10 things I didn’t know about Cleveland

I’d never been to Cleveland, so about the only thing I knew for sure was that it’s in Ohio. Seriously. That made it easy to come up with 10 things I didn’t know about Cleveland during my stay, at least one of which I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t know, while others are rather obscure if you’ve never been there. These include things like the fact that Cleveland is located on a lake, its Slovenian population, and something called a Polish Boy.

10 things I didn’t know about Cleveland

Not only is Cleveland located on Lake Erie, but its downtown is smack-dab on the waterfront. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Great Lakes Science Center and FirstEnergy Stadium, home to the Cleveland Browns football team, are all a stone’s throw from the water. In fact, all of Cleveland’s sports arenas are downtown, making it easy to watch the Cleveland Indians, Cavaliers, Monsters or Gladiators and grab a drink or meal in downtown’s many bars and restaurants.

Other things I didn’t know about Cleveland include its Slovenian population (the largest in the United States), the fact that it has more than its fair share of breweries (not that I’d ever complain about that), and the largest performance arts center outside New York City.

Probably the most fun thing I had was at University Circle, which boasts the most concentrated square mile of arts and culture in the country. It took me a couple of days to explore four of its museums. At the Cleveland Museum of Natural History I learned that Lucy, a famous 3.2-million-year-old hominoid, was discovered by one of the museum’s former curators. Her bones have been returned to Ethiopia, but the Cleveland museum has replicas and displays. With its dinosaurs and outdoor exhibits featuring live animals, this is the best of University Circle’s attractions if you have children.

University Circle’s Cleveland Museum of Art is free, and the Cleveland Botanical Garden is a must for gardeners. But it’s the Cleveland History Center where I spent the most time, learning about the city’s early years, its waves of immigrants, its role in the automobile industry (more than 80 Cleveland companies built cars from the 1890s into the 1920s), its rich people living on Millionaire Row, and its celebrities. There are even two mansions on History Center grounds, where you can see how the other half lived.

For more information about these and other things I didn’t know about Cleveland, including that Polish Boy, see my article, 10 things you might not know about Cleveland, Ohio, published by 10Best/USA Today. Of course, there is much more I learned about Cleveland than just those 10 things, such as why there are so many leg lamps in the city, but for those you’ll just have to go see for yourself.

For more on Ohio, see my article on Columbus’ food and drink scene in Gettingontravel.com.