History
Then & Now: Photos
Places now gone
Articles
Memories/Comments
The 1953 Tornado
Puritas Springs Park
Spotlights: Items of Interest
Almost West Park
Sources
Feedback
Links of interest
Contents

Recent Additions

This is an independent endeavor.  It is not a commercial site and is not affiliated with any neighborhood organization such as the West Park Historical Society.

Residents may wish to consider participation in the
West Park Historical Society
Visit their website  at
www.westparkhistory.org
For membership information, please contact:
Christine M. Rafalke
Membership Chair
15616 Remora Blvd
Brook Park, OH 44142-2317
Phone: (216) 513-8402
E-mail: cmr@neighborhoodprogress.org

This page is designed for the "medium" setting as set under "View"/"Text Size" in the IE browser.

Created by:
Charles C. Chaney
and
Gary Swilik

Updated: 21 2010

 
Cuyahoga Co.Weather

Number of visitors:  

Charles Chaney's Index Page

History of the West Park Neighborhood
(Not associated with the West Park Historical Society)

Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio

The purpose of this site is to provide an informal site concerning the history of the area and to share personal memories of the neighborhood.  The West Park community, as considered here, consists of four neighborhoods located west of West 117th Street including the Jefferson, Kamm's Corners, Riverside and Puritas-Longmead areas.  This approximates the original composition of the neighborhood.

This site is not intended to serve as a neighborhood directory nor as a totally complete listing but to be simply a place to share some of some of its history, images and memories.

If you have memories and photos of your experiences in the West Park neighborhood that you would like to share please feel free to Email this West Park History website. ("Click" the name link to send an email to this website.)  If you have a website which you think would be relevant please feel free to let us know about it so we can provide a link to it on this site.

RECENT ADDITIONS

NEW> Arthur J. Hyde: Beyond the Call of Duty: A Patriot's Grave
NEW>   Riverside Theatre Memory
West Park Fire Department by Paul Nelson, Historian
of the Western Reserve Fire Museum and Educational Center
 The Rolling Stone Teen Club       Memory of Dryer's Pond
The Kinkelaar Farm  and  Old West Park Vault Discovered at City Hall
Smith Road (West 150th Street) & Brookpark Road - 1956
Linndale Roundhouse (just beyond the West Park area, it was well known by many)
Virginia Herrington Mohr, great-great-great-granddaughter of Elijah and Sarah Herrington
Mystery Man Who Died in WW I is Remembered on Memorial Day
West Park's World War I Memorial Monument

General Index to Contents
(partial)

Visit the
Kamm's Corners Development Corporation
website for information on the present neighborhood that includes much of the western part of the original West Park area.

A book about the history of West Park
FROM ROCKPORT TO WEST PARK, by Ralph A. Pfingsten.
This is a long overdue source of information about the area.  It will certainly be used to help develop this website.  Hats off to Mr. Pfingsten and the John Marshal Alumni Association that published it.  For more information logon the to the Kamm's Corners Development Corporation at http://www.kammscorners.com/historybook.html or go to The John Marshall High School Alumni Association
(Note that the above organizations are not affiliated with this site.)

---

Michael Koryta's

Lincoln Perry Mystery Series

with a West Park setting

 

Lincoln Perry is a private investigator whose fictional office is located in the second floor corner office of a familiar bank building (in reality the space is occupied by the Kamm's Corners Development Corporation).  Lincoln, a former Cleveland policeman, owns a (fictional) gym on Lorain Avenue (just west of Rocky River Drive) and lives in an apartment above it.  His partner, Joe Pritchard, lives on Chatfield Avenue.

 

Michael is not from the neighborhood although his mother grew up on Chatfield Avenue and the family came back to visit for holidays and vacations.  Michael became familiar with the area.  His father grew up on Clark Avenue.  Michael lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where he  earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice at Indiana University in 2005.  He has been an award-winning newspaper reporter and worked for a detective agency in Bloomington.  He has taught for the Indiana University School of Journalism.  Learn more at  Michael's web site.

 

------------   Michael Koryta's novels   ------------

 

TONIGHT I SAID GOODBYE
1st Lincoln Perry novel
Winner of St. Martin's Press/PWA Prize for Best First PI Novel
Edgar finalist
-------
SORROW'S ANTHEM
2nd Lincoln Perry novel
-------
A WELCOME GRAVE
3rd Lincoln Perry novel
nominated for the Quill Award 2007
in the mystery/suspense category
-------
THE SILENT HOUR
The latest Lincoln Perry Novel
released August 2009

Named one of the Top Mysteries of 2009

by PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
-------
ENVY THE NIGHT
(Standalone novel)
Los Angeles Times Book Prize
for the year's best mystery/thriller.
Nominated for a Barry Award
for best novel
(winner to be announced in October)

---

Gary Swilik who lives in West Park and does most of the active research.
Charles C. Chaney, webmaster
Unless stated otherwise, most photographs were supplied by the Gary Swilik Collection.