Cleveland Vintage Blog — History

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...

Where to begin? I have so many memories of Cleveland's Municipal Stadium, the grand old gray lady, I couldn’t possibly know where to start, but the beginning always seems to be the best spot. The vision of Cleveland’s city manager at the time, William Hopkins, then-Indians president Ernest Barnard, a future team president in Alva Bradley and the Van Sweringen brothers, Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium was dedicated on July 1st, 1931, carrying with it various cost overruns of roughly $500,000, a pretty substantial amount at the time. The first actual event held at the stadium was on July 3rd, 1931, a heavyweight...

Anytime you've looked for a 3/4 baseball tee, you might have seen it called a Raglan shirt. You might even use that terminology yourself, but have you ever wondered why it's called that? What in the World Is a Raglan Shirt? I know I've asked myself this question billions of times, but I've never had the drive to discover the answer - until now!  And it's actually a pretty cool story as to how this type of shirt came to be, dating all the way back to the 19th century. You can thank Lord Raglan for these 3/4 shirts you...

If you are a lifelong Clevelander such as myself, who was here during the '70s, you probably remember the lime green Ford LTD police cruisers that were the butt of many a joke during that period. But as the late great Paul Harvey used to say, now you are going to hear the rest of the story. It was actually the National Highway Transportation Board that experimented from 1972-1978 with the lime green paint because of its high visibility earning it the nickname, “Safety Green.” The city of Cleveland actually stayed with the experiment until 1982, having all police cars...

As with any city, there are lost gems due to a variety of reasons, but it is usually due to an ever-changing landscape, and always in the name of progress. But in Cleveland, Millionaires' Row, the area that ran from East Ninth Street to roughly East 55th Street, remains a fond reminder of a time when Cleveland was considered second to none when it came to world-class residences. The Rise and Fall of Cleveland's 'Millionaires' Row' Even though the last of this incredible, continuous row of homes with immaculate grounds were pretty much gone by the late 1930s, these magnificent structures were...