Cuyahoga Valley is a

neighborhood A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neigh ...

on the Central and South Side of

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

, located along the

Cuyahoga River The Cuyahoga River (see ) is a river located in Northeast Ohio that bisects the City of Cleveland and feeds into Lake Erie. As Cleveland emerged as a major manufacturing center, the river became heavily affected by industrial pollution, so mu ...

. Formerly known as Industrial Valley, the neighborhood was originally limited to only one section of the geographic Cuyahoga River Valley, but the city expanded it in 2012 to include the entire valley area. The present neighborhood includes

the Flats The Flats is a mixed-use industrial, recreational, entertainment, and residential area of the Cuyahoga Valley neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. The name reflects its low-lying topography on the banks of the Cuyahoga River. History Early ...

and extends from the peninsula of Whiskey Island on

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( ) is the fourth-largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and also has the shortest avera ...

in the north to the borders of the suburbs of Newburgh Heights and Cuyahoga Heights in the south. To the east, it borders

Downtown Cleveland Downtown Cleveland is the central business district of Cleveland, Ohio, United States. The economic and cultural center of the city and the Cleveland metropolitan area, it is Cleveland's oldest district, with its Public Square, Cleveland, Publi ...

and the neighborhoods of Broadway–Slavic Village and Central. To the west, it borders the neighborhoods of

Detroit–Shoreway Detroit–Shoreway is a neighborhood on the West Side of Cleveland, in the U.S. state of Ohio. Detroit–Shoreway consists of the streets between Lake Erie and Interstate 90, from West 85th to West 45th streets.Ohio City, Tremont, and

Brooklyn Centre Brooklyn Centre is a neighborhood on the West Side of Cleveland, Ohio. It borders Old Brooklyn to the south, Stockyards, Clark–Fulton, and Tremont to the north, and the Cuyahoga Valley and the suburb of Cuyahoga Heights to the east. H ...

History

Cuyahoga Valley emerged on what was once part of Cleveland Township, which the city annexed in 1850 and quickly developed into the heart of one of the nation's leading industrial centers. Several factors, including close proximity to

and the eastern bank of the

being the terminus of the Ohio & Erie Canal, led to the rapid rise of Cuyahoga Valley's manufacturing output.Encyclopedia of Cleveland History:INDUSTRY
/ref> The iron industry (which would eventually grow into the steelmaking industry in the 20th century) rapidly grew during the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

era, as coal from

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

and iron ore from the

Lake Superior Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. Lake Michigan–Huron has a larger combined surface area than Superior, but is normally considered tw ...

region arrived at the centralized location along the river. By the 1870s, local industrial baron

John D. Rockefeller John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was one of the List of richest Americans in history, wealthiest Americans of all time and one of the richest people in modern hist ...

of the Standard Oil Company had built his oil refineries in Cuyahoga Valley. The Grasselli Chemical Company (now part of

DuPont Dupont, DuPont, Du Pont, duPont, or du Pont may refer to: People * Dupont (surname) Dupont, also spelled as DuPont, duPont, Du Pont, or du Pont is a French surname meaning "of the bridge", historically indicating that the holder of the surname re ...

) soon followed Rockefeller, whose refineries used much of the

sulfuric acid Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen, ...

produced by Grasselli's plant. By 1901, local foundries of the Otis Iron & Steel Company and the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company merged with the newly established

US Steel The United States Steel Corporation is an American steel company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It maintains production facilities at several additional locations in the U.S. and Central Europe. The company produces and sells steel products, ...

. One of US Steel's subsidiaries, American Steel & Wire, made Cleveland the "wire capital" of the United States. The neighborhood also saw the arrivals of companies such as LTV Steel and

Republic Steel Republic Steel is a Mexican steel manufacturer that was once America’s third largest steel producer. It was founded as the Republic Iron and Steel Company in Youngstown, Ohio in 1899. After rising to prominence during the early 20th Century, ...

. Production peaked in the 1950s when Cleveland ranked third nationwide in

steelmaking Steelmaking is the process of producing steel from iron ore and/or scrap. Steel has been made for millennia, and was commercialized on a massive scale in the 1850s and 1860s, using the Bessemer process, Bessemer and open hearth furnace, Siemens-M ...

and fourth in processed metal products. Until sea changes in nationwide manufacturing trends of the 1970s and 80s, Cuyahoga Valley remained at the heart of an industrial powerhouse. The recession of the early 80s witnessed LTV, Republic and US Steel all closing, relocating or merging operations, which led to massive unemployment numbers in the Cleveland area. Although still a prominent industry in the 21st century, steel plays a much smaller role in the neighborhood than it once did.

The Flats

The Cuyahoga Valley neighborhood also encompasses Cleveland's Flats. Historically home to much of the city's steel industry, today it is a mixed-use portion area. During the mid-1980s, the Flats grew to be an entertainment district. Music venues and clubs appeared on both the East Bank and West Bank, though, as evidenced by the decline of the East Bank in the late 90s, the other side of the river proved to be the more commercially viable development. A combination of factors, including compliance issues with city health and fire code and an elevated crime rate, coupled with the rise of the Warehouse District, proved to be the demise of much of the entertainment district. Private developers such as Scott Wolstein and the now-defunct Flats Oxbow Association have helped plan and redevelop the Flats through housing developments, which include new construction as well as renovated warehouse spaces, on both sides of the river.Scott Wolstein stepping down as executive chairman of Developers Diversified , cleveland.com
/ref>

References

{{coord, 41, 29, N, 81, 40, W, display=title Neighborhoods in Cleveland Economy of Cleveland Steel industry of the United States