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At 2:30 p.m. on Friday, October 20, 1944, an above ground storage tank that held liquefied natural gas in the East Ohio Gas Company’s tank farm began to emit vapor from a seam on the side of the tank that dropped into nearby sewer lines. It mixed with air and sewer gas and ignited, resulting in explosions and fires that brought damage to nearly one square mile of Cleveland neighborhoods. With 79 homes and two factories destroyed, nearly 700 people were left homeless, 131 killed, and 225 injured. The East Ohio Gas Company took responsibility for this tragedy to aid those in need through direct financial assistance and by rebuilding the community. The disaster also led to a movement by public utilities and communities across America to store natural gas below ground without tanks.
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The Cozad-Bates House is one of the oldest remaining structures in Cleveland’s University Circle. The original section, built circa 1853, is the only pre-Civil War residential structure left in the neighborhood. Built by Samuel and Jane Cozad’s son, Andrew Cozad, the first section used locally made brick to form a simple two-story, one-room-deep, vernacular English-I house. The family owned a large portion of the land which is now occupied by University Circle. Justus Cozad, Andrew’s son, returning from the west where he worked as a railroad superintendent and civil engineer, built the later section on Mayfield Road for his larger family in 1872. It is a rare surviving example of Italianate-influenced residential architecture, including a hipped roof, curved bay windows, paired eave brackets, and prominent belvedere. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and designated as a Cleveland Landmark in 2006.
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Joseph Peake was born in Pennsylvania in 1792 and came to Ohio in 1809 with his parents and brother. They were the first African Americans to settle permanently in the Cleveland area. He was the son of George Peake, a runaway slave from Maryland, who fought on the British side at the Battle of Quebec in 1759 during the French and Indian War. A man with some means and talent, George Peake invented a stone hand mill for grinding corn, a labor-saving device that endeared the Peakes to their neighbors in western Cuyahoga County. Joseph Peake and his wife Eleanor, an African American from Delaware, bought land in the 1840s on the Mastick Plank Road and built a home near this marker. [Continued on other side]
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A native of Coshocton County, William Green (1870-1932) began his working life as a coal miner at age 16 and rose rapidly in the leadership of the United Mine Workers of America. Twice elected to the Ohio Senate, Green served as president pro tempore during his second term. He was instrumental in enacting Ohio’s first worker’s compensation law in 1912, at a time when progressive-era ideals conflicted with an impersonal industrial system where workers enjoyed few rights and little security. Green, one of the outstanding American trade union leaders of the twentieth century, served as president of the American Federation of Labor from 1924 until his death in 1952.
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Howard Daniels, who lived from 1815-1863, was a noted architect and landscape gardener. Over the course of his life, he designed six Ohio and New York cemeteries, including Woodland that began in 1852 when he laid out 20 of its 60 acres into fashionable “rural cemetery” style. Later acreage in the cemetery adapted his curvilinear design. “As beautifully prepared for a burial place as fancy and taste could desire,” Woodland was dedicated on June 14, 1853, and became Cleveland’s primary cemetery. An ornate gatehouse, chapel, and fountains came later. Generations of Clevelanders, pioneering and prominent, as well as veterans onward from the War of 1812, are buried here. For more than a century, Woodland, in its original and newly platted sections, has embraced people from every race, the rich and poor, natives and immigrants, and the famous and obscure. It has truly become a community cemetery. [continued on other side]
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In 1826, when Cleveland’s first cemetery closed, Cleveland village trustees paid Leonard Case Sr. one dollar for eight acres of land and dedicated it as the Erie Street Cemetery. Built on what became prime property, the cemetery touched off a century long struggle between residents and local government. In 1836, trustees allotted space in the cemetery for a gunpowder magazine and a poorhouse infirmary. Angry heirs of the original lot owners claimed infringement of covenant and sued Cleveland, but lost. During the early 1900s Mayor Tom Johnson’s administration tried to take back cemetery land and failed. Later pressure from the Pioneers’ Memorial Association and City Manager William Hopkins caused the planned Lorain Carnegie Bridge to avoid Erie Street Cemetery. Struggles to confiscate land ended, but the city neglected the cemetery. In 1939, The Early Settler’s Association restored the cemetery and erected a stone wall around it. (continued on other side)
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James Seneca Tyler was born free in Columbus in 1837 and was an early settler of central Ohio. During his life he held several prominent positions. He served in the Fifth U.S. Colored Regiment in the Civil War and mustered out as Quarter-Master Sergeant having worked as a sutler’s clerk at Camp Chase. He was the first African American engrossing clerk chosen by the Ohio House of Representatives serving the 62nd and 66th General Assemblies. Between terms, he worked as Court Bailiff under Sheriff John U. Rickenbaker, and later was secretary to Chief of Police Edward Pagels. During Governor Joseph Foraker’s term, he served as night officer at the State Capitol building. He also served as Attache under Governor William McKinley. For many years he worked as a chef at Ambos Restaurant and Goodale House. He and his wife Maria lived at 1107 Highland Avenue where they raised 13 children.
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With the War of 1812 over, Benajah and Ruth Wilcox Fay and their ten children left Lewis County, New York for the state of Ohio. Like many, they were attracted to Ohio by the inexpensive, fertile land. Settling in Township 6, Range 13 of the Blake Tract of the Western Reserve, they represented the first settlers of Greenbriar, named Parma on March 7, 1826. The Fay family cleared their new land, including what later became Theota Avenue, and then built a log cabin. Located on the wagon trail connecting Cleveland and Columbus, the cabin grew into the well-known Benajah Fay Inn, Parma’s first business establishment. This historical marker is the site where the city of Parma was born.