(3 of 3)
In the town's atmosphere of rugged independence many a titan of industry had flourished: John D. and William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, Stephen Harkness and others of the original Standard Oil Co.; Samuel and William Mather, President-Maker Marcus Alonzo Hanna and a score of other ironmasters and lake shipping tycoons. In its formative era men of such wealth had largely held the reins of power over Cleveland's development. In more recent years, up to depression, the town had been greatly shaped to the mould of the late Oris P. and Mantis J. Van Sweringen, whose Terminal Tower remains to dominate Cleveland's skyline (see cut).
Political bossism had also flourished in those devil-take-the-hindmost eras. Clevelanders, always politically alert, had always fought it off eventually. Now the average Clevelander was beginning to feel that there was no domination. Even the most inveterate civic-luncheon addicts could offer no guess as to which of a dozen men was most influential in his town's affairs. The man in Cleveland's streets did not even know who was the town's richest man. It did not seem to matter. The composite Clevelander was beginning, to get the idea that he and his civic-minded wife had a pretty fair share in decisions affecting his life. He was certain of one thing: vigor and imagination were at work again. But he still wished something could be done about the climate.
*There is no historical record of how & when Cleaveland became Cleveland. The legend: one of the town's earliest editors dropped the A because it made his journal's masthead too long; no one complained, so it was never used again. *Among other good catches: a Glenn L. Martin plastics plant; a Butler Brothers metallurgical plant; a Fruehauf Trailer Co. assembly factory. *Greater Cleveland (pop. 1,250,000) is Cuyahoga County. Cleveland has 13 suburbs ranked as cities (the largest is Lakewood with 65,900 population) and 41 suburbs ranked as villages.