Cooley Farms

Seven surviving buildings in Warrensville Township recall Cooley Farms, Cleveland's first farm colony, begun in 1904 with the purchase of 850 acres. Mayor Tom L. Johnson's administration and Dr. Harris Cooley, Director of Charities, built a program on the belief that country life and useful work would help the poor, the aged, the ill and offenders. Architect J. Milton Dyer designed six of the buildings in Spanish Mission style, with stuccoed brick walls and low tile roofs, after a formal Beaux Arts plan was set aside. They include the Workhouse, its boiler-house, and the Colony Farm halls. The seventh building, the Walkden House, is a late nineteenth century Italianate farmhouse used as a tuberculosis sanatorium from 1906 to 1913. Many planned buildings were never built, others have been demolished, and the rest have been altered to varying degrees.