Lakewood Lore

He crafted 'necklace' that adorns Greater Cleveland

The next time you split from the tedium of the workday world for some R&R in Rocky River Reservation, ask the first jogger you meet if he or she ever has heard of William A. Stinchcomb.

Odds are, you will get only a shrug and negative head shake.

Yet all Lakewoodites and West Shore residents who enjoy the valley and other gems in Greater Cleveland's Emerald Necklace are the beneficiaries of the late Bill Stinchcomb, a self-taught engineer and idealistic civil servant who became first head of Cleveland Metropolitan Parks.

Like so many great men, Stinchcomb had a vision. His was that of an immense green expanse of woodland retreat, to be set aside for public enjoyment and recreation.

He lived to realize his dream.

At the end of his 58-year public service career in 1957, he had amassed around the perimeter of our metro area a 100-mile chain of parks, comprising 14,000 acres and valued at $17 million.

These same lands today, it has been estimated, would be closer to a billion dollars in value.

Completion of his vast accomplishment required thousands of land purchases from early-settler families, farmers and other property holders.

This involved four decades of intensive negotiations. It also meant tireless campaigning to convince county taxpayers of the worthiness of his prodigious program, so they would support levies to provide funds for the acquisitions.

Nine months after his death in January 1959, at age 80, a 30-foot-high concrete monolith was dedicated to Stinchcomb. It was erected on a high point -- a sort of mesa -- that juts out from the east bank of the Rocky River off Hogsbank Lane, just south of Hilliard Road bridge.

Today, it looks down, as it did then, on the first parcel of land bought by the persevering engineer in the development of his verdant park system.

A steady rainfall on Oct. 17, 1959 -- the day of the monument's formal unveiling -- did not subtract from the momentousness of the occasion.

Three mayors -- Anthony J. Celebrezze of Cleveland, Frank P. Celeste of Lakewood and J. Frank Gibson of Rocky River -- came to extol "Mr. Metropolitan Park."

U.S. Sen. Frank J. Lausche eulogized, "No man in the history of Cleveland has provided more for posterity ... His achievement will grow grander and become more valuable as the years pass."

And so it has.

Park Commissioner Charles W. Sellers said, "We Clevelanders thank him for our large chunk of heaven. There was no money and no organization when he set out with his park idea 50 years ago."

St. Edward High School band played. The famous Orpheus Male Chorus, of which Stinchcomb had been a life member, sang.

The lanky, dark-eyed conservationist was born William Albert Stinchcomb of English descent on June 5, 1878, in a farm house on what is now Denison Avenue, near Lorain Avenue in Cleveland.

He left West High School when he was 16 to work for the National Iron and Wire Co.

A year later, in 1895, he joined the Cleveland Engineering Department as a surveyor. He was appointed city park engineer by Mayor Tom L. Johnson in 1902 and, the following year, was elected Cuyahoga County Engineer.

Stinchcomb was a smilingly determined man with political ambitions, too. In 1917, he ran against Harry L. Davis for mayor of Cleveland. He lost by a narrow margin.

While serving as county engineer, he directed numerous large projects, including construction of the Detroit-Superior and the Brooklyn-Brighton Bridges.

He also, as early as 1905, pushed for an outer park and boulevard system. This effort resulted in state legislation permitting establishment of the Metropolitan Park District.

In 1921, he was appointed park district director-secretary, a post he held until retirement 36 years later.

Stinchcomb was active in community life. Aside from his association with the Orpheus Male Chorus, he was a 33rd degree Mason who, at various times, served as president of the Cleveland Automobile Club, the City Club and the Cleveland Kiwanis Club.

He was a director of the Cleveland Railway Co., a vice president of Broadview Savings and Loan Association, and a trustee of Hiram College.

Stinchcomb married Annie May Long of Cleveland in 1905. The family home for many years was on Edgewater Drive near West 104th Street.

The couple had two children -- a son, the late Tom L., who, at one time, was mayor of Berea, and a daughter, Betty M., who lives with her husband, Robert W. Weldon, in Lakewood.

A Stinchcomb granddaughter, Laura Ann Weldon, teaches at Roosevelt Elementary School in Lakewood.

One of many employees who worked for the admired Stinchcomb is Lakewoodite John R. Gerlach.

For many years, Gerlach, now consulting forester-arborist, was Stinchcomb's chief of landscaping and forestry, and occupied an office next to his in the Standard Building, once headquarters of the Metropolitan Park District.

"Stinchcomb had boundless energy and overflowing enthusiasm, and was mostly self-taught -- a graduate of the International Correspondence School," Gerlach recalled.

"While traveling extensively in the eastern part of the United States, my boss realized that many of the valleys were becoming dumping grounds. He resolved that that should not happen here."

Perhaps, N.R. (Nat) Howard, editor of the former Cleveland News, summed up the father of the parks best in an editorial.

Howard, who spearheaded the public drive to obtain $8,000 for the Stinchcomb monument, wrote:

"He was humble; however, it was his courage, determination and imaginative realism that did it. Few people have the talent to move in such direct line, and few accomplish so much."

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post December 16, 1993. Reprinted with permission.

More Lakewood Lore