Markets

Cleveland has quite the history of markets, both publicly and privately owned.  Below is a list and their date of founding.

1829 - Ontario Street, south of Public Square.

By 1836 - Food Market at Superior Street at the Canal Basin.

By 1836 - Wood Market at Public Square and Ontario.

By 1836 - Wood Market at Superior and Water Street (E. 9th).

1836-1857 - Franklin Circle in what is Ohio City today.  This market was moved to Ann and Clinton Streets.

1839 - Michigan Street Market.  Michigan Street was two streets south of public square on the west side of Ontario.  The market stood where the Terminal Tower complex is now, behind the Higbee/Dillards Store. 

1857-1859 - West Side Market at Ann and Clinton Streets.

1858 - First Central Market on Pittsburgh Street (Broadway)  It was at the intersection of Ontario, Broadway, Kinsman and Woodland Streets.  This replaced the Michigan Street market.   However the farmers at the Michigan Street market were not pleased that this market was in an "out of the way" location and they wanted to remain at Michigan Street Market.  Eventually they capitulated.

1859 - Market Square - at the northwest corner of Lorain and Pearl aka W. 25th.  A wooden structure was built here in 1868.

1867-1949 - Second Central Market on Ontario between Bolivar and Eagle Streets.   This market burned down in 1949.

1879-1963 - Newburgh Market (aka Broadway Market) at Broadway and Canton.

1891-1936 - Sheriff Street Market (privately owned) - On Sheriff St. (later E. 4th) between Huron and Bolivar.  (Currently Gund Arena)

1912 - New Westside Market was built across the street from Market Square.  The Westside Market is still in operation in 2014 and stands at the northeast corner of Lorain and Pearl aka W. 25th.

1915 - Euclid Avenue Market.

1929 - Northern Ohio Food Terminal on Woodland.

1932 - East Cleveland Farmer's Market at Coit and Woodworth.

1941 - E. 105th Street Market.

1950-1988 - New Central Market - the tenants from the second Central Market that burned down in 1949 reopened the old Sheriff Street Market and named it the New Central Market.  This market was torn down for the Gateway Complex (Gund Arena).  

Central Market in the 1920s

Central Market 1932

Central Market 1939

Central Market 

(The Sheriff Street Market is the building with the four domes)

Central Market 1940 from the Cleveland Press

Sheriff Street Market

West Side Market

CLEVELAND’S MARKETS

A NINE PART SERIES

Cleveland’s First Markets

By S.J. Kelly

March 20, 1944 Plain Dealer

Cleveland’s market houses date back 115 years, 1829.  Ten years before there were markets but no market house.  Farmers came to the village with meat, hams, pork, wheat, oats, butter, maple sugar and other produce to sell at eastern market prices.  In the winter of 1822 (population about 200 souls) market quotations were:

Wheat 37 ½ cents; rye 31; corn 25; oats 18 ¼; peas 44; beans 50; and flaxseed 50 cents per bushel; butter 8 to 10 cents per pound; cheese 4 cents; pork 2 to 3 ½ cents; beef 3 to 4 cents per pound; tallow 8 cents a pound; wool 30 cents a pound.  A ton of hay cost $6 and whiskey was 20 cents per gallon.

Farmers stopped on the streets, particularly Ontario, planted trays beside their carts and sold without licensing.  Stalls were built “down the hill” and “near the river” on Eagle Street hill or along Central Way.  The earliest market was on Ontario south of the Square.  The Central Market site was a suitable spot for 15 years after the village incorporated.  Seventy percent of the villagers had their own gardens and farmers hawked their stuff at unbelievable prices. 

Meat wagons drove from house to house selling beef, mutton, and pork.  From 1814 until 1828, these low rates on farm produce continued.  Farmers stood for hours in the market or drove through the town as hucksters with scarcely a customer.  No record of a market house if found, nor does it appear that any ordinance governed sales.  Hay wagons grouped about at the market, and grain prices were at low levels.

The first market house was built in the summer of 1829.  Its location remains undetermined.  It was on Ontario Street, and history refers to it as if everybody knew where.  It was probably where the Central Market stands.  It was said to have been built on land owned by the Walworth family, and the ground about the present market, long known as Central Place, was part of their farm.  On December 24, it was announced that market stalls would be auctioned during the first week in January, 1830.

