Tag: historical edgewater

Joseph M. Gasser: Immigrant, Patriot, and Florist

Joseph M. Gasser, was a resident of the Edgewater neighborhood from 1886 until his death in 1908. His honorable life of sacrifice, service, contribution, and industry, stands as stern rebuke to those small-minded fear-mongers amongst us who would build walls to shut out immigrants from foreign lands seeking refuge in the land of opportunity.

Joseph was born in 1843 in Switzerland, the son of Nicholas, a carpenter. His family immigrated to the United States in 1854. The family came to Cleveland where Joseph began to attend both the common schools and work in a pail factory in the flats at the age of twelve years old. Joseph continued working at the pail factory until the outbreak of the Civil War.

As soon as Joseph learned that the Southern rebels had fired on Fort Sumter, he enlisted for three months service as a private at the age of 19 in the Sprague Zouave Cadets, which was organized in Cleveland under the direction of Captain Charles A. DeVillers. The Sprague Zouave Cadets were subsequently mustered into the service of the United States as the Seventh Regiment of the Ohio Voluntary Infantry as Company B, retaining that letter during its service in the field. He reenlisted, June 19, 1861, for a period of three years. The Seventh Regiment was known as the Roosters.”

Mr. Gasser participated in the following Civil War battles: Battle of Kressler’s Cross Lanes (Cross Lanes, Virginia), August 26, 1861; First Battle of Kernstown (Winchester, Virginia), March 23, 1862, (in which Mr. Gasser was wounded severely in the left arm and side and was incapacitated for service until June 3, 1863); The Battle of Gettysburg (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania), July 1, 2, and 3, 1863; Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, November 24, 1863; Missionary Ridge, Tennessee, November 25, 1863; The Battle of Ringgold Gap (Ringgold, Georgia), November 27, 1863; Dalton, Georgia, May 8, 1864; Rocky Face Ridge, Georgia, May 1864; Resaca, Georgia, May 13 to 15, 1864, and Dallas, or New Hope Church, Georgia, May 26, 1864. Mr. Gasser was mustered out of service with an honorable discharge at the expiration of his enlistment on July 6, 1864.

The Seventh Regiment’s service was commemorated locally by the Seventh Regiment OVI Association with a monument erected at Woodland Cemetery (Woodland Avenue/East 71st Street). The monument was dedicated in 1872. The principal speakers at its dedication were General John W. Geary, the Governor of the State of Pennsylvania, General Erastus B. Tyler, and Major William McKinley, later Governor of Ohio and President of the United States. The monument cost $8,500 and consisted of Quincy granite for the base, a shaft of Peterhead red granite, and was topped with an eagle with outstretched wings of Peterhead gray granite.

The granite was quarried, polished, and engraved with a list of the Regiment’s battles in Scotland before being shipped to the United States. The lot on which it was erected was donated by the City of Cleveland.

Of course, the Ohio Generally Assembly also commemorated the service of the Seventh Regiment at the Battle of Gettysburg with the erection a marker, which is located near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in Adams County at the intersection of Slocum Avenue and Williams Avenue. It was dedicated on September 14, 1887, and marks the position held by the Regiment on July 2 and 3, 1863. If you have occasion to visit the Gettysburg Battlefield, you now know of its Edgewater connection.

When Mr. Gasser returned to civilian life after nearly four difficult years of service to his adopted country, he sought both employment and education. The available information indicates that he initially boarded with his father at 63 Orange Street and worked for the Weaver Brothers Wholesale Liquor House (87 & 89 Merwin), the grocery firm of Pope & Hains (163 Ontario Street), and subsequently for five years as a postal carrier. He also sought to further his education while working so paid for two years of education at the Humiston Institute. The Humiston Institute, also known as the Cleveland Institute, was a private coeducational school for secondary education founded in 1859 by Professor Ransom F. Humiston, a respected Cleveland educator, who offered a college preparatory curriculum to both students from out of state as well as from the Cleveland area. The Institute closed in 1868.

In 1867, the industrious Mr. Gasser found love and married Miss Katherine Fox, with whom he had a daughter, Josephine.

