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CLEVELAND, Ohio—Many nicknames have been bestowed upon Cleveland over the years — ”The 216,” “CLE,” “The Land,” “Forest City,” “Believeland” and even “Rock and Roll Capital of the World.”
One nickname that our beloved metropolis earned over the years was “The Sixth City,” a moniker that expressed Cleveland’s status as the sixth largest in the country as of the 1910 Census — overtaking Baltimore, by the way.
Cleveland has been a pioneer ever since those “Sixth City” days. Four years after that Census report, the city lit up the streets with the first-ever electric traffic signal at East 105th and Euclid Avenue.
Dig a little further, you’ll find that the Greater Cleveland region has been responsible for the first streetlights, the first balloon (innertube) tires, the place where catalytic cracking of gasoline used in automobile motors first started and more.
The first automobile windshield wipers came from Cleveland, as did the first American-made standard gasoline automobile, the first American diesel engine (1913, Alexander Winton) and the country’s first main producers/suppliers of rubber and tires. Take that, Detroit.
It didn’t take long for a list of Cleveland firsts to start piling up. In it, so many regional “firsts” bubbled up that I decided to keep a running tally of them.
And it got me to thinking: maybe “First City” or “City of Firsts” could join our nicknames list.
Now before you come at me with some clever outrage about St. Augustine or Jamestown, hear me out.
While Northeast Ohio was a pioneering location for automobile technology, the entire concept of broader “mass” transportation and travel benefited from these firsts that happened in Northeast Ohio:
· The first electric streetcars, some of which would later end up in operation in Toronto, Canada
· The first municipal airport (Cleveland Hopkins International Airport)
· The first airfield lighting system
· The first air traffic control tower
· The first padded bicycle seat
· The first “rapid transit” rail service from the airport to the downtown city center
Several food firsts happened here in Northeast Ohio as well, including the first breakfast cereal, first decaffeinated coffee, “cornucopia” ice cream cones, the first caramel popcorn, the first hamburgers (said to have been invented by Akronite Charles Menches, though often disputed) and some of the first high-profile processed foods-for-home from Stouffer’s and “Chef Boyardee.”
And if that’s not enough to convince you of Northeast Ohio’s influence on the American popular culture of today, consider many of these amazing innovations now considered modern conveniences:
In modern tech and convenience, the first whole-body scanner and X-ray machine, Richter Scale (measuring earthquakes), hydroelectric power, wind-powered electric generator (Charles F. Brush), power first dishwasher, portable electric vacuum cleaner, Multigraph Duplicating Machine (precursor to copy machines), mail delivery (in 1863!) and postal uniforms all came from Greater Cleveland.
We also lay claim to the first indoor shopping center (The Cleveland Arcade) and the “father” of shopping mall developers, Ed DeBartolo, Jr. as well as the first official museums dedicated to inventors, rock and roll, polka, public health and witchcraft.
Quite a Venn diagram there, no?
There have been plenty of medical firsts (including those at the Cleveland Clinic) and surely there’s a whole article that could be written on those alone.
Some of those firsts are spelled out in full at the Dittrick Medical History Center on the Case Western Reserve University campus, others at our Great Lakes Science Center.
We have the Rock Hall thanks, in part, to Cleveland being the host of the nation’s first rock and roll concert — The Moondog Coronation Ball — which experienced a bit of a renaissance in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed produced the event at the Cleveland Arena in 1952.
Incidentally, Freed would be one of the first high-profile deejays torn asunder during the payola radio scandal of the 1950s. He was notably uncooperative during the congressional investigation into it.
Cleveland was the first city in the country to offer official public housing, was home to the first modern presidential campaigns (William McKinley’s 1896 and 1900 crusades) and the first “Super-PAC.”
That political action group, a faith-based Anti-Saloon League of Oberlin, helped get alcohol prohibition codified in Ohio. This provided necessary traction for a later nationwide Constitutional law.
No wonder this town lives up to its world beer destination tag these days!
The first political convention broadcast on the radio took place in Cleveland when GOP-nominated President Calvin Coolidge addressed the Republican National Convention of 1924 in Cleveland. It was also the first GOP convention that allowed women equal representation.
“The First Lady of Television News” Dorothy Fuldheim was the first female to anchor a television news broadcast, as well to host her own television show. She interviewed a venerable who’s who of the era, including many politicians, along with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Helen Keller and even Adolf Hitler.
The region launched the world’s first community foundation (The Cleveland Foundation), Alcoholics Anonymous, the first science fiction fan magazine (founded by Jerry Siegel, creator of Superman) is home to a first-ever international submarine-to-submarine rescue participant with the U.S.S. Cod.
The first American to win a Nobel Prize in science? Physicist/Northeast Ohio native Albert A. Michelson.
The first modern building code in the United States? Established in Cleveland by Mayor Tom L. Johnson in 1904; the code went on to become a model for many U.S. cities.