Cleveland First Markets

By S.J. Kelly

March 22, 1944 Plain Dealer

James Ross, a Bank Street meat dealer, was among the first to occupy a stall in the first Cleveland market house on Ontario Street.  On January 7, 1830, he announced that he had rented his stall.  This was two days before they were offered at public sale.  He states that “morning visits of his cart to homes will be discontinued, but that fresh meats of every kind will be sold by him at the market until 10 a.m. every morning, and that orders of customers will be delivered at their dwellings free.”

On January 9, the first public sale of stalls was held – the market house filled rapidly.  On January 12, 1830, village trustees passed their first recorded ordinance for its regulation, signed by Dr. David Long, town president, and Recorder Dave Beardsley.

Cleveland had 1,075 inhabitants and prices had risen slightly on some staples.  Wheat had reached 62 cents a bushel; fine flour $4 per barrel; corn remained low at 31 and oats were down to 20 cents a bushel.  Flaxseed soared to 70 while butter remained at 10 cents.  Pork lard sold for 6 cents, and beeswax for 20 cents a pound.  Some special beans had crept up to 62 cents a bushel, and whiskey advanced to 23 and 25 cents a gallon.  For a year or more such prices continued, then there was a rise in some necessities.  Fine flour was quoted at $5.25.  The best whiskey reached 37 cents a gallon.

By 1834, a lower market was established.  The canal ran boats south to Portsmouth on the Ohio.  Shipments north of beef, mutton, and pork were greatly augmented.  The “lower” market is supposed to have been a meat market near the Canal Basin, southwest of the present Erie Depot.  When it was established, the village licensed meat shops on the river and up the side hill.  Farmers were permitted to trade in any part of the town after 10:00 in the morning.

The sale of stalls in both markets was set for the same day in April.  J.L. Conger succeeded Beardsley as recorder controlling markets, and O.B. Skinner had followed him.  By 1836, there were four markets in a city of 5,080 inhabitants, but one at the Superior Street end of Water Street and the other on the Square near Ontario Street sold wood.

The Michigan Street Market

By S.J. Kelly

March 24, 1944 Plain Dealer

In January, 1838, a movement was started for a new market house.  Ten years before plans for the first one on Ontario Street were commenced, and it had been occupied for eight years.  It was argued that the Reserve paid too little attention to marketing and that the market house was a poor apology, reflecting little credit upon Cleveland.

With the spring of 1839, demands for regular market days became insistent.  The Council appointed a building committee, proposals for a new structure were closed on May 29, and soon after, work of building commenced.  The site was the center of Michigan Street where it joins Ontario.  Michigan Street (Prospect Avenue N.W.), was 99 feet wide; the new market was 30 by 100 feet, facing Ontario on its building line and running its length westward.

Without the sidewalks on Michigan Street, a roadway about 25 feet wide ran on either side of the market.  Behind it across a narrow alley were general buildings.  The west half was leased for butcher stalls on November 28, leases to run until May 1, 1840.  L.D. Johnson was market clerk.  Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays were market days starting a half hour before sunrise.  None might peddle vegetables or provisions throughout the city during market hours.

So great was the traffic of farmers’ hay wagons that first summer, that posts were planted around the buildings on narrow Michigan Street.  Ten years after the opening, need was evidenced for a larger building.  But the Michigan Street Market functioned for 17 years before a larger one arose on Ontario Street.  Even then, marketmen clung to the quaint building until the law forced them to move to the more pretentious structure to the west.

Cleveland’s Old Market House

By S.J. Kelly

March 29, 1944 Plain Dealer

When was the present Central Market built and when opened?  Histories of Cleveland have it that the land was bought in 1856, and the market house was soon completed.  The facts are that the Council passed a resolution to buy the ground a year before; surveys were made in the spring of 1856, land was cleared and all incumbrances removed by fall; grading and improvement followed; and on October 28, the city agreed to buy the tract for $1,500.

But work on the market house was not begun in the spring of 1857 as had been announced.  Wide opposition to leaving the old market on Michigan Street developed among market men and gardeners.  The new site on Ontario Street, starting with the south side of Bolivar Road and extending to the sharp junction of Kinsman (Woodland) and Broadway, was pronounced uncomfortable and out-of-the-way.  Fanned by certain newspapers, the stand taken by renters in the old market developed into wide opposition.

Although in the score of years that the market had been in the center of Michigan Street, facing Ontario, (its location was just back of the present Higbee Co.’s store), and the building with its projected wood awnings obstructed farm wagons, it was declared to be the place for marketing.  There were rough stalls along the sidewalks on Michigan Street and down its row of dismantled homes and three days of marketing each week filled the street with rubbish and waste produce.  Loads of hay could scarcely sweep through the narrow passages.  Farmers drove into the street with big trucks, and attached themselves to market by standing rows on Ontario Street. 

