The Wade Park District is an historic district on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

, located in the

University Circle University Circle is a district in the neighborhood of University on the East Side of Cleveland, Ohio. One of America's densest concentrations of cultural attractions and performing arts venues, it includes such world-class institutions as the C ...

neighborhood on the east side of

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. The district, which covers roughly 650 acres, is bounded by Chester Avenue and Euclid Avenue (which converge in a triangle) on the south, East Boulevard to the east and E. 105th Street to the west. The district, which includes seven separate buildings, features several of the city's cultural institutions, as well as the park of the same name.

History

Jeptha Wade Jeptha Homer Wade (August 11, 1811 – August 9, 1890) was an American industrialist, philanthropist, and one of the founding members of Western Union Telegraph. Wade was born in Romulus, New York, the youngest of nine children of Jeptha and Sara ...

arrived in Cleveland in the 1850s, already having amassed part of his fortune in the

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

industry, and proceeded to become one of the city's wealthiest residents by expanding his holdings into the industries of steel and

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Becau ...

. Like Marcus Hanna,

John D Rockefeller John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He has been widely considered List of richest Americans in history, the wealthiest American of all time and the List of wealthi ...

and John Severance, his contemporaries along Euclid Avenue's ' Millionaire's Row', Wade used his industrial wealth to endow cultural and educational institutions."Wade, Jeptha Homer I"
The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. July 23, 1997. Accessed July 10, 2011. In 1882, he donated of land east of the city for the purpose of creating a park, which was named in his honor. Today, the bequeathed Wade property serves as the campus for some of Cleveland's best-known tourist attractions.

Wade Park

While not part of the NRHP listing, Wade Park was constructed from land donated by Jeptha Wade, who expressly intended part of it as the location for an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily con ...

. Today, the most prominent features of Wade Park are the

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

and the adjacent Wade Park Lagoon, both of which sit at the park's main entrance at southern tip of the historic district.

Attractions

*Cleveland Museum of Art * Cleveland Botanical Gardens *

Cleveland Institute of Art The Cleveland Institute of Art, previously Cleveland School of Art, is a private college focused on art and design and located in Cleveland, Ohio. History The college was founded in 1882 as the Western Reserve School of Design for Women, at fir ...

Cleveland Institute of Music The Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM) is a private music conservatory in Cleveland, Ohio. Founded in 1920 by Ernest Bloch, it enrolls 325 students in the conservatory and approximately 1,500 students in the preparatory and continuing educatio ...

* Severance Hall *

Cleveland Museum of Natural History The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum located approximately five miles (8 km) east of downtown Cleveland, Ohio in University Circle, a 550-acre (220 ha) concentration of educational, cultural and medical instit ...

Western Reserve Historical Society The Western Reserve Historical Society (WRHS) is a historical society in Cleveland, Ohio. The society operates the Cleveland History Center, a collection of museums in University Circle. The society was founded in 1867, making it the oldest cul ...

Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum The Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum is a transportation museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is part of the Western Reserve Historical Society's Cleveland History Center in University Circle, and its collection includes about 170 cars. It ...

*Epworth Euclid Church

References

{{National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places in Cleveland, Ohio Historic districts in Cleveland Tourist attractions in Cleveland University Circle