Coventry Road to the existing eastward-bound Mayfield Road interurban tracks.
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Coventry Road looking north
(note streetcar in the center) |
In 1907 a streetcar line came up Cedar Glen and through the center of Fairmount Boulevard.
As demand for new Cleveland Heights housing increased and population growth boomed in the 1910s and 1920s, streetcar lines were added along Mayfield Road, Cedar Road and Washington Boulevard.
Self-Guided Walking Tour of Double Homes along the Old Cedar Road Streetcar Line
The Cleveland Heights Landmark Commission's self-guided walking tour of double homes along the Cedar Road streetcar line contains more information and a map of the City's streetcar routes. To obtain a copy of the 'Seeing Doubles' brochure, call 216-291-4878, email planning@clvhts.com, or stop by Cleveland Heights Planning Department, 40 Severance Circle. More information on Cleveland Heights' past can be found on Cleveland Heights Historical Society web site.
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