The Vision of O.C. Barber Barberton is located to the south west of Akron. It was founded in 1891 when O.C. Barber, founder of the Diamond Match Co., located his factory at an undeveloped site and built a town to house his employees. This was not to be the classic “company town,” a money-making proposition…

We’ve been looking at the relationship between Cleveland’s street railways and the development of suburbs. So far, we’ve considered suburbs to the east and the west. As we know, Cleveland area population has tended to orient in those directions. But what about to the south? The community of Garfield Heights began as a part of…

We’ve been talking about Cleveland’s East Side streetcar suburb, Cleveland Heights. Let’s look at the West Side. What became Lakewood’s Clifton Park was founded in 1866 by a group of Cleveland businessmen not, originally, as a suburb but as a resort. This became, and remained popular through the 1870’s and ‘80’s, with swimming beaches, boating,…

The Final Extensions So far, we have seen Cleveland Heights beginning to develop along the lines of its trolleys: the initial line up Mayfield Hill to the cemetery and which eventually reached Lee Rd, the line to and eventually up Cedar Glen, the line from the top of the Glen along Euclid Heights Blvd, and…

The First Shaker Rapid Transit: So far, we have looked at the role of trolleys in the development of the western part of today’s city. Now we will look farther east. So, what’s this about a FIRST Shaker line? We know that Van Sweringen brothers built a transit line that connected their new Shaker Heights…

Patrick Calhoun (1856 – 1943), grandson of the Vice-President, was born in South Carolina. Going into the law, he became interested in railroads and, by the 1890’s, in street railways. A business trip brought him to Cleveland and he had occasion to visit the Heights. Recognizing it’s potential for development as a desirable suburb of…

Many trolley suburbs came about because developers built lines to attract residents. For Cleveland Heights the process was somewhat more complex. The first trolley to the region came for a slightly different reason. Dr. Nathan Hardy Ambler (1824 – 1888) was a Cleveland dentist who went into real estate development. This, in turn, led him,…

Last week, we discussed the brief history of the line for which this car, now in the Northern Ohio Railway Museum collection, was built. In addition to its background, this car itself has an interesting history. It was, as we said, built in 1926 for the Aurora, Elgin & Fox River interurban at the time…

So what is the interest of an interurban in Illinois to Northern Ohio Railway Museum? Read on and we’ll tell you. The Fox River runs roughly north to south, about 40 miles west of Chicago. Along that stream are a number of cities, including both Aurora and Elgin. In the 1890/s, these towns desired an…

More Forgotten Electric Railway Pioneers: In reading about the very early days of railway electrification, we run into the name of a company that carried out a large percentage of those electrification projects, the Thompson-Houston Electric Co. Then, after a few years, the name disappears. Who were those men and what happened to them? Edwin…