The Cleveland Directory Company’s 1872/73 Directory reflects that Mr. Gasser was still a letter carrier but now resided and operated a business out of his residence at 345 Pearl. The business was listed under various headings, including confectionary, cigars, fruit, and variety goods. The Cleveland Directory Company’s 1877/78 directory reflects that Mr. Gasser moved his residence and business to 347 Pearl, and only listed his business under the headings notions, stationary, and confectionery.

In the August 13, 1921, issue of The Florist Exchange (p. 347), a article recounting Cleveland’s floral history recorded that “on Saturdays, [Mr. Gasser] made up bouquets and boutonnieres of Roses from the garden of Mrs. Gasser’s mother. As a dancing school was located on the second floor [of his small store], Mrs. Gasser thought a few buttonhole bouquets would sell–from this very small beginning grew the large business of today. The first greenhouses were built in Rocky River in 1880. Then a range of glass was built on Lake Ave. in 1885. The store was continued on [Pearl] until 1883, when a store was opened on lower Euclid Ave. in connection with the Heyse & Weisgerber Co., who were leading caterers in those days. It was only a few years later before they felt able to use an entire store individually. They bought a lot and built on Euclid Ave., near Bond St. [East 4th], moving to their present location later. The business was incorporated in 1901. Meanwhile, new greenhouses were started in Rocky River hamlet on Wooster Road. Here the main crop of flowers was grown. Now the firm has 350,000 sq. ft. of glass, covering eight acres. They cut as many as 9,000 Roses, 10,000 Carnations, and 5,000 Lilies daily. In 1902, the Lake Ave. greenhouses were moved and rebuilt at Rockport place. The store is now on Euclid Ave., next to the Cleveland Trust Co.” Other sources record that the innovative Mr. Gasser was also the first florist in Cleveland to utilize delivery wagons for floral deliveries.

Mr. Gasser eventually established a separate wholesale business to supply other florists while also maintaining his retail floral shops. His success was great and his services were much in demand by the most discriminating clientele in Cleveland.

WOODCLIFF

The Cleveland Director Company’s 1886/87 Directory records that Mr. and Mrs. Gasser resided on Lake Avenue, making them amongst the earliest residents of the neighborhood. And, of course, we know from city maps, that his residence with the greenhouses was called Woodcliff.

Although we know that Senator Marcus A. Hanna hosted the “Wedding of the Century” in the Edgewater neighborhood in 1903, it is fair to say that Mr. Gasser hosted the first Grand Affair in the Edgewater Neighborhood. Specifically, in 1896, during the Centennial Celebrations for the City of Cleveland, the Society of American Florists held its twelfth annual convention in Cleveland during the month of August. The convention was quite a success, as recorded by The Official Report of the Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the City of Cleveland and the Settlement of the Western Reserve (1896), which stated:

“An excellent opportunity for the study of the beautiful was afforded to Centennial visitors by the grand Floral Exposition held during ” Floral Week,” in connection with the twelfth annual convention of the Society of American Florists. This exhibition was opened on Tuesday afternoon, August 18th, in the Central Armory. An extensive and varied botanical display was set forth in the main auditorium, plants and flowers having been brought from all parts of the country to compete for prizes. It was the largest exhibition ever given in Cleveland. The Armory was transformed into a conservatory in which floral beauties from the North, East, South and West vied with each other for honors. There were palms and ferns and mosses and shrubs in terraces and groups, lilies in cluster, roses, violets — flowers of every class and kind. The exhibition was divided into two departments, one being the main display under the auspices of the Cleveland Floral Society, and the other being a trade exhibit for which a large section of the hall was reserved. The convention headquarters were in Army and Navy Hall, in front of which was displayed the national flag of the society. The hall was elaborately decorated. Garlands of evergreen hung from the ceiling, banks of palms arose in the corners and windows, and the plat form was almost hidden in a profusion of plants and cut flowers.” [pp. 160-161]

Mr. and Mrs. Gasser did not hesitate to host their colleagues most graciously:

