Cleveland Vintage Blog

Quick question: What could $60,000 get you today? A pretty decent down payment on a dream home or the start to a college education. Perhaps a really, really nice new car or even the satisfaction of giving your child the wedding day of their dreams. All great ideas and goals in today’s world, but did you know that in Cleveland in 1907 that very amount of $60,000 was about to bring to the city the notoriety of having the largest indoor skating rink in the world? It’s a pretty safe bet that this little nugget of Cleveland history has passed most of us...

  We all know that New York City is the Big Apple, but did you know Cleveland has its own fruit-based nickname?  That's right, Cleveland's a plum. The Origins of the Infamous 'Cleveland's a Plum' Slogan Back in 1981, the city of Cleveland was still dealing with a less-than-stellar national reputation. It wasn't too long ago that the Cuyahoga River was catching on fire with some regularity and the city was literally the car bomb capital of the world. Oh, and in 1978, Cleveland became the first city since the Great Depression to default on its financial obligations, as it...

Did you know a boxing match at the Richfield Coliseum in March of 1975 served as inspiration for Rocky? The match in question was actually Muhammad Ali’s first title defense after reclaiming the heavyweight boxing title from George Foreman for the third time in “The Rumble in the Jungle." when he squared off with “The Bayonne Bleeder” Chuck Wepner at the Richfield Coliseum, March 24th 1975. There are so many twists and turns to this tale, including the fact that as a 16-year-old busboy at the Holiday Inn in North Randall, I actually had the honor of meeting Mr. Wepner as...

Cleveland's Dead Man's Curve: Unfortunate Nickname or Accurate Warning? So what could possibly go wrong with a sharp, almost 90-degree highway turn with a speed limit of 50 mph (when it opened to the public)? Well, the designers of Dead Man's Curve found out almost right away, and tales - some accurate, others a bit embellished - have been told ever since the first Cleveland drivers tried it out in 1962. The idea was simple: build a “go-around” stretch to ease some of the downtown traffic. Conventional wisdom would seem to be that drivers just were not familiar with such an oddly...

"There's something about Kenny King's you’ll love." If you grew up or lived in Northeast Ohio from the '50s through the '90s, you were familiar with the jingle of the restaurant chain that provided workers something different for lunch and moms a break from the kitchen while not sacrificing quality when it came to feeding their families. Kenny King’s first area location in 1950 was a drive-in in the West Park neighborhood, and once King purchased the rights to the Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe from Harlan Sanders, Kenny King's branched out into the family-style concept that made them a staple...