Irishtown Bend Archeological District

Irishtown Bend is the name given to both a former Irish American neighborhood and a landform located on the Flats of the west bank of the Cuyahoga River in the city of Cleveland in the U.S. state of Ohio in the United States. The landform consists of a tight meander in the Cuyahoga River, and the steep hillside above this meander.

The neighborhood of Irish immigrants and Irish Americans emerged about 1830. Portions of the area became industrial in the late 1800s. By 1900, most Irish residents had left the area, and it became an Eastern European immigrant enclave. The neighborhood went into significant decline for several reasons, and what little remained of it was razed at the end of the 1950s.

No commercial or residential buildings existed at the site by the 1980s, when archeological digs began. In 1990, a portion of the site, known as the Irishtown Bend Archeological District, was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Beginning in 2006, efforts began to stabilize the soil of Irishtown Bend, preserve the archeological history of the site, and convert the area into a park.

Geology

During the Mesozoic Era and until the end of the Tertiary period of the Cenozoic Era, the preglacial Teays River and Dover River carved most of the ancient Cuyahoga River valley into the Devonian and Permian bedrock of Ohio. At least four major glacial periods covered Ohio in ice during the last two million years. The glaciers that swept over the land left behind unsorted till and sorted outwash. Between 25,000 and 14,000 years ago, the Wisconsin glaciation blocked the Dover River's northward flow. Water backed up, until it began to flow southward along the course of the ancestral Tuscarawas River. As the ice sheet retreated, it left behind a recessional moraine near Akron, Ohio. The ice sheet retreated further, then made a minor advance. This advance left behind another recessional moraine near Defiance, Ohio. These moraines acted like dams, trapping water between them. The ephemeral lakes that formed laid down extensive deposits of clay and silt. Streams flowing down the sides of the moraines left behind alluvial fans and deltas. This left the ancient Dover River valley buried beneath as much as of various types of soil. About 10,000 years ago, several streams joined together north of the Defiance moraine and eroded their way through the buried Dover River valley to Lake Erie. Headward erosion eventually breached both the Defiance and Akron moraines and tapped into the southward flowing Tuscarawas River. As water levels receded, the northward-flowing Cuyahoga separated from the Tuscarawas (which still flows southward to this day).

Irishtown Bend reflects the complex geology created over the last 252 million years. The Devonian shale bedrock of the area is overlain by of compact glacial till, followed by of stiff clay, of weak clay, of silt, of sand, and of fill dirt is , while at the top of the hill the shear strength is . Geological data indicate that the hill is sliding into the river at a rate of about per year.

Extensive fill dirt was placed on the slope from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. This increased pressure on the soil below, turning what had been a dormant or slow slide into an accelerated one. Regrading of the hillside occurred afterward, after which significant slope instability began.

Fault scarps (ranging in size from a few inches to several feet) exist at the top of the slope (where the slope meets the West Side Plateau) and along Franklin Avenue. Since about 2004, subsidence and the emergence of medium fault scarps have occurred along Riverbed Street to the water, indicating the failure of the toe of the slope (likely due to failure of 1950s-era bulkheads) and increased water in the soil. There is evidence that a failure plane exists about behind the surface of the hillside.

Emergence and disappearance of the neighborhood

The Irishtown Bend landform is located on the west bank of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio. It runs from Columbus Road downstream to the Detroit-Superior Bridge, a distance of about . It extends from the shore of the Cuyahoga River up the hill to Franklin Avenue and W. 25th Street. The summit of the west side plateau is roughly above the river.

Formation of the neighborhood

The Irishtown Bend neighborhood was part of a larger Irish enclave in Cleveland known as "the Angle". The other section of the Angle was bounded by W. 28th Street, Division Avenue, and the river. People of Irish descent first settled in Cleveland in large numbers about 1825. Most of the men had been workers on the Erie Canal, and as work on the canal ended they settled in Cleveland and moved their families to the small but growing town. Anti-Irish discrimination was strong, and the Irish were forced to settle on high ground along the shores of Lake Erie near the mouth of the Cuyahoga. This area, which later became known as Whiskey Island, was a peninsula which in 1827 was cut off by the creation of a new mouth of the Cuyahoga River. In the 1830s, the rapidly-expanding Cleveland economy had drawn more Irish to the area, doubling the size of the enclave and establishing "the Angle" as an adjunct to the Irish community on Whiskey Island.

Irishtown Bend emerged as a residential community for Irish immigrants in the 1850s after the Great Famine of Ireland caused a massive wave of Irish immigration to the United States. By 1870, 10 percent of Cleveland's 100,000 residents were Irish. Nearly all the residents of Irishtown Bend after 1850 were predominantly unskilled laborers. Eighty residential parcels were laid out by the city.

The shanty town myth

Irishtown Bend is frequently referred to in the press and popular histories as a " shanty town". Nelson J. Callahan and William F. Hickey, historians of Cleveland's Irish community, state that nearly all the homes in Irishtown Bend were "shanties" (shacks), their riverside ends built on stilts over the steep ground.