“Late in the afternoon of the first day the delegates, accompanied by their wives, set out for a trolley ride. There were five hundred in the party for which a specially chartered train of eight cars was provided. The cars were gorgeously decorated with flowers and were freely admired as they passed through the streets. The destination was Woodcliff, the home of Mr. J. M. Gasser, on Lake avenue, where the president’s reception was held. The guests, about five hundred in all, were cordially received by Mr. and Mrs. Gasser on their lawn — a floral park of great beauty — and the company was later photographed. Refreshments were served under a canopy on the lake front, and after this came dancing and other amusements. Fairy lamps and Japanese lanterns were hung over the grounds, making the effect after nightfall very pretty.” [p. 162]

Mr. Gasser was a member of the Republican party, the Knights of Pythias, the Clifton Club and the Chamber of Commerce. The Cleveland Blue Book 1907 indicates his daughter and her husband, James C. Pettee, lived with Mr. and Mrs. Gasser at Woodcliff.

Mr. Gasser died on March 12, 1908, in Flint, Michigan after several years of poor health. He was buried in Lake View Cemetery (Lot 11-30 BNE).

The Florist Exchange reported, in its March 28, 1908, (p 466), edition, the following, as a sad denouement to such an accomplished life:

An estate of $250,000 would be worth approximately $6,100,000 in 2017.

Mrs. Katherine F. Gasser died on September 20, 1921, and is buried beside him. His life exemplified one of service to his country as well as business acumen and success.

It cannot be controverted that, of all the men who lived in the Edgewater neighborhood during the Gilded Age, no other is more deserving of our respect and admiration than Mr. Joseph M Gasser. He volunteered for military service as a private to preserve the Union, fought in many major battles that we still remember by name today, and was severely wounded in service to his adopted country. He was industrious and innovative, building a business, not from inherited wealth, but from the fruit of his labor, a successful business that sustained his family while employing and sustaining others and their families. And there is no evidence in the record that he accomplished any of the foregoing while betraying any trust, exploiting any workman, or bankrupting any business.

Herman N. Matzen’s Edgewater Connection

One of the well-known gems of the neighborhood is the Richard Wagner statue located in Edgewater Park. It was commissioned in 1911 by the Goethe-Schiller Society, which selected the accomplished sculptor Herman N. Matzen to create the monument.

Mr. Matzen was born in Denmark on July 15, 1861. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin before permanently immigrating to the United States where, in 1884, he married Emma Hale.

In 1885, he began teaching design and sculpture at the Cleveland School of Art. After his wife Emma died, he married Blanche Dissette in 1908. He was a teacher at the Cleveland School of Art and head of the Department of Sculpture for decades, retiring in 1926. His students included such prominent figures as Max Kalish, Frank Wilcox, and Norman Bel Geddes. He died on April 22, 1938, and was buried in Lakeview Cemetery. The Edgewater community is fortunate to have one of his works in our midst.

Donald Rosenberg, writing for The Plain Dealer on August 19, 2012, in an article entitled, “Wagner statue in Edgewater Park Shows Cleveland’s devotion to titanic German composer,” described the statue as depicting the composer standing in long coat and beret, his left hand holding gloves and a document, which could be a score or one of his polemical writings.

In the article, Rosenberg shared that “[a]mong the prominent figures who have visited the statue is Siegfried Wagner, the composer’s son, who was in town with his wife, Winifred, in February 1924 to conduct a touring orchestra in a program titled ‘Music of Three Generations.’ Siegfried made the short pilgrimage to Edgewater Park, traipsing through snow to stand in front of his father’s monument and have his photo taken.”

Aside from the Wagner monument, some of the best known of Mr. Matzen’s works are the statue of Mayor Tom Johnson in Public Square (1916), the Thomas White memorial, the Moses and Pope Gregory IX statues on the exterior of the Cuyahoga County Courthouse, the Cain and Abel statues on the Painesville County Courthouse, and the Haserot memorial in Lake View Cemetery.

