Cleveland Vintage Blog — History

This time of year, it is always fun to explore the spooky haunts and tales that are unique to any locale, but in researching some of Cleveland’s, we came up with some truly unique, and probably relatively unknown, Northeast Ohio haunts and sightings. The Most Haunted Places in Cleveland The Federal Reserve Bank Let's start with the Federal Reserve Bank at 1466 E. 6th Street in downtown Cleveland.  Still operating today as the Cleveland-based U.S. Federal Reserve System’s Fourth District headquarters, this majestic building is home to one spirit in particular known as Matilda. Matilda is believed to have killed...

Update: You can now book an overnight stay in Franklin Castle! That is... if you aren't too scared. Franklin Castle, named after the street it is located on - 4308 Franklin Blvd - indeed retains the dubious title of “The Most Haunted House in Ohio” for good reason, but our research found much more to the tragic, and at times even sordid, history of the location. What we found truly interesting is the wide variety of impressions that those native to Cleveland have of the spooky yet stately Victorian castle. It’s probably because the history and/or legends surrounding the castle include...

If you ask pretty much any group of lifelong Clevelanders to name what they feel are the five things or people that represent Cleveland best, you are likely to get a wide range of answers.   What we are willing to bet is that one name probably will not appear on most lists, and that is who we are going to tell you a little bit about today: Cleveland journalist and television icon Dorothy Fuldheim. If you are asking yourself who Dorothy Fuldheim is, don’t feel bad; her career was not about self-promotion or the limelight - it was about getting...

“When the hungries hit, when the hungries hit, hit the Red Barn!” The Red Barn Restaurant History If you grew up around the Cleveland area, you were no doubt very familiar with the catchy jingle of the Red Barn restaurants that originated in Springfield, Ohio by Don Six, Martin Levine and Jim Kirst (which sounds sort of like a law firm).  The popular fast-food chain was extremely aggressive with menu development, such as “The Big Barney," their equivalent to McDonald’s Big Mac. What isn’t really commonly known, or perhaps more accurately said, is that the Big Barney actually preceded the Big Mac...

When you think of the phrase, “We’re number one," what usually comes to mind is a sports team celebrating a big win or an actual championship. But in the 1970s, Cleveland was able to lay claim to the dubious distinction of being the top city in the country for car bombs, which led to the moniker of "Bomb City, USA." A Plain Dealer article at the time titled “Bombing Business Booming Here” told readers of Cleveland’s disturbing and dangerous rise in the national ranking of bomb crimes that had skyrocketed around the country since 1974. Danny Greene's Role in Turning Cleveland...