West Side Market Place history

In 1854, when Cleveland annexed the city west of the Cuyahoga River known as the City of Ohio or Ohio City, the new territory became known as Cleveland's West Side.

Just one year later, in 1855, Cleveland undertook to move this West Side Market to a new location so that it could build at Franklin Place the West Side's first public park.

Additional gifts of land enabled the marketplace to expand, and in 1868 the wooden, 1-story Pearl St Market was erected on the site.

The Western Improvement Association (WIA), an organization of West Side business owners, addressed the matter in 1897 and formally petitioned Cleveland to tear down the old market house and build a larger one on the site.

The election of legendary Cleveland mayor Tom L. Johnson in 1901 changed that and brought a renewed interest in the West Side Market House project.

In 1902 the city purchased a site for a new market across the street from the old one.

Finally, in 1907, construction of the new West Side Market was begun.

Mayor Johnson, who had left office and had then died in 1911, never saw the opening of the new market house that he had devoted much of his time as mayor to site, plan and build.

A new $680,000 markethouse designed by the firm of HUBBELL AND BENES was dedicated in 1912—a massive yellow-brick building with an interior concourse providing room for 100 stalls, an outdoor arcade with 85 stands, and a large clock tower.

In 1914, two years after the new West Side Market opened, the City built the Produce Arcade on the north and east sides of the market house for vegetable and fruit vendors, and in the following year razed the old Pearl Street Market house.

The first of these periodic improvements occurred in 1954 when the City installed new elevators, automatic refrigeration, new electrical wiring and new offices for staff.

Kyle, Phyllis Richard. "Ohio City, West Side Market, the Near West Side, and Shakespeare in Early Cleveland," (WRHS, 1971).

In 1988 budgetary concerns forced the city to reduce its subsidy to the market and the tenants' rents were raised to pay for the upkeep.

The West Side Market celebrated its Centennial in 2012.