U.S. Senator M.A. Hanna: Part I

“Senator Hanna bought part of Twin Elms and made it famous. The McKinley election was planned in the famous summer house which finally fell over into the lake. Leonard C. Hanna built next door and we all became intimate friends.” – Jacob Bishop Perkins

In the late nineteenth century, Jacob Bishop Perkins (1854-1936) owned most of the land that is now the Edgewater Neighborhood and Edgewater Park. His holdings in Edgewater were known prosaically as Perkins’ Farm even though farming was never undertaken on the land. More poetically, his estate in Edgewater was known as Twin Elms. However, this article is not about Mr. Perkins or Twin Elms, rather, it is about the most famous resident of Edgewater, Marcus Alonzo Hanna, and his then equally famous estate, Glenmere.

Marcus Alonzo Hanna (1837-1904) was an extraordinary man who features prominently in Cleveland, Ohio, and American history. His careers were multiple, and his successes far outshone his failures. He was an industrialist, owner of the Westside Railway and its successors, publisher of the Cleveland Herald, Republican Party eminence, President William McKinley’s campaign manager, and twice elected U.S. Senator. He even, for a time, owned and operated the Euclid Avenue Opera House. His legacy was broad as he had a major role in the economic prosperity of Cleveland as a businessman, the election of President McKinley as a “political boss,” and the building of the Panama Canal as a senator.

Mr. Hanna was born on September 24, 1837, in Lisbon, Ohio. He moved to Cleveland in 1852, where he attended high school with John D. Rockefeller. On September 27, 1864, he married Charlotte Augusta Rhodes, in spite of the spirited disapproval of her father, prominent west side community leader, Democrat, and businessman Daniel Rhodes.

Originally, the couple resided with Mr. Rhodes in his Franklin Boulevard mansion, later moving to a small home on Prospect Street. After a series of unfortunate business setbacks left Mr. Hanna financially exhausted, he and his wife returned to Mr. Rhodes’ Franklin mansion and Mr. Hanna was brought into Mr. Rhodes’ business as a principal. Once Mr. Hanna became a principal in Mr. Rhodes’ company, he and the company prospered.

Jacob Bishop Perkins sold Mark and Charlotte Hanna a portion of Twin Elms on which they built a residence in 1889. They called their estate “Glenmere.” It is at Glenmere that they raised their daughter Ruth Hanna, who married Joseph Medill McCormick, owner of the Chicago Tribune and later a U.S. Senator. After Senator McCormick’s death, Ruth went on to marry U.S. Representative Albert Gallatin Sims. But Ruth Hanna, not one to merely be associated with politicians, was an able politician in her own right, having served as a U.S. Representative in Congress and being the first woman to be the nominee of the Republic Party for a U.S. Senate seat.

The Glenmere Estate

Charles Frederick Schweinfurth was the leading residential architect in Cleveland during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, responsible for more homes on Cleveland Millionaire Row on Euclid Avenue than any other architect. Naturally,

Mark Hanna engaged Mr. Schweinfurth to design and build Glenmere when he came to the Edgewater neighborhood at the invitation of Mr. Perkins.

In The Life and Works of Charles Frederick Schweinfurth – Cleveland Architect, R.A. Perry records the following about Glenmere:

“The most original “Shingle Style” residences of Schweinfurth’s early period were two summer homes designed for United States Senator Marcus A. Hanna and his brother Leonard. Both of the Hanna houses were completed in or around 1889 and were located … near the shores of Lake Erie. The Hanna designs reflected a horizontal emphasis which was new in Schweinfurth’s work, and both designs had two facades.”

“Glenmere,” the summer residence of Marcus A. Hanna, was probably the earlier of the two designs and was the more elaborate. On the south façade of “Glenmere” was a projecting carriage porch below an enlarged version of the “Shingle Style” Siamese gable, but decorated with contrasting stripes in imitation of English half-timber construction. The hexagonal cupola which had been used earlier on the Dellenbaugh and Nye designs also could be seen on the roof at “Glenmere.” At the south west end of the façade was a double tower motif which penetrated a boldly projecting gable in an unusually dramatic manner. It has not been possible to locate any prototypes for that feature which was apparently original.

