THE CZECHS OF CLEVELAND
from the very beginning there were some Czech families there. One of the pioneer women of that district is reported as saying that at first the Americans looked at them as if they were some strange kind of animal. They could not understand why this was so, but later learned that it was because of their strange dress, particularly the shawls on their heads. When they learned the reason, they began to dress like Americans.
On the east side of the river, many early Czech immigrants were employed as laborers on farms, and immediately began to buy from their employers plots for their own homes. Harvey Rice employed many on his farm in the neighborhood of what became Croton Street, and he sold them land on very easy terms, in some cases allowing them to work out the price. This was the beginning of the Croton street settlement, which was the Czech center of Cleveland from 1870 until the development of the Broadway district. Life here, we are told, was always gayer and brighter than in Brooklyn. The general merchandise store, steamship agency and public utility office, of Martin Krejci, at Croton and East 37th streets, was famous for the variety and multiplicity of its contents. A long flight of stairs led down the hill in front of this store, and many a new immigrant spent his first night in Cleveland sitting on those steps.
In the latter part of the 70’s the Standard Oil Company began to employ many Czechs. In those days barrels were all made by hand and the natural skill of the Czechs as hand workers found here a convenient and profitable field of employment. Almost every Czech man in the city at that period spent some time “making barrels for John D. Rockefeller.”
Convenience of access to this factory furnished the first motive for removal from Croton street across Kingsbury Run. In 1878 the farms along the south side of the Run were parceled into lots, and the district in the neighborhood of Trumbull and East 37th streets became a residence district known as “na vrsku” (on the hill). Broadway, already in existence as a county road, formed the axis of the new settlement, and the development of the whole district from East 37th street to Union avenue took place very quickly and the 24th ward (now the 13th) a chronicler informs us, became “like a city of Bohemia.” Meadow and woods gave place to streets, some of which still retain typical Czech names like Svoboda and Praha. These streets were built up with small, neat cottages, each with its own yard and garden, very comfortable and homey according to the standards of the time. For almost 40 years this district has been the Czech center of Cleveland. Stores, banks, national hall, and churches have helped to concentrate interest in this neighborhood, centering at Broadway and East 55th streets.
The city, crowding on Croton street, made that district undesirable to the Czechs who were left there, and many moved out and built up a new settlement on a new edge of the city, which they called the “east side.” This is in the neighborhood of Quincy avenue and East 82nd street. The west side Czechs also moved from “Brooklyn” to “Cuba,” west of the creek at West 41st street, where their principal residence district is now on West 41st and neighboring streets, between Clark avenue and Dennison avenue.
Great changes have taken place in all these districts in the last ten years. Business follows the Czech in Cleveland, and each of these centers is feeling its pressure. This is greatest in the Broadway district, which is now a wedge between two great arteries of the steel industry. Heavy smoke and
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