Stalls were put up along the sidewalk and occupied.  Prospect Street eastward for a block was much the same.  On market days, the section swarmed with crowds until long after closing time.  Every ordinance to have standing wagons removed from the nearby streets resulted in defeat.  Market men declared they would not move to the new location.  The situation became a deadlock because no new market house was built on Ontario Street in 1857.

Cleveland’s Old Market Houses

By S.J. Kelly

March 31, 1944 Plain Dealer

War between the City Council and marketmen, butchers, stall keepers, and farmer peddlers was waged merrily over shutting down the Michigan Street market and moving all of these activities to a new site on Ontario Street.  The struggle went on through 1857 and into 1858, resulting in a deadlock.  No Central Market was built on the new grounds.  Newspapers continued to attack the project.  Early in 1858, it was pointed out that no shed, stall, or cover had been built, nor was there a sidewalk in the district.  It was claimed that the Council was driving marketmen and marketgoers to a dreary, shelterless district.  It was urged that the plan be abandoned before more money was wasted; the market never would be satisfactory and could not succeed. 

But the Council discovered a way to circumvent this opposition and provide a central market house near Broadway and Woodland.  It was accomplished in one fell swoop compelling renters to move or be left out in the cold.  On April 27, 1858, they ordered the Michigan Street Market House torn down, removed to the new site, and rebuilt there.  Many butchers refused to transfer.  Gardeners arranged to occupy a cottage once the home of John W. Willey, the first mayor, and adjacent lots on Michigan Street.  The Boardman Market, a lot at Erie and York Streets, offered free space to farmers and hucksters.  As late as October 2 that year, Central Market House stood solitary and deserted “on the bank of the Cuyahoga,” as the location was described, although it stood where it stands today.  And this was three years after the Council’s resolution to purchases the new site.

Cleveland’s Old Market Houses

By S.J. Kelly

April 3, 1944 Plain Dealer

As late as the first of October, 1858, newspapers continued to term the Central Market a public folly, urging its abandonment as a city enterprise.  Moving the building from Michigan Street far out on Ontario at Broadway was squandering the people’s money, they asserted.  But the Council passed a resolution offering the new market stalls for 50 cents a week, and late that fall the building slowly started to fill.  Papers continued their nagging.  The weather was stormy and blustering.  Roads were muddy and traffic was difficult.  As a last fling, they urged that market wagons about Central Market quit the locality and occupy Prospect as far as East 4th Street.  They contended that this would be a great convenience, far preferable to “crowding the gutters of Broadway.”  It was evident in this long, bitter fight that a clique was organized to destroy the enterprise.  It was attacked from the start.  The Council proceeded slowly and candidly.  Each ordinance from purchase of site to removal of the building was legal.  Yet the project met with violent opposition.

But new Central Market had its friends.  The Workingmen’s Union joined the ranks of those favoring it, and held meetings in the old Court House (still on the southwest corner of Public Square) and at National Hall.  Resolutions were passed demanding abolishment of a monopoly granted market men in selling meat.  The ordinance prohibited its sale in markets except in certain quantities, and imposed other restrictions, obnoxious to the small buyer.  A petition was presented to the Council signed by 1,028 working men.  The ordinance was annulled and a new one allowed buyers to purchase less than a quarter of beef or mutton.  Attempts to prohibit wagons from standing in rows in downtown streets had failed.  And the following year of 1859 saw renewed attacks upon the Central Market.

Cleveland’s Old Market Houses

By S.J. Kelly

April 4, 1944 Plain Dealer

War over removal of the Michigan Street Market out Ontario Street and the establishing of a new Central Market continued into 1859.  One newspaper continued to campaign against it, although general opposition had narrowed down to the disputed right of farmers to form long rows of wagons on Ontario and other streets for days at a time in selling their produce.

Central Market was a going institution with stalls rapidly filling.  The site ran from the south side of Bolivar Road, out Ontario Street more than 700 feet to Woodland and Broadway.  The plot was a narrow oblong, and the old Michigan Street market was rebuilt at its north end.  The junction of Bolivar Road was left open as it is now, but a row of posts was planted around the southeast corner and Sheriff Street to prevent wagons from running over other property.

