Cleveland, Ohio, had used water from Lake Erie since 1856 through a series of tunnels under the lake from the city. Between 1901 and 1909, Cleveland's population increased from around 390,000 to close to 550,000 people. In order to accommodate increased water usage, the capacity of Cleveland's water system was expanded from approximately 150 million gallons per day to approximately 265 million gallons per day between 1911 and 1917.
A new water crib (Crib Number 5), located 4 miles into Lake Erie from the city's West Side shoreline, was built to replace the existing water crib (Number 4), which lay much closer to the shoreline. In addition to the new crib and ten-foot diameter tunnel, the city constructed a new Division Avenue pumping station, located at West 58th Street. The project also included the construction of a filtration plant (located between West 29th and West 45th Streets) to manage silt suspended in the lake, as well as pollution, from river and shore runoff.
Construction began in February 1912 with the new water crib and intake shaft. Tunnel work was initiated in March 1914. The total project was completed in 1917. The project required the draining and filling-in of the swamp at Whiskey Island and the building of a boat landing and roadway on the new land. A concrete block plant was built to manufacture material for the crib foundation and tunnel lining. Construction on the filtration plant began in January 1914. It became operational in 1918.
In July 1916, construction workers struck a gas pocket that resulted in an explosion killing eleven men. Cleveland inventor Garrett Morgan's breathing hood was utilized in the rescue of two men and the recovery of four bodies. In 1991, the Division Avenue filtration plant was renamed the Garrett A. Morgan Water Treatment Plant. It is currently the oldest treatment facility within the Cleveland Water system.
The West Side Cribs, Tunnel Extensions, and Water Filtration Plant Construction Photographs, 1912-1915, and undated, collection consist of 212 photographs contained in three albums. Included is a set of maps illustrating the locations of the cribs and tunnels in relation to the Cleveland, Ohio, shoreline.
This collection includes an extensive record of the expansion of the Cleveland, Ohio, water system during the early part of the 20th Century. Researchers interested in the process involved in extending the system out into Lake Erie will find the photographs an excellent documentation of how this was accomplished. Engineering students, particularly those focused on early construction methods and underwater tunneling, will find the images of the building of Water Crib No. 5 and the tunnel that extended from the Cleveland shoreline of interest. Mechanical engineers will be interested in images of various equipment used in the construction of the tunnels, while historians of Cleveland's development will find value in the Whiskey Island, Edgewater Park, and Cuyahoga River scenes during the 1910s. Architecture students will find the photographs of the finished Division Avenue Pumping Station and Filtration Plant of interest. Labor researchers, as well as historians of the water tunnel explosion of 1916, will be interested in the images of tunnel workers and their working conditions. The images of Crib No. 4 as it appeared following the blizzard of 1913 will be of interest to students of that event. And project managers and students of large project logistics will find great value in the documentation of the overall process from both construction of structures, and digging of tunnels and the supporting mechanisms, such as the supply and transportation of concrete tunnel segments and movement of the Crib No. 5 to its location in Lake Erie.
The collection is arranged alphabetically by subject and then chronologically.
The researcher should also consult
Processed by Robert Suriano in 2017.
None.
[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 5406 West Side Cribs, Tunnel Extensions, and Water Filtration Plant Construction Photographs, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Gift of William G. Woyshville in 1991.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.