The lake façade of “Glenmere” reflected a different character from the entrance façade. The main features of the lake or north façade were a wide porch supported on Tuscan columns, a second story loggia, and a number of gables, circular towers, and clustered chimneys which projected from the steep pitched roof.

“Glenmere” was the scene of many splendid parties and other social events in Cleveland, and its owner was an important figure in American history. The plan for “Glenmere” included a spacious entrance hall with a baluster screen pierced by an oval opening located in front of the staircase.

The dining room contained an elaborate mantel with a veined marble fireplace and the dining room included a classical-inspired mantle finished in white and gold which links Schweinfurth with the Colonial Revival style.

The interior decorations at “Glenmere” were the most elaborate since the Everett mansion of 1883. The Marcus Hanna residence was Schweinfurth’s largest “Shingle Style “design. The decidedly horizontal emphasis of the design and the use of decorative half-timber framing were the closest Schweinfurth ever came to the design of a Shavian manor house.

Sadly, Glenmere was demolished in the early 20th century. Fortunately, Glenmere was sufficiently famous that pictures of it appeared on contemporary postcards and it was featured in heavily photographed publications, including Inland Architect and News Record.

In the next article, we will talk about the campaign which won William McKinley the presidency of the United States, which was planned and largely executed at Glenmere, and Ruth Hanna’s “Wedding of the Century,” which was hosted at the Glenmere Estate and brought, among others, President Theodore Roosevelt to the Edgewater neighborhood on a sunny June day in 1903.

U.S. Senator M.A. Hanna: Part II

Previously, when discussing Edgewater’s most famous resident, U.S. Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna (1837-1904), I briefly noted that the Senator was, among other things, a Republican Party eminence and President William McKinley’s campaign manager. These abbreviated characterizations do not adequately capture the extraordinary role he played in both shaping modern American political campaigns and the critical role he played in securing William McKinley the presidency, which roles he played, in large part, from his Lake Avenue estate, Glenmere, during the summers and from his rented home in Thomasville, Georgia, during the winters.

Hanna’s first foray into national Republican politics occurred in 1880, when he created a businessman’s club that successfully raised money to cover Ohioan James A. Garfield’s personal expenses during the presidential campaign of 1880. In the next two presidential elections, Hanna actively supported Ohio Senator John Sherman’s attempts to win the Republican Party presidential nomination.

Finally, by 1896, Hanna retired from his business interests to dedicate himself to the election of Ohio Governor William McKinley to the presidency. Hanna’s affection and support for McKinley was reportedly related to Hanna’s admiration for McKinley’s integrity, loyalty, and scruples although McKinley’s opponents, including the newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst, fostered a narrative in which Hanna supported McKinley because McKinley was Hanna’s pliable puppet.

Hearst’s editorials often related a true story that hoped to firmly fix the narrative that Hanna had untoward influence over McKinley. The story ran thusly: “During the Panic of 1893, McKinley was presented with a bill for $100,000 to cover bad loans he had co-signed for a friend in Youngstown. Lacking anything near that kind of cash, McKinley planned to resign as governor and return to his law practice to pay the debt. When he informed Hanna, the Clevelander would have none of it. He quickly assembled a group of wealthy friends who retired the notes. McKinley and his wife put property in a trust to repay their benefactors, but no claims were ever filed.”

The image of Hanna as financier and McKinley as beholden beneficiary was driven home by in the Hearst newspapers by political cartoonist Homer Davenport, who depicted Hanna as “Dollar Mark,” a bloated character dressed in a suit covered with dollar signs. McKinley was usually drawn as a smaller child accompanying Dollar Mark. The attacks accusing McKinley of being a puppet of Hanna did not prevent McKinley from winning the White House in 1896.

