Ohio City Preservation District

Ohio City Preservation District covers about 80 acres of Cleveland's near west side, in an area that was once the independent municipality of Ohio City. It takes in portions of twenty-five small blocks and includes roughly 250 houses, stores, a public library, two churches and several apartment buildings. Most houses are modest frame or brick homes built for brewery workers, carpenters and tradesmen, mixed with larger Italianate, Second Empire and Queen Anne residences of merchants and bankers. Landmarks include St. Patrick's Church, begun in 1871 and finished in 1913, the Franklin Circle Christian Church by Cudell and Richardson, and the Carnegie West Library of 1910, designed by Edward L. Tilton. The area was settled largely by Irish and German immigrants, and Ohio City merged with Cleveland in 1854. It was listed as a nearly complete nineteenth-century community and as the site of a private preservation movement that began in 1968. Some blocks are badly deteriorated, and one Italianate house was lost to fire in 1975.