Did You Know?

The Crown Building, now known as Courthouse Square, was constructed for the owners of Bailey's Department Store. Even though Bailey's is now defunct, the company introduced a novel concept in the 1920s by establishing east and west side branches. The forerunner to Bailey's was a small dry goods store opened by Lewis A. Bailey and Joseph W. Crothers at Ontario and Prospect Avenues in 1881. Levi Johnson, Cleveland's first permanent settler, built his family home (a stone mansion) at the corner of Water (W. 9th) and Lake Streets in 1843. This structure stood at that location until 1909. Cuddell and Richardson was Cleveland's most important and innovative architectural firm during the 1880's. They designed three buildings in the Warehouse District: Perry-Payne (1889), George Worthington (1882) and the Root-McBride and Bradley Building (1884-1885). The firm dissolved after the completion of Perry-Payne. The George Worthington Company was Cleveland's oldest business existing under its original name and one of the nation's leading hardware wholesalers and industrial distributors. The founder, George Worthington, founded the company in 1829 at the age of 16. Traveling from New York to Cleveland, Worthington stopped to watch the work on the Ohio and Erie Canal. Noting the lack of proper tools, Worthington borrowed $500 from his brother to purchase picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows. The company soon became the largest hardware business in the region, with annual sales of over $1 million. Prior to the construction of the Rockefeller Building which housed the offices of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil empire, the site at 614 Superior Avenue was occupied by the Weddell House, Cleveland's preeminent hotel. Five stories tall with two hundred rooms, the 1847 structure housed Cleveland's most distinguished guests, among them then President-elect Abraham Lincoln en route to his inauguration in Washington, D.C. Lincoln gave a speech to a sizable crowd from the second floor balcony on February 15, 1861.