Hanna, as noted earlier, often directed McKinley’s campaign from his “lake house” on Lake Avenue, a campaign which some have labeled the first modern American presidential campaign. Joseph Frolik, in writing about Hanna’s impact on American presidential campaigns, summarized the campaign thusly:

“Hanna worked his campaign magic without the aid of computers or the Internet or broadcast media, of course. Yet many of the practices that still define campaigning in the age of social media and micro-targeting were introduced or refined by Hanna during his political tour de force: the 1896 campaign to put William McKinley, his friend and fellow Ohioan, in the White House.”

He used polling techniques, albeit primitive ones, to monitor the pulse of the campaign, especially in states he thought could swing either way. He ordered the production of 200 million pamphlets, newspaper inserts and other pieces of literature – at a time when there were barely 14 million voters in the United States. Much of it was issue-oriented and targeted particular market segments such as German-Americans or “colored” voters. He dispatched 1,400 surrogate speakers to spread a unified GOP message, some of them toting newfangled devices to enthrall audiences with grainy moving pictures of McKinley. And, as Frolik further observed:

All of this innovation required boatloads of cash, and Hanna excelled at raising it. Before 1896, most presidential campaigns were run through the political parties and relied on tithes from patronage workers. Hanna had broken into politics in Cleveland by raising cash from his fellow businessmen to help elect President James Garfield in 1880, and 16 years later, he took the art of the ask national. He tapped not just the railroaders, but tycoons of every stripe, by stoking their fears of financial catastrophe if Bryan and his “free silver” platform prevailed. The result was a war chest that has been estimated at between $3.5 million and $10 million, in an era when newspapers sold for a penny. One of Hanna’s Cleveland Central High School classmates — a rather successful oilman named John D. Rockefeller – reportedly kicked in $250,000.

It was Hanna’s ability at raising, and agility at spending, campaign funds, in ways not heretofore seen, that caused Theodore Roosevelt to exclaim, in both astonishment and condemnation: “He has advertised McKinley as if he were a patent medicine!” Thomas Beer, in his analysis of the offense that Hanna had given to Roosevelt and many others, said the following: “He had made a President, and he had done it visibly. It is hard to forgive such realism.”

After McKinley was elected president, Hanna declined to seek a position in the President’s cabinet. Instead, consistent with Hanna’s wishes, the President appointed Senator John Sherman of Ohio as Secretary of State, which allowed Ohio’s governor to 

appoint Hanna as U.S. Senator for the remainder of Sherman’s Senate term. Hanna subsequently secured his election to a full-term in the U.S. Senate by the Ohio legislature in 1898. Hanna was re-elected to another term (1905-1911) in January 1904 by a legislative vote of 115–25. Unfortunately, Senator Hanna died on February 15, 1904 before that term commenced.

McKinley often visited Hanna in Cleveland and Cleveland has been characterized by some as the secondary center of McKinley’s presidency.

Those who want to know more about Hanna’s outsized impact on American political history can profitably consult any of a number of readily available sources. For instance, Joe Frolik, The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s former chief editorial writer, prepared a masterful account of the outsized role of Marcus Alonzo Hanna in both Republican party politics and the election campaigns of President William McKinley in his article, How Ohio made a president: Mark Hanna of Cleveland created modern politics in 1896 (October 16,2012). This article is online at http://www.cleveland.com/obituaries/index.ssf/2011/10/george_e_condon_chronicled_cle.html

Books which discuss Senator Hanna and his legacy, which are readily available and commended to your attention, include West of the Cuyahoga and Cleveland: the best kept secret. These works were written by George E. Condon (1916-2011), a reporter and columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer for over 40 years. Mr. Condon’s authorial style is highly engaging, reflecting both the depth of his knowledge of Cleveland’s history and his passion for that history. Another recommended work, perhaps less readily available, is Hanna, which was written by Thomas Beer (1889-1940), a highly reputed biographer, novelist, essayist, satirist, and author of short fiction.

A Brief History and Description of the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist

On November 11, 2013, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that a “key gateway site at Cleveland’s western edge could be redeveloped with a grocery store and other retailers, but that new investment requires the demolition of a long-vacant church that has eluded the wrecking ball since the early 1990s.” Of course, the referenced long-vacant church is the Edgewater community’s architecturally distinctive, historically landmarked Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist, which was constructed in 1926.

