Cleveland’s Greatest Disasters!

Bellamy, John Stark. Cleveland’s Greatest Disasters!: 16 Tragic True Tales of Death and Destruction.  Cleveland. Gray & Company, 2009. Despite its sensationalist cover and title, Cleveland’s Greatest Disasters! is a well-thought-out document of the kind of disasters that met rapidly expanding industrial cities around the turn of the century through the War years.  Bellamy, who [...]

The Curse of Rocky Colavito

Pluto, Terry.  The Curse of Rocky Colavito: A Loving Look at a Thirty Year Slump. Gray & Company; Cleveland, 1994. In my mind, The Curse of Rocky Colavito is the definitive Cleveland Indians tale.  The team had some success in the late 1940s and early 1950s and recent playoff runs, but these were more aberrations [...]

The Cincinnati Subway and When Cleveland Had a Subway

Singer, Allen J.  The Cincinnati Subway: The History of Rapid Transit. Charleston, SC; Arcadia Publishing, 2003. Toman, James A, Bruce E. Young, James R. Spangler, Blaine S. Hays.  When Cleveland Had a Subway. Cleveland; Cleveland Landmark Press, 1999. I would like to think this review is a guide to all you need to know about [...]

Misfits!

Hetrick, J. Thomas. Misfits! Baseball’s Worst Ever Team. Clifton, Va: Pocol Press. (1991). 100th Anniversary Edition. The 1899 Cleveland Spiders were the ultimate Cleveland sports team. The owners (the Robinson brothers) were loathed, it seemed like the league was against the team, the players were mostly sub-par, and those players that were not, were traded [...]

Invisible Giants

Harwood, Herbert H. Jr., Invisible Giants: The Empires of Cleveland’s Van Sweringen Brothers. Bloomington, Indiana; Indiana University Press, 2003. I walked into Invisible Giants knowing very little about the Van Sweringens (Oris Paxton and Mantis James). I picked up this book because I wanted to learn about the history of Shaker Heights. Little did I [...]

Moon Cleveland

Trattner, Douglas. Moon Cleveland. Berkeley, California; Avalon Travel, 2009. The Moon Handbook for Cleveland is somewhat of a landmark. That being, I am not familiar with any other national publisher who had designated Cleveland with its own travel guide. The other major Ohio cities (Cincinnati and Columbus) have received at least minimal coverage for book-buying [...]

Cleveland Heights and Rail Depots of Northwest Ohio

Morton, Marian J. Cleveland Heights: The Making of an Urban Suburb. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2002. Camp, Mark J. Railroad Depots of Northeast Ohio. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2007. You have seen them at your library or bookstore when looking for books about local history. Inevitably, you will come across a professionally put together title [...]

Amy and The Serial Killer’s Apprentice

Renner, James. Amy: My Search for Her Killer: Secrets & Suspects in the Unsolved Murder of Amy Mihaljevic. Cleveland: Gray & Company, 2006. Renner, James. The Serial Killer’s Apprentice: And 12 Other True Stories of Cleveland’s Most Intriguing Unsolved Crimes. Cleveland: Gray & Company, 2008. Reading former Cleveland Scene writer James Renner’s published works about [...]