Republican Justice Harold Hitz Burton served as Cleveland's 45th mayor from 1936 to 1940, U.S. Senator from Ohio from 1941 to 1945, and U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice from 1945 until his retirement in 1958 due to failing health. Burton was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, in 1888, and graduated from Bowdoin College and Harvard Law School. Law was Harold Burton's calling, and in his various practices he sought to uphold it as dispassionately as possible. Upon the United States' entry into World War I, he sought commission as an officer in the 361st Infantry of the 91st Division and achieved the rank of Captain by fall 1918. In his service he fought in Verdun during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, was awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre "for extraordinary heroism and gallantry in action," and was recognized by General John J. Pershing "for exceptionally meritorious and conspicuous services during the Argonne Offensive."
Following the resigning of his commission in 1919, Burton moved to Cleveland with his wife to practice corporate law in a local firm before forming his own firms: Cull, Burton & Laughlin and Andrews, Hadden & Burton. After a brief stint as Cuyahoga County Commander of the American Legion he was persuaded to join the world of politics by local Republican Party leader Maurice Maschke. In 1921, Cleveland constituents voted to create the position of City Manager, an individual to work closely with the city government to oversee city development and governance with the goal of eliminating party politics in the interest of the city's progress. Burton initially served under City Manager William R. Hopkins as City Law Director from 1930 to 1931, though some of his time in office was as interim City Director following the removal of Hopkins by the city council. The position of City Manager was eliminated in November 1931, thereby restoring the mayoralty. Burton later ran for the recreated position of Mayor in 1935 as an independent Republican seeking to oust the corrupt Harry L. Davis. By 1936 Cleveland had become rife with corruption in the form of gambling, racketeering, and protection rackets. Burton's desire to eliminate corruption led him to hire Eliot Ness as City Safety Director, tasking Ness with cleaning up the city.
As a mayor during the Great Depression, Burton benefited from a number of New Deal programs designed to put people back to work and rebuild the aging infrastructure of the city. One of the most successful and influential of these was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federal program that provided economic aid to workers and cities through construction projects and infrastructure renovations that often could not be afforded by the cities themselves. Cleveland's Memorial Shoreway, now a segment of Ohio State Route 2, was originally constructed to provide transit to the Great Lakes Exposition of 1936. This roadway was expanded using WPA funding to provide access to downtown Cleveland from the West Side as one of the nation's first limited-access expressways, with the majority of it completed in 1939. Mayor Burton worked closely with the WPA and its administrators to increase the funding given to Cleveland for its development. Under Burton and with federal assistance, Cleveland's unemployment declined from 125,000 persons to 75,000 using the almost $1.5 million that the WPA provided in relief funding to the city government each month. Following Burton's death, the Main Avenue Bridge, a segment of Memorial Shoreway, was later renamed the Harold H. Burton Memorial Bridge in his memory.
Harold Burton served as Mayor of Cleveland for only four years before pursuing election to the U.S. Senate, and he was ultimately appointed into the Supreme Court by Harry S. Truman in 1945. As an Associate Justice he later voted in favor of and helped produce unanimity in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, which can be considered the highlight of his career on the court.
Harold Burton served as a model soldier, Republican Mayor, and Associate Justice throughout his life, seeking only to do what he considered to be righteous and just. It is because of this that he left a very noncontroversial legacy, and as such has been somewhat ignored by history which remembers great and controversial figures alike.
]]>The four residential buildings (16 total units) that occupy the block bounded by Mornington Lane and East Overlook, Coventry and Edgehill Roads are a significant departure from the architectural flavor most people associate with Cleveland Heights. Built in the mid-1960s, the condominiums are vaguely Usonian, with the low roofs, open living areas and integrated furnishings favored by Frank Lloyd Wright. The homes are clearly a departure from the city's stylistic essence, but they are attractive, well-accepted neighbors in a district populated mainly by grand, early 20th-century residences.
The area was not always so accommodating or so eclectic. From 1909 to 1965, the 5.5-acre plot where the condominiums now stand was home to the Briggs estate, a European-style "castle" designed by famed architect Charles Schweinfurth. Although badly neglected and largely vacant in its later years, the structure was still considered by many to be a treasure worth saving. In the 1960s, unfortunately, there simply was no market for such an opulent, over-the-top abode. As a result, the massive stone building fell victim to the wrecker's ball following a nasty legal fight. The only structures remaining from the original estate are the wall and fence surrounding the property, a playhouse, a beautiful swimming pool and bath house, and a building that borders Mornington Lane, inside of which is a magnificent 60-foot-long ballroom.