The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History records that General Erastus N. Bates began organizing the Christian Scientists in Cleveland. The Longyear Museum website, at https://www.longyear.org/exhibits-archives-media/historic-articles/the-front-rank/general-erastus-newton-bate s , records that General Bates “was introduced to it in 1886 when he attended a lecture by Hannah Larminie of Chicago. Bates began taking on healing cases that year, and in December he wrote his son:

“I am very busy now days and expect to open an office in the city soon. My success in all cases acute, or chronic, nervous or physical is remarkable so far. And I see no reason why it should not continue. When I say my success, I do not wish to imply that I am the healer, for I am only the instrument used by God in this work.”

General Bates began corresponding with Mrs. Eddy in 1887, took Primary class with her in 1888, then Normal class in 1889.

He was one of the few entrusted by Mrs. Eddy to teach at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and later he did much to establish the Cause in Kansas City and Cleveland. Looking back, he would with an overflowing heart tell the crowd at Pleasant View, “I owe all that I am and all that I have to Christian Science.” In praise of this steadfast soldier, Mrs. Eddy would later recall him with fondness as “one of God’s own noblemen.”

His efforts resulted in the founding of Cleveland’s First Church of Christ, Scientist, in 1891. Cleveland proved to be especially fertile ground for the message of the Christian Scientists as the “First Church” was quickly followed by the formation of congregations for the Second Church in 1901, the Third Church in 1903, the Fourth Church in 1914, and the Fifth Church in 1920.

The Fifth Church congregation held its first public services in a hall at West 65th and Detroit Avenue before moving into the Fifth Church building on Lake Avenue and West 117th Street in 1926. The Fifth Church congregation worshiped at the site until 1989. After the congregation moved, Rini-Rego Supermarkets acquired the property and, in turn, sold it to the City of Cleveland in 2002 for a token sum. The building has remained empty and unused since despite several development proposals over the years.

The building was designed by architect Frank W. Bail, who was born in Wellsville, Ohio in 1891. Mr. Bail received his Bachelor of Architecture from Columbia University in 1917. During World War I, he served as a lieutenant in the army. He was severely wounded during the war and spent two years in army hospitals. After the war, he came back to Cleveland where he was employed as assistant City architect. In 1922, he established the Frank W. Bail Company. He left Cleveland during the Great Depression, moving to Fort Myers, Florida. He died in April 1964.

Mr. Bail designed the distinctive structure in a neoclassical style with the primary mass of the building shaped as an octagon, topped with a large central dome and cupola. The building has a basement and main floor, both totaling 22,300 square feet with the central auditorium designed to seat 900 persons. The main entrance portico to the northwest served as the formal entrance lobby to the building. Low wings along the south and southwest sides of the building provided a secondary entrance and reading room space as well as access to the social hall in the basement. A mechanical room to the south east was demolished in approximately 1998.

The exterior walls are clad in sandstone with a small area of the one-story wing clad in brick. The sandstone was quarried in Birmingham, Erie County, Ohio. The stone on the drum beneath the dome was painted over with a yellowish coating in 1991. The dome is clad in Luduwici clay roof tiles. The lobby has walls and pillars faced with Saint Genevieve Golden Vein marble (limestone from the Grand Tower Formation), quarried in Missouri, and flooring of pink Tennessee marble (limestone from the Holston Formation), quarried in eastern Tennessee. Floor trim, bases of pillars, and balusters are a black limestone with white streaks (veins and stylolites), possibly from Europe. The front (west) hallway had wainscoting of Saint Genevieve Golden Vein, with a border of black limestone along its base. The Saint Genevieve marble in both the lobby and the front hallway contains large corals, including horn corals several centimeters in diameter and colonial forms that are composed of groups of many smaller cylindrical individuals.

Because the City of Cleveland designated the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist a landmark building in 1995, any demolition or development is subject to the approval of the Cleveland Landmarks Commission. In the meantime, it survives as the only remaining example of a classically domed structure on the west side of Cleveland.