Cleveland Heights history is alive
and well in Lake View Cemetery. Well known for its hilly, manicured
landscape, Lake View is one of the country's finest examples of
a cemetery landscaped to the Victorian Romantic ideal. Graced by
monuments of famous and humble Clevelanders, it encompasses a significant
Lake View Cemetery vista in 1917.
The Rockefeller-endowed Alta House is visible in background.
variety of carved monuments and burial chapels,
Garfield Monument and (classical revival) Wade Chapel, with original Tiffany
windows. The Cemetery's landscape designer, Adolph Strauch, was nationally
known for designing cemeteries in the Romantic ideal, with lush plantings,
open lawns, and gracefully curved pathways.
Lake View began with the formation of The Lake View Cemetery Association
in July 1869. Industrialist Jeptha Wade (founder of Western Union Telegraph
and donor of the land upon which the Cleveland Museum of Art now sits),
was the Association's first president. The Cemetery's original 200 acres
were purchased for $73,000. It now encompasses 280 acres in Cleveland
Heights, East Cleveland, and Cleveland.
Clevelanders quickly
came to appreciate the natural setting of Lake View, which became
"the" place to visit on Sunday outings. When George H.
Keller's competition-winning Garfield monument opened on Memorial
Day of 1890, it was so popular that, by the next year, separate
admission tickets had to be issued to lot holders and the public.
As Lake View matured, its architectural and historic presence complemented
its natural setting, and many esteemed Clevelanders (including Leonard
Case Sr., and Jr.) were reinterred. A number of people that either
lived in Cleveland Heights or affected its development are buried
in Lake View Cemetery. They include John D. Rockefeller (a former
Cemetery trustee), Oris and
Mantis Van Sweringen (who developed much of Fairmount Boulevard's historic
mile between Coventry and Lee Roads), Dr. George Crile (founder of the
Cleveland Clinic), and Myron T. Herrick (former Governor and ambassador
to France).
Prior to James Garfield's burial, federal troops
were assigned to guard his body (1881).
Not all of the "residents"
of Lake View were prominent Cleveland/Cleveland Heights citizens:
near the Euclid Avenue entrance is a monument to, and mass grave
for, the 169 pupils who perished in the tragic Collinwood School
Fire in 1908.
Lake View work truck, ca. 1930
This text was excerpted
from "The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History," published by Indiana
University Press, 1987, and the "Cleveland Heights Landmark Register,"
produced by the Department of Planning and Development, City of Cleveland
Heights.
