by Matthew Dearden

Created on: May 16, 2009   Last Updated: June 09, 2009

Cleveland, one of Ohio's largest cities, has had the nickname "The Forest City" since at least the middle of the 19th century, but its origins are still uncertain. The history of the nickname can possibly be traced clear back to Alexis de Tocqueville who, as a young French social critic, traveled to America in the 1830s to discover what he would about the fabric of American society. Tocqueville described America as a highly sophisticated society enveloped in a forested landscape. The connections of the nickname "The Forest City" to Tocqueville's work seem minimal at best.

The clue to another, more probable, origin can be found in the obituary of a certain Timothy Smead. According to The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Smead was the son of a printer raised in Bath, New York. When he was just 24 he moved to what is now Cleveland's west side and established the Ohio City Argus, a short-lived newspaper for the area. He moved on to establish a couple of other periodicals including Palladium of Liberty, an abolitionist weekly. In memory of Smead, who died in 1890, an obituary wrote "while in an editorial capacity Mr. Smead gave Cleveland the name of Forest City" (Plain Dealer, 4 Jan. 1890). Although the nickname could have very well have been Smead's doing, the evidence is not conclusive.

The most probable explanation of the nickname's origin comes from a man by the name of William Case. According to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Case was Cleveland's mayor beginning in 1850, and was the first mayor to be born in the city itself. He is said to have had expansive real-estate holdings and an insatiable interest in horticulture (he was the secretary of the Cleveland Horticulture Society before he was mayor). As a result, he organized a city-wide tree planting campaign in 1852. At the very least, it seems as though Case was responsible for popularizing and legitimizing the nickname, if not creating the nickname itself.

In 1850, the Forest City Race Track was opened. The race track was the first use of the name in a business setting. A host of other businesses followed suit including the Forest City Agricultural Warehouse, Bank, Bath House, Cricket Club, and Lyceum. The Forest City was given another boost in the 1930s under Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA) when workers planted 13,000 more trees in city parks. According to the Cleveland Encyclopedia, there was a tree count done in 1940. According to the count, 221,198 trees were found in the city, and 100,000 others were found in parks. To this day, there are still a few dozen businesses in the city that incorporate the nickname.

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