Cleveland OH

Cleveland was named after General Moses Cleaveland, an investor in the company who led the survey of its land within Connecticut’s Western Reserve. The town was located along the eastern bank of the Cuyahoga River. In the early 1800’s, the Cleveland Advertiser dropped the “a” from Cleaveland, and the new spelling stuck to this day. 

During the late nineteenth century, Cleveland became an important industrial city. John D. Rockefeller and his partners began the Standard Oil Company in Cleveland during the 1860s. While around the same time, Samuel Mather began steel production. In 1880, twenty-eight percent of Cleveland’s workforce found work in the steel mills. During the Great Depression, both the steel and oil companies endured difficult financial times which resulted in laying off large numbers of workers. By 1933, roughly one-third of Cleveland’s workers were unemployed during the third full year of the Great Depression.

Just over three decades later, Cleveland became the first city since the Great Depression to default on its financial obligations. At that point, the city was more than thirty million dollars in debt. Cleveland remained in default until 1987.