How lavish was the Briggs castle? Built between 1906 and 1909, the Tudor-style colossus had 30 rooms, 30-inch outer walls, ten bathrooms (with tile imported from Italy), 15 hand-carved marble fireplaces, mahogany paneling, hand-blown leaded glass windows, two greenhouses, and imported English slate and tile. The house even contained a Bible room characterized by mosaic marble panels depicting biblical stories from Genesis to Revelation.
Perhaps more amazing than its architectural specs is the fact that this magnificent structure stood for less than 60 years. Moreover, its only resident owners (the Briggs family) occupied the home for less than 30 years (1909 to 1937). The home then was under- or un-used until its demise in the mid 1960s. Simply put, Dr. Charles Briggs, a wealthy physician and businessman, had created a behemoth that suited only him and his family. Despite its amazing luxury, the place was simply too large and too maintenance-intensive to attract other residents after Dr. Briggs' death in 1937.
After 1937, the Briggs estate plodded on as a rooming house. It was also a popular musical venue for the many years that widely beloved piano teacher Frieda Schumacher lived in the ballroom (1941 to 1964). Unfortunately, Ms. Schumacher's presence was one of the home's only bright spots during that period. The other tenants were mostly short-term renters, transients and squatters. By 1957, following numerous legal squabbles, only Ms. Schumacher and a few other people - notably Elisabeth Andersen Seaver Ness, the widow of famed lawman Eliot Ness - were allowed to stay.
Sadly, the truncated life of such a majestic property was not that unusual in Cleveland Heights, or anywhere for that matter. The inescapable reality is that, more often than not, homes of such gargantuan proportions belong to another age. A small percentage are lovingly maintained by resident owners with deep pockets, and creative reuse (e.g., bed & breakfasts or offices for non-profit agencies) saved some others. But in Cleveland Heights, a great many ultra-grand homes fell well short of the multi-century lifespan intended for them.
]]>Kingsbury Run refers to an area along the east side of Cleveland near Shaker Heights that stretched westward through Kinsman Avenue and down to the Cuyahoga River. It also included a natural watershed that runs through East 79th Street in Cleveland where natural creeks drain storm water into the Cuyahoga River from areas that are now known as Warrensville Heights and Maple Heights. The name Kingsbury Run comes from James Kingsbury, the first inhabitant of Newburgh (1797) and one of the earliest settlers of the Western Reserve area. In the late 1800s, the city commissioned a new sewer tunnel system project. This was constructed to pass through the Kingsbury Run area under Kinsman Avenue.
The Kingsbury Run stretch of land separated Cleveland from Newburgh and became an area for railroad traffic. Industry boomed in this area, including the crude oil refinery belonging to John D, Rockefeller and the oil and naphtha works of William Halsey Doan. The boom years, however, were followed by a wave of poverty. During the Great Depression, the industry began to collapse and Cleveland's workforce suffered. Minorities and immigrants were among the hardest hit. The groups that were affected the worst included African Americans, particularly those from the Cedar-Central area; a Hungarian community in Kinsman to the east of Cedar-Central; Czech and Slovak neighborhoods east of downtown along the lakefront; and Polish, Czech and Irish neighborhoods along the banks of the Cuyahoga River. Many of these displaced and out of work people took up residence in abandoned plots of land and formed communities of their own that became known as shantytowns. One of these types of settlement formed in Kingsbury Run.
The impoverished population of the area continued to grow into the late 1930s. A large wave of new residents moved in from other lakefront shantytowns as these were being removed by the city. It was during this time that Kingsbury Run grew to notoriety by being thrust into the spotlight as a crime scene. Many of the victims of the still unidentified Kingsbury Run Butcher were discovered in the shantytown. Hinting at the gruesome nature of the killings, the case soon became known as the Cleveland Torso Murders.
Beginning with the discovery of the first victim in September of 1934 thirteen people were brutally murdered over the course of four years. All of them were decapitated, some while they were still alive. The first victim was a woman determined to be in her mid-30s was never identified and was referred to as “The Lady of the Lake.” Though this killing was not first attributed to the serial killer at the time, it would be considered as the killer's first victim later in the investigation. In 1936 the recently appointed Cleveland Safety Director Eliot Ness was placed on the case.
In 1938, Cleveland safety director Eliot Ness ordered and conducted a raid of the area that resulted in the eviction of 300 squatters as well as the burning of at least 100 shanty homes. The murders continued until the last victim was discovered in August 1938, after which the murders simply ceased. The Torso Murders case remains unsolved. Two decades later, the city set out to redevelop Kingsbury Run into a low-income housing area as part of the Garden Valley federal urban renewal project. Constructed on a slag dump donated by Republic Steel, Garden Valley was emblematic of a national tendency in the 1950s to relegate renewal housing to marginal inner-city lands.
Kingsbury Run is still remembered today, mostly for a violent period of time in Cleveland history. When city government makes reference to this area, it is mostly to note the vast sewer system that runs through it.
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