Ravines

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Ravine - approx. 1915
View of one of the ravines in the Brooklyn Centre area.

Brooklyn Centre had, at one time, several ravines or gullys.

What were the origins of these ravines? What mechanism of nature created them? It is known that glaciers covered northern Ohio, most recently 10,000 years ago. Meltwater, as the glaciers receeded, may have had the force necessary to carve these gouges into the earth.

Traveling from South Brooklyn to Cleveland in the early 1800's would have been quite a challenge and somewhat like a roller coaster as the farmers in their horse drawn wagons needed to go down one side and up the other of each of these.

Ravine between Denison and Forestdale

A deep ravine cut through the land in an east/west orientation from approximately West 25th St. between Forestdale Avenue and Denison Avenue, down to Jennings Avenue.

An 1835 deed from Joel Chapman to Simon Clark makes mention of the "east side of south end of a bridge near the Methodist Meeting House. The Meeting House was at that time at the corner of Newburgh St. (now known as Denison Ave.) and Pearl St. (now known as West 25th Street). By 1856, no further mention is made of the bridge on a deed for the same property sold by Benjamin Vaughn to Robert Davis.

The sides of this ravine were quite steep. Karl Sturtevant, son of Mary Stanton Fish who appears in the photo at the right, says that he would frequently go down into the ravine but the only way down was to slide on his butt. The depth of the ravine is unknown but an estimate of 30 feet can be made from the text that appeared under a photo of a bridge in Riverside Cemetery that gives it's height at 27' over a similar ravine. Mr. Sturtevant also provided some other details about the ravine such as the fact that at one time it had been surrounded by fencing, presumably to either prevent access or to prevent accidents as it was a huge attraction for the children in the area.

The ravine was spring fed -- the spring being located on the hill behind Mr. Sturtevant's house (this house having once been occupied by his grandfather, John Stanton Fish, the son of the original settler Ebenezer Fish.)

At the bottom, in dry weather, there would only be a small slow moving stream. In wet weather, however, a pond would form of sufficient depth that a horse-drawn wagon (minus the horse, of course), that had been pushed in there from the edge by some naughty boys, disappeared from view. The pond also provided a source of ice for one of the local ice houses. One hopes they didn't use it for cooling their drinks! The Sanborn Insurance maps for 1913 show that the "City Ice Delivery Co." was located at the corner of West 25th St. and Dobson Court, just at the western end of the ravine. Additional mention of the ice said:

In 1939, George Davis' article^[1] about the Brooklyn Centre area mentions an Opera House:

All hills in the area have been smoothed out for the convenience of roads and housing, however, because of the nearness of the opera house to the ravine (the GAR hall was at the corner of Garden Avenue and West 25th Street), is it possible that the builders were able to somehow incorporate the sides of the ravine for this construction?

Speaking of changing the terrain, in the late 1920's an effort began to fill in the ravine starting at it's western end. Trucks began dumping rubbish as fill material. Surrounding neighbors became very upset with this activity due to the risk of fire, smell, and probably vermin that were drawn to the area too. As the depths were filled in, the trucks would use this as a platform for reaching further and further to the east. Often the trucks would become stuck as their tires sunk into the fill and would need to be towed out.

Who actually instigated this filling-in process is unknown at this time, though the portion of the ravine that lay between Fern Court and Jennings Avenue was purchased by the Cleveland Railway Company in the mid-1920's from the then owner, George Sheer of Sheer Brothers Iron Fence Company. (Sheer's Iron and Wire Works was located at the corner of West 25th St. and Forestdale Avenue.) Presumably, Cleveland Railway would have been the ones to fill in their portion of the ravine. Cleveland Railway was purchased by the City of Cleveland in 1942 and renamed as the Cleveland Transit System (CTS).

Exactly why there was a need to fill in the ravine is uncertain. Was it because of the danger it posed? Or to create additional land for building housing? Because no housing was ever constructed over this landfill, other than the Forestdale Apartments at the western end, it is more likely the ravine provided a handy place for the Cleveland Railway Co. to dump construction materials that accumulated during their installation of streetcar tracks around the city of Cleveland.

