Cleveland Lighthouse Encased in Ice (Video)

Here are videos of the Cleveland Harbor West Lighthouse (located on the west bank of the Cuyahoga River as it enters Lake Erie), which is now encased in ice. The windy weather, plus the frigid temperatures, kicked up icy waves which splashed – and then froze – on the lighthouse. And, in case you’d like to see the lighthouse without the ice, I also added a video that I took of the area last summer.

Update December 17, 2010: You can find some still photos here: ”Cleveland Lighthouse Becomes an Ice Castle”








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Cleveland’s Whiskey Island & Wendy Park

Some of the nicest views of the Cleveland skyline can be found at the Whiskey Island and Wendy Park areas, right on Lake Erie immediately west of the city and at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River. I visited the area last week and here is a short video compilation of some of the sights, which include the Whiskey Island Marina, the Whiskey Island Lighthouse, the old US Coast Guard station, and some of the nice views of the Cleveland skyline from Wendy Park. The Goodtime III can also be seen – and heard – making an appearance.





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Cleveland’s Favorite “Haunts”

Franklin Castle

With Halloween coming up, it makes me think of all the places in Cleveland that are reported to be haunted.

I’ve already written here before about what is probably Cleveland’s most famous haunted house, Franklin Castle, located on Franklin Boulevard at the intersection of West 44th Street. The Gothic-style house was built in 1865 for grocer and banking executive, Hannes Tiedemann and his wife Luise.

But, there are plenty of other places in Cleveland where “ghosts” supposedly reside, such as the Steamship William G. Mather, the USS COD, Grays Armory, Playhouse Square, Whiskey Island, Cleveland Police Museum, Lakeview Cemetery, and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

The Mather
Lakeview Cemetery seems like an obvious place for haunting, since it is, after all, a cemetery. At Grays Armory, there are reports of hearing footsteps when no one else was present, and seeing Civil War era apparitions. Franklin Castle has a history of mysterious deaths, reported murders, and strange noises and happenings. On Whiskey Island, there are reports of some ghosts at the Sunset Grille.

For me, since I live in a 1950’s home outside of Cleveland (in Lake County) where we’ve had quite a few unexplained happenings over the years (some rather scary to say the least), I have no desire to walk into any other haunted places. I may write out the story of my own home on one of my other blogs one of these days, but sometimes it rattles me just thinking about it. Thankfully, our house has been quiet and apparition free for several years…and I want to keep it that way!

If you are interested in seeing some of these places and hearing the full story behind the hauntings, a company called Haunted Cleveland provides tours, some private, for some of these locations.


Here’s a link to a short video from WKYC Channel 3 about “Haunted Cleveland”:
Haunted Cleveland

Whiskey Island Clip & Haunted Cleveland (Link), also from WKYC:
Whiskey Island Hauntings




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The Hulett Ore Unloaders: Cleveland's Late Workhorses

Once you’ve seen the Hulett Ore Unloaders, it’s hard to forget them. They looked like giant, prehistoric steel grasshoppers sitting on Whiskey Island. I use the past tense, because they’re not there anymore.

The Huletts were invented in 1898 by George H. Hulett, who was born in Conneaut, Ohio, but grew up in Cleveland. The Huletts were revolutionary at the time, greatly speeding up the process used to unload lake ore carriers. According to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: “They could completely unload a ship in 13 hours. Earlier, the same task had taken nearly a week. In their years of service, it is estimated that they unloaded some 100 million tons of material.”

The use of the Huletts spread to other areas around the Great Lakes, with many of them around Lake Erie in the Ports of Cleveland, Conneaut, Ashtabula, Huron, Toledo, and Lorain. The Huletts also played a big part in the development of the iron ore industry – and other related industries – in Ohio. Huletts were not suited for use near ocean waters, due to the rising and falling tides.

The Huletts became increasingly obsolete in the 1980s as the Great Lakes fleets converted to self-unloading ships. Cleveland last used a Hulett in 1992.

The Huletts were on the National Register of Historic Places, and also designated as a Historical Mechanical Engineering Landmark. But, as things usually go, this doesn’t seem to mean much to some. Conrail, who owned the Huletts, wanted them demolished to improve dock efficiency. Despite outrage by locals and preservationists, all the Huletts were dismantled, but two were retained for reconstruction at a later date, with the location to be named later.

To date, no location has been named, nor are any reconstruction plans in place.

(false color image)

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