, OH
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)
, OH
Here lived the reformers of the Anti-Saloon League of America who led the movement that turned the United States “dry” in 1920 with the 18th Amendment prohibiting the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquor. Moving its headquarters to Westerville in 1909, the League built a publishing house that buried the liquor industry in a 10-year avalanche of books, pamphlets and periodicals that helped win Prohibition and made Westerville the “Dry Capital of the World.” Rev. Purley A. Baker (1858-1924), the League’s general superintendent, bought 11 acres and erected his rustic home at Park and Grove streets in 1910. (Continued other side)