Archeological evidence from a Cleveland Museum of Natural History investigation in the 1980s indicates a starkly different picture of solidly built wood frame homes, built on level ground and many with concrete or stone foundations. The neighborhood was working class, not poor, and most homes were "1 or 2 story, single family, frame structures." One excavated structure (probably from the 1850s or 1860s) featured a look-out basement with walls of dressed sandstone and a brick floor. A poor widow's home (built prior to 1872) had a brick foundation and wood frame construction, and was two stories high. It also had two wood frame outbuildings, each with a foundation. A semi-skilled dockworker's home (built prior to 1852) exhibited a deep foundation and a false facade of commercially manufactured brick. A middle-class professional worker's house had a sandstone foundation and wood frame construction, and was two and a half stories high. The limited photographic evidence available also indicates a community of well-constructed homes on level ground. Descriptions of the area as a "shantytown" appear to be rooted in anti-Irish sentiment, rather than fact.

Shift to an Eastern European enclave

Between 1860 and 1880, the nature of Irishtown Bend had changed. Instead of Irish immigrants, most residents of the area were first-generation Irish Americans. Beginning in 1880, Irish residents were displaced by immigrants from Eastern Europe, primarily Hungarians. Although Irish Americans continued to own most of the land at Irishtown Bend, fully half the residents of the area were of Eastern European descent by 1900. By this time, Irish Americans still living in Irishtown Bend were skilled or semi-skilled workers, and the new immigrant residents of the neighborhood appear to have chosen the Bend as their new home because they, too, were skilled or semi-skilled. At its height, Irishtown Bend had 119 buildings, including 78 residences housing 138 families.

Abandonment and demolition

Beginning about 1898, Irishtown Bend began to be abandoned as residents moved into better homes elsewhere and strict national immigration limits meant there were few immigrants to replace them. A third of all residences had been demolished by 1912. Many more were vacant, and a number of temporary shacks were erected. The Lederer Terminal Warehouse opened at 1530 Riverbed about 1920.

A Hooverville grew up on the largely vacant Irishtown Bend in the 1930s. Most oral histories and written descriptions depicting housing here as a "shanty town" date to this period.

Only five homes still stood in the area in 1952, and all of these had long been vacant. A garage made of concrete block was built at Irishtown Bend between 1952 and 1954, but this appears to be the only new construction in several decades. What was left of Irishtown Bend was razed in the mid to late 1950s.

Other infrastructure at Irishtown Bend

Railroad and associated infrastructure

The Cleveland and Mahoning Railroad (C&M; later the Cleveland and Mahoning Valley Railroad) was founded in 1848 and authorized to build a line from Cleveland to Warren, Ohio, and then into Pennsylvania. The railroad intended to connect with the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad in Cleveland, but a crossing of the Cuyahoga was never effected. The Atlantic and Great Western Railroad leased the C&M in July 1863, and agreed to complete the line within the Cleveland city limits. Work on a new passenger depot at the Scranton Flats began in August 1863, and the tracks to the new depot were completed on November 4.

In March 1880, the Atlantic & Great Western emerged from bankruptcy as a new company, the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad (NYP&O). In the spring of 1886, the NYP&O extended the old C&M route in Cleveland by crossing the base of the Scranton Peninsula, curving around Irishtown Bend, and crossing "the Angle" to reach and then bridge the Old Ship Channel. Trains began running July 4. Docks were built on either side of Columbus Road on Irishtown Bend. The rail yards extended for nearly along the southwest bank of the Old Ship Channel, around Irishtown Bend, in Tremont, and east of Broadway Avenue in Cleveland's North Broadway and South Broadway neighborhoods. Docks were built just north of where the tracks curved westward to pass under Detroit Avenue.

The railroad built a new, steam-operated dock in 1912 near what is now the Detroit-Superior Bridge. It was designed by a local firm, Wellman Engineering. Traffic along the Cuyahoga River in this area was so extensive, the C&MV had a rail yard eight tracks wide along Irishtown Bend to accommodate it.

Bulkheading the Bend

The navigable Cuyahoga River in and near Cleveland has a number of exceptionally tight meanders. As Great Lakes freighters became increasingly larger near the end of the 1800s, these meanders became a hindrance to river traffic. The city of Cleveland the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked together over the next six decades to implement a plan to widen the river in a number of places, especially where the meanders were tight. Irishtown Bend was one of the key trouble spots. The first extensive cuts on the west bank of the river occurred in August 1940. Steel sheet bulkheads were driven vertically into the riverbed at the shoreline to help hold back the land above. The widening was only partially completed when World War II broke out and delayed completion of the project.

A 15-year postwar battle to win funding for completion of the river widening project finally concluded in the 1950s, and the west bank once more widened and bulkheaded in 1958.

Sewers, bridges, and public housing

Although records are scanty, a brick sewer was built along what is now Riverbed Street some time about 1900. In 1947, Cleveland sewer district engineers built a brick and concrete sewer tunnel known as the Westerly Low-Level Interceptor about below Riverbed Street. The tunnel was poorly designed, and constructed in an area known to be prone to subsidence.

In 1914, construction began on the Detroit-Superior Bridge at the north end of Irishtown Bend. The railroad tracks ran beneath one of the arches of the bridge. The railroad dock was moved upstream in 1917 to accommodate construction of the western abutments of the bridge.

In December 1959, the Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) purchased of land along the Irishtown Bend with the intent of building public housing on the site. The area encompassed by the purchase was bounded by Bridge Avenue, W. 25th Street, Detroit Avenue, and the railroad tracks. CMHA's 15-story Riverview Towers opened in January 1964. Another 15 three-story "garden apartments" were built around Riverview Towers between W. 25th Street, Bridge Avenue, and Franklin Avenue. Extensive fill dirt

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