On February 1, 1859, the Council provided that not more than 12 teams could stand at any one time upon public grounds for marketing.  This aroused the opposition and farmer, hucksters, and gardeners were encouraged to believe that they had a right to obstruct streets, alleys, and public grounds.  Councilmen who had voted for the ordinance were held up to ridicule.  On February 19, Police Judge Vail ruled that no arrests could be made.  The contention continued until late in the fall.  Marshal James A. Craw and his police had a hard time in preventing entanglement of teams that crowded Ontario Street, alleys, and surrounding highways.

On December 6, the Council passed a comprehensive ordinance to “regulate markets and market teams,” and establish market places.  It provided that the Central Market ground be set apart for market purposes, sale of meats, vegetables, and other provisions; all persons having charge of any wagon or cart with market stuff, “shall stand upon such market place;” it prohibited the occupation of any street or other public ground unless dedicated by the Council for market purposes.

Cleveland’s Old Market Houses

By S.J. Kelly

April 5, 1944 Plain Dealer

The new ordinance, passed the first week of December, 1859, compelling all market wagons to remain on Central Market grounds, found renewed opposition from market men who opposed the market’s removal from Michigan to Ontario near Broadway.  Edward Kingsley called an open meeting at his home on Orange Street.  Commission Merchant Henry Moore presided and resolutions were adopted declaring there was no demand for a new market, and that Central Market site was unsuitable.  All promised to work for the Ontario marketplace.  A committee was appointed to raise funds, call other meetings, and take any action necessary.

So, the attacks started again with opposition to any attempt by Council to restrict street sales.  On December 20, Marshal Craw and two policemen cleared Ontario of its vendors for marketing in violation of the new ordinance.  John McQuirk and Michael Shealy were arrested.  Three days before, Thomas and Robert Tibbitts, Brunswick farmers, had been arrested in a test case.  Probate Judge Daniel Tilden delivered a lengthy opinion, holding that there was nothing to prevent street sales.  If the council intended any such thing, it was a “direct violation of the organic law under which the city exists.”  He read an overlooked passage in the ordinance “that nothing in this ordinance shall prohibit any farmers or producers from selling their produce at any time upon any street or streets of this city.”  This contradicted the entire purpose of the ordinance.  McQuirk and Shealy were discharged, and on December 24, the Tibbetts were released without hearing.  They declared their intention of continuing the sale of meat and vegetables.

For a time, this antagonism continued, but gradually it died away.  For a while it was proposed to use the roadway around Public Squire for a market, keeping the sidewalks clear for buyers.  Until 1859, Central Market House with its 20 rented stalls was referred to as “a banquet hall deserted.”  But the ordinance was revised and gradually the place became a marketing center.

Cleveland’s Old Market Houses

By S.J. Kelly

April 10, 1944 Plain Dealer

Ten years after Michigan Street Market moved to Woodland and Broadway to become Central Market, a new one was built on the site.  A new structure was discussed for five years, and through the early ‘60s, the stubborn opposition continued.  Farmers’ wagons filled Ontario and neighboring streets.  Hucksters raced to Central Market before dawn, bought the best vegetables, fish, and meat, and peddled their wares to housewives.

Council was petitioned to make Ontario a legalized market place.  Some shopkeepers asked that peddlers’ wagons stand before their stores.  A City Hall with a municipally owned market was proposed on a downtown site.  Every scheme to cripple the market was employed.

Gradually the ordinance was revised.  Cases were tried, opposition faded, and the Council finally controlled.  Stallkeepers were first allowed to cut windows and doors to facilitate business.  In 1862, Council spent $350 for stalls on its west side.  Next year a new market house was decided upon – a much larger building, lighted by gas with many improvements and extended grounds.

On August 20, 1866, work started on the new Central Market.  It occupied the site of today, and from a rough sketch of the time, seems to have had the same width and about the same length.  Laefler & Zaeter contracted to build it for $18,700.  Smith & Crosby were warded the lighting fixtures and water piping.  It was to have a coffee room, and Jo Tomlinson built more than 100 stalls for fish, meat, and vegetables.  Buckley & Son paved the floor with flags from the Newburgh quarries of Loveday & Doolittle.

Nearly 13 months later, on September 14, 1867, the new Central Market was ready for occupancy.  That group which had opposed it, terming it a nuisance, a disgrace to the city, and a waste of taxpayers’ money, were first to “hail with delight” its completion; and it was further announced that this event had been “anxiously looked forward to by those whose lot it is to do marketing.”