If you examine the picture on the right showing Mary Stanton Fish standing on the north side of the ravine, in the background can be seen yet another bridge; this one a footbridge that allowed residents to cross over from the Denison side to the Forestdale side. Built of wood, the creek below eventually caused deterioration of the supports and it was declared a hazard and torn down. Once the ravine was filled in, West 22nd Place was extended from the south to Forestdale.

Ravine from behind East Denison School to Jennings Avenue

The eastern terminus of the ravine was the last part to be filled in and by that time (the 1950's) had become a dumping ground for pure rubbish by the city. This ravine was technically just a continuation of the first one described above but it existed for a much longer time and seemed to be the only one that was ever in the area if you didn't have personal knowledge about the others.

City Dump - approx. 1960
Facing north (just north of Denison Ave. and west of West 15th) The rubbish that was dumped here served as a landfill. Originally, there was a deep ravine between Riverside Cemetery and the property on West 15th Street

City Dump - approx. 1960
Facing northwest (City Hospital) (just north of Denison Ave. and west of West 15th)

The sad part of all this ravine filling is that it seems that a park either existed within it, as evidenced by references to the "park addition" in several old 1888 deeds, or was planned. An old map indicates the stream running through the ravine led down to the large pond within Riverside Cemetery that we know was used for boating. Back in those days it must have been a scenic place, indeed. I was an eyewitness to the scenic splendor that was there in the 1950's before the dumping had progressed much further than a few hundred feet north from Denison Avenue just west of West 15th St. A small stream meandored between many small grassy hillocks, some of which had trees growing out of them. The hillocks not being much more the 4 foot in diameter, they were like green polka dots strewn along the valley floor. As children, we could jump from one to another of these, thereby avoiding stepping into the water. The sides of the ravine here were covered in trees and weren't quite as steep as the western part, but still required the necessity of being careful as you traversed the footpaths, worn by generations of people coming down into this area. There was an old spring located about a dozen feet from the top edge here -- some enterprising unknown person had inserted an iron pipe horizontally into the side of the hill which allowed the spring water to stream from the pipe and allowed it to be conveniently emptied into a bucket or jug.

Once filled in entirely, the leveled ravine land became the site of tennis courts and a large playground (now known as the W.C. Reed Playfield), behind East Denison Elementary School. Mostly though, it remains vacant land and when the school was closed, most of the playground rides (swings, slides, etc.) were removed.

Ravine from Fulton Avenue to Riverside Cemetery

The next ravine ran from Fulton Avenue on the west, to Riverside Cemetery on the east. The book, "Reflections from Brooklyn Centre", has a collection of oral histories that includes one from George Johnson. He provides personal recollection of the Kuchle gully. Gebhard Kuchle had purchased a piece of property from the widow of Ludwig Stadler which was located just south of the corner of Mapledale Avenue and West 25th St.. At the time he purchased it, the gully probably still existed because Johnson refers to Stadler's soap factory in the gully. Johnson also recalls the Mallo Glue Factory which was located about midway along where Willowdale Avenue now exists. The actual location is probably buried beneath the street.

Johnson further explains that the roadway went down and up the sides of the gully, and then later a bridge was built over it to aid traveling past that area. Later still, it was completely filled in and flattened. Now, with a modern street and houses built all around, it remains a hidden part of Brooklyn Centre's history.

A remnant of this ravine could be seen in the early 1960's behind the fence along the southern border of Riverside Cemetery. A small pond was down there and occasionally you could see a brave man or boy who had decended to the bottom of the hill to try his luck at fishing. Were there actually fish in there? If so, how could they have gotten there? The ravine was landlocked by this time and had no exit. In earlier days, it would have run into the lower section of the cemetery that held the large pond; a pond used for boating. A picture of this pond can be seen on the cemetery page. Click the link above to view it.

Hidden Treasures

Imagine what a little archaelogical dig in either of these areas might turn up? The landowners along either side of a gully would probably be inclined to throw trash into it, the gully being so convenient and all, these being the days before trash collection. That trash may have included what today would be valuable collectibles, perhaps things like medicine bottles, unwanted spoons, forks, broken dishes. Pretty much anything that might survive being first immersed in water and then buried beneath tons of dirt and rocks.

References

1. ↑ Davis, George, Beautiful Brooklyn, February 28, 1939 issue of The Cleveland Press