Cleveland

Euclid Beach Park opened in 1895 on Lake Shore Boulevard and served as the area's primary amusement park for over 70 years. Financial problems, along with competition from the newly expanded Geauga Lake, spelled the end of Euclid Beach Park after the 1969 season.

Captain Penny entertained children weekdays at noon on Channel 5 in Cleveland from 1955 to 1971, showing cartoons and talking to the occasional in-studio guest. Around the holidays, Mr. Jingeling would stop by frequently. Captain Penny was portrayed by Ron Penfound who originally had...

Superhost was Cleveland's Saturday afternoon horror movie host in the 70s and 80s on Channel 43, where Hoolihan & Big Chuck (later Big Chuck & Lil' John) had Friday nights on Channel 8, and The Ghoul had Saturday nights on Channel 61.??Super was the...

Geauga Lake is a former theme park in Aurora, Ohio that was established in 1887 in what had been a local recreation area adjacent to the lake of the same name. The first amusement ride was added in 1889, and the park's first roller...

From the mid '60s to the mid '70s, WIXY, "Wicksy Twelve-Sixty," was Cleveland's preeminent top-40 radio station. Despite having a weaker signal than its competitors it dominated the ratings for a decade.

Amy Joy was a family-owned donut shop in Cleveland that first opened for business in 1952. It's original location was on Mayfield Road, with smaller satellite spots located in area landmarks such as Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. It closed in 2018.

Dutch Pantry was a restaurant chain founded in Selinsgrove, PA in 1945. It eventually grew to over 50 locations in 12 states but by the early 1980s the chain was in decline. Most were closed by the end of that decade.

Did you ever rock at Peabody's?

From 1987 to 1997, Aquilon, known as The Lift on Sunday nights, was the trendiest club in Cleveland's dance scene. It was located on Merwin Avenue in the Flats, right beneath the Detroit-Superior Bridge, later becoming The Smart Bar.

Just as every major city had at least one horror movie host, they also had a children's show host. In the 1960s, in Cleveland, it was Captain Penny, but for kids growing up in the '70s it was Barnaby portrayed by Linn Sheldon. The...

The Big Dipper was the classic coaster at Geauga Lake amusement park. Built in 1925 as the Sky Rocket, it was designed by famous coaster designer John A. Miller. It became the Clipper in 1947 with the name changed to the Big Dipper in...

It was an ill-fated marketing campaign for the city in the early '80s. While the notion was eventually accurate was, in the early '80s, it was a source of some ridicule both in and outside of Greater Cleveland.

Paul Wilcox hosted??the TV show "Polka Varieties," the show aired Sundays on Cleveland's WEWS-TV (and eventually was syndicated on stations across the country) from 1956 to 1983. It??highlighted??both local and national polka acts.

Cotton Club Bottling began in 1902 as Miller and Becker Bottlers. In addition to bottling its own flavors under the Cotton Club name, the company was also the Northeast Ohio bottler for Royal Crown (RC) Cola, Diet Rite, Vernors, Squirt, Hires, Schwepps, Evian, and...

Kenny King's was a sit-down, fast-casual family restaurant chain that operated in Northeast Ohio from the 1950s until the mid 1990s. It was best known as a franchisee of Kentucky Fried Chicken as well as for offering its own Big King steakburger.

Cleveland's most famous bakery, with locations all over the city and surrounding suburbs, operated from 1903 until 1992, when it closed suddenly. READ MORE

The Exotic Birds was a synth-pop band formed in 1982 by Andy Kubiszewski??along with fellow Cleveland Institute of Music students Tom Freer and Tim Adams. In 1985, Trent Reznor joined the band but left a few years later to concentrate on developing Nine Inch...

Burger Chef was a fast-food hamburger chain that started in Indianapolis in 1958. At its peak in the mid 1970s, it was second only to McDonald's in the number of nationwide locations. The chain even made inroads into Canada. In 1982, the chain was...

Headquartered in Twinsburg, Revco was founded in 1956. For two generations, it was the Cleveland area's leading drug store chain.

Cleveland's first independent TV station was WKBF, Channel 61, which began broadcasting on January 19, 1968. Competition from Cleveland's second independent TV station, WUAB Channel 43, combined with a soft economy, set the stage for a merger of the two stations with the channel...