What if you could ride a streetcar from Wooster to Cleveland?
While this seems impossible in the modern, car dependent World we live in, it was the norm not even a century ago. The Cleveland, Southwestern, and Columbus Railway was once a regular sight on the streets of Northern Ohio, running all over the region with termini in Cleveland, Bucyrus, Wooster, Norwalk, Lorain, and more. A powerhouse in the pre-automobile world of interurbans streetcars and steam railroads, the unmatched freight and passenger connectivity the original Cleveland Green Line brought to Northern Ohio would help bring the region into the modern age in just 47 years, before its untimely demise to the automobile, bus, and truck. This digital exhibition aims to inform the reader on the importance of the Cleveland, Southwestern, and Columbus Railway in the history of modernity in Northern Ohio, and in the process chronicle its rise and fall.
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Author’s Note
Very few of the images are credited or dated. Apologies for the frustrating habits of previous historians of the line.