The first industrial park in the world was General Electric’s Nela Park in East Cleveland, which today serves as the home to one of Cleveland’s largest holiday lights displays.
And hey, speaking of electricity, while not technically a Northeast Ohio resident, Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, in Huron County, ever so slightly west of us.
Edison greatly influenced life around the world with inventions including the telephone, phonograph, modern electricity, the modern electric light bulb, and motion pictures.
Cleveland served as the setting for many firsts related to racial equality:
· Cleveland’s Carl Stokes was the first African American elected as mayor of a large us city.
· Louis Stokes (Carl’s brother) was the first black Congressman elected in the state of Ohio and the first Black on the House Appropriations Committee.
· The first African-American newspaper was published by Clevelander William Howard Day (1852)
· Youngstown journalist Simeon Booker was the first Black reporter for The Washington Post.
· Oberlin College was the first U.S. college to admit students regardless of race, sex, creed, color, or orientation.
· Karamu House was the first African-American Cultural Center established in the United States. It is also the oldest African-American theater in the United States.
· Cleveland native Dorothy Dandridge was the first African American woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress; fellow Cleveland native Halle Berry was the first African American woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress.
· Lorain native Toni Morrison was the first African American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
· Akron native Rita Dove was the first African American woman named Poet Laureate of the U.S. and was also the youngest person in history named to that role.
· The third African-American graduate of West Point, Charles Young was the first Black U.S. National Park superintendent; the first Black military attaché, first Black to achieve the rank of colonel, and was the highest-ranking Black officer in the Army.
Oh, and let’s not forget Labor Day.
It might be known to Clevelanders for picnics and when the Cleveland National Air Show comes to Burke Lakefront Airport. But the holiday to honor workers and recognize their contributions to society was conceived by Clevelander John Patterson Green — the first African American to hold political office in Cuyahoga County. Though launched locally, it was soon adopted as a national holiday.
And those firsts keep going into the sports world.
East Tech High School graduate Jesse Owens was the first American (Black or otherwise) to win four Olympic gold medals and was the first male African-American athlete to sign a sponsorship deal (Adidas).
It’s widely accepted that Jackie Robinson was the first African American Major League Baseball (MLB) player, but it was Cleveland native Moses Fleetwood Walker playing for a Toledo team in the American [Baseball] Association in the 1880s that constitutes the true baseball first.
Larry Doby was the first African American to play in the American League and was the second player to break baseball’s color barrier in 1947. He led Cleveland to a World Series championship the following year and just in the last few weeks, was honored with a posthumous Congressional Gold Medal.
Frank Robinson was the first African-American manager in MLB with the Cleveland Indians; the team’s Satchel Paige was the first African-American pitcher to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The first African American to play on the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA) Tour was local hero Charlie Sifford, dubbed the “Jackie Robinson of Golf” for a time during his tour tenure.
Elsewhere in sports and leisure, the National Football League (NFL) was established in Canton in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association. Fathers of modern football John Heisman (of trophy fame) and Paul Brown? Cleveland.
We hosted the very first “Monday Night Football” game (New York Jets at Cleveland on September 21, 1970).
Clevelanders also bore witness to the first Grand Slam home run in a World Series (Elmer Smith, League Park; the first home run by a pitcher in a World Series game (Jim Bagby, League Park) and the first and only unassisted triple play in World Series history (Bill “Wamby” Wambsganss, League Park).
That latter play went down like this: “Wamby” snagged a fifth-inning line drive from Clarence Mitchell, stepped on second base to retire Pete Kilduff, then tagged Otto Miller coming from first base.
First American professional athlete to enlist in the military after Pearl Harbor? The late Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians. The first modern golf ball? Invented in Northeast Ohio.
Losing your marbles from this list yet? Fear not: the first marbles were invented by a toy manufacturing company… in… Northeast… Ohio. And yes, marbles (and losing them) is a sporting pursuit if not a sport.
Though the ring we’ve taken this story in is admittedly wider than the official three-foot regulation for a game of marbles, it’s time for us to end this little endeavor.
Which brings it all back to Baltimore. Well, it wasn’t the first city to host a former Cleveland football team, nor was it the first post-Cleveland club to win a Super Bowl.
Both of those distinctions go to the St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams.
Cleveland Rams owner Dan Reeves (hey, waitaminute!?!) decided to move the team from Cleveland in 1946 just as a “well-publicized” second professional football team, the Cleveland Browns, planned their inaugural season.
Those bi-city Rams won Super Bowls in 1999 and 2021; the Baltimore Ravens in 2001 and 2013.
This means we are the first city to have two pro football teams leave here to win multiple Super Bowls.
Maybe we’ll be the first city to have a former Ravens quarterback win us a Super Bowl? Let’s hope.
Did I miss something, aside from my marbles? Probably.
That would hardly constitute a “first.”
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year, one and all.
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