Cleveland Union Terminal Collection

Nickel Plate materials

Jerry Adams was a railfan, train-spotter and habitué of railroad facilities most of his life. When a friend, and Cleveland Union Terminal employee, told him that they had orders to throw away a massive assemblage of office records, Jerry rushed over and purchased the entire lot and hauled it to a storage locker. There it languished, though safely, for years while he attempted to find an institution willing to accept it as an archival collection. Finally he met Dr. Walter Leedy, Professor of Art at Cleveland State University, an architectural historian and expert on the Van Sweringen brothers' famous Shaker Heights real estate development. Dr. Leedy immediately recognized the importance of this collection, and facilitated the transfer of the collection to the Cleveland State University Library. Once a grant was obtained from the John P. Murphy Foundation - Mr. Murphy having been the Van Sweringen's attorney - the present project to process the collection began in 1994.

No single gift has contributed more toward building Special Collections as a local railroad history repository. Jerry continued to be a avid supporter up to his death and was always available to share his extensive knowledge of the CUT in particular and railroading in general. He will be greatly missed.

Robert Beach:

A former Trainmaster for the Newburgh & South Shore Railroad, Mr. Beach has generously donated an unbound book of some 100 photographs of the N&SS, ca. 1920. This will fit in nicely with our large collection of Newburgh & South Shore materials

Joseph Cole

Cleveland Press Collection

The Cleveland Press Collection was the former editorial library, or "morgue," of The Cleveland Press and includes hundreds of thousands of clippings and photographs. The last of Cleveland's daily afternoon newspapers, The Cleveland Press was published from 1878 until 1982. Little survives from the first half-century, but the collection's coverage of local and national history becomes progressively stronger after 1920. The library was donated to the Cleveland State University Library in 1984 by the newspaper's owner, Joseph E. Cole, who was at the time a Trustee of the University.

Clay Herrick

Clay Herrick Slide Collection

Cleveland's Architectural Past

Clay Herrick, author of "Cleveland Landmarks", donated in May 1991 a collection consisting of some 100 pamphlets, brochures, books, and photographs. The most important element of this collection is some 6,000 slides of one-of-a-kind shots of various buildings in Cleveland.

Joan Hofer

Herbert Elwell (May 10, 1898 - April 17, 1974), composer, critic, and teacher, was an important figure in Cleveland's musical scene. The Archive is comprised of the composer's scores, discs, reel-to-reel tapes, manuscripts, articles, program annotations for the Cleveland Orchestra, and assorted letters and memorabilia received through the efforts of Joan Hofer, Elwell's niece.

Dr. Walter C. Leedy

Postcards of Cleveland

Walter Leedy began his comprehensive collection of Cleveland postcards, now numbering nearly 8,000 in earnest in 1989. The earliest of Leedy's postcards date from 1898. Major highlights include several 32 inch long panoramas of Cleveland, and major people in Cleveland's popular history, such as Bob Feller and Satchel Paige, starting pitchers for the 1948 World Champion Cleveland Indians.

Robert Linsey

Cleveland Union Terminal Collection

Approximately 8,000 prints and 800 negatives of the Cleveland Union Terminal Company (Terminal Tower) project, 1914-1930. Mr. Linsey originally acquired this material from C.U.T. Chief Engineer John Anderson in 1968, when it faced being thrown out, and held it for thirty years. Deciding that it should be available for public use, he donated it to the Cleveland State University Library so it would be reunited with the Cleveland Union Terminal Collection This gift, together with a huge body of material previously donated by Gerald Adams for the same reasons, reunites the major pieces of the historic Cleveland Union Terminal archives.

Nickel Plate Road Historical & Technical Society (Nickel Plate Railroad Collection)

The Nickel Plate Road Historical & Technical Society is one of the oldest railroad historical organizations in the country. The Society was founded in 1966 for the purpose of obtaining, preserving, and disseminating information and material related the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad Company, commonly known as the Nickel Plate Road (NKP), and its predecessor railroads. Today they are an organization of over 1000 members including authors, historians, photographers, railroad employees and officials, model railroaders, and railfans of all interests.

The North American Railway Foundation

In October of 1997, thanks to the efforts of the N&SS railroad, the Cleveland Railroad History Society and the Fridrich-Warner Moving and Storage Company, the Cleveland State University Library obtained a large body of archival records created by the Newburgh and South Shore Railroad, an industrial short line railroad in the flats of the Cuyahoga River, south of downtown. Although unprocessed (and closed to use until it is processed) the 600 cubic feet of materials appear to include hundreds of rolled drawings showing track plans, valuation maps and facilities drawings.

In 2001, the North American Railway Foundation awarded us a grant of $69,000 to process the Newburgh & South Shore Collection and our railroad photography collection. We thank Mr. Philip J. Sullivan II and the foundation board for their generosity and urge visitors to this site to check back in future months for improved access to information on the history of the N&SS RR.

Dr. Jan Van Der Meulen

Dr. Jan Van der Meulen, CSU Art History Professor, donated approximately 15,000 black and white photographic prints of European cathedrals and churches constructed during the medieval period.

Mrs. Naomi E. Walker (Dr. William O. and Naomi E. Walker Collection)

In September 1985, Mrs. Naomi E. Walker donated to Cleveland State University Libraries the substantial collection of more than four hundred books and rare historical material which comprise the William O. Walker collection of Afro-American literature.

Dr. William O. Walker became publisher and editor of the Cleveland Call and Post, a black weekly newspaper, in 1932. He built the newspaper into one of the largest black weeklies in the nation. As its publisher he became a power in Cleveland, speaking out for civil rights and exposing discrimination and wrongdoing. Besides being an editorial voice, he was a mighty political force in the Republican Party. He was a councilman in the 1940's and in the 1960's became Ohio's first black Cabinet member, as industrial relations director for Governor James A. Rhodes. At the time of his death, he was under consideration by President Reagan to become chairman of the U. S. Civil Rights Commission.

Dr. Sara Ruth Watson, (Watson Bridge Book Collection)

In March of 1983, Dr. Sara Ruth Watson, a former Professor of English and Engineering at Fenn College, donated to the Cleveland State University Library over one hundred and seventy-five rare books, some dating from the eighteenth century, and fifteen albums of photographs on civil engineering and, in particular, on bridges. The collection is considered one of the best of its kind in the country.

The collection was begun by Dr. Watson's father, Wilbur J. Watson, a distinguished civil engineer and bridge designer who from his student days at Western Reserve University collected books on bridges and continued this interest during a long professional career. He founded the Watson Engineering Company in Cleveland, now the AC Engineering Company on Prospect near Thirtieth Street.