In the late 19th century, Akron industrialist O.C. Barber built the town of Barberton from the ground up. Twenty years later, he tried to develop the city of Cleveland from the ground down.
The millionaire genius, whose entrepreneurial successes included the Diamond Match Co., Diamond Rubber Co., Stirling Boiler Co., American Strawboard Co., Barberton Belt Line Railroad, General Fire Extinguisher Co. and many other enterprises, created a stir in Northeast Ohio when he announced an ambitious plan in 1914 to construct a subway in Cleveland.
Barber (1841-1920) proposed a four-track system, known as the Cleveland, Akron & Canton Terminal Railway, to develop the East Harbor and Cuyahoga Valley. The project would build giant docks on Lake Erie at the end of East 55th Street, a freight subway traveling 5 miles south and surface connections to Akron and Canton.
“Cleveland has great commercial possibilities, but they have never been developed principally because of the congested condition of the lower Cuyahoga Valley and river,” Barber told shipping company executives at a November 1914 meeting in the Rockefeller Building. “The harbor development has lagged, too. But as soon as the government establishes a harbor line east of the river, it will speed up.”
The subway would allow freight to be transported directly to the basements of manufacturers along the tunnel, establishing East 55th Street as a wholesale district, eliminating long, uphill hauls, easing traffic congestion and preventing heavy trucks from damaging paved roads. The $11 million project (about $263 million today) would “provide regular employment for thousands of men in the very near future,” Barber said.
Cleveland Mayor Newton D. Baker (1871-1937), a proponent of the subway, discussed the plan with Barber at his mansion on the outskirts of Barberton. The industrialist suggested a municipal project, but the mayor said the city’s finances were too dire to support it. The subway would have to be a corporate enterprise.
The railway incorporated with $10,000 in capital. The officers were Barber, president; William Greif, vice president; F.D. Lawrence, treasurer; and E.F. Hutches, secretary.
“Akron and Canton, Barber figures, are growing cities, destined to become of great importance and he expects to get in on the ground floor to get a grip on the lake trade to these points,” the Beacon Journal reported. “Fast, direct freight service would be possible without the delay at present experienced should he be able to put this tunnel over and construct the extensions.”
The Barber Subway, as the system was commonly known, wasn’t an entirely altruistic proposal. Barber owned large holdings along the route, including the Union Salt Co., and stood to gain from construction of a subway. Critics accused the industrialist of trying to control valuable lakefront property.
Barber asked Cleveland to grant promoters a favorable franchise, saying the city would have the right to purchase the railway at any time it chose.
“It will take three years to dig the subway and 10 more to build up business,” Barber’s attorney, William White, explained in 1915. “A favorable franchise is imperative to persuade capitalists to back the project.”
Mayor Baker helped shepherd the project through Cleveland City Council. After much debate, the council voted 20-5 to grant the backers a franchise July 22, 1915. However, it then voted to put the project up for a referendum.
Barber, 74, took his case to the public that October, explaining that the railroad would be an “immense opportunity to develop a large section of Cleveland.”
“We have a good deal of faith in the merit of the project and are relying on the intelligence of the voters of Cleveland who we believe will want the subway and terminal for the benefit it will be to the city and its inhabitants,” he said.
“The proposed subway and terminals will be exclusively for freight, and have nothing whatsoever to do with any other subway. It will not be a profitable venture for the company for several years.”
Voters approved the project Nov. 2. Although Barber had pledged that construction would begin the day after the election, the digging did not commence. Barber was strangely silent as the subway plan stalled in 1916.
“The most probable cause was that Barber could not raise the money,” biographer William Franklin Fleming surmised. “By 1915, with the heavy expenditures on his farm and with the obligations of American Strawboard, he was in a tight financial situation. Although he was more than solvent, he was in no position to underwrite a railroad.”
The Cleveland City Council wanted progress reports on the subway project, but there was nothing to report. Politicians began to get restless and irate. In August 1916, Councilman Harry C. Gahn introduced a measure to repeal the franchise ordinance.
“The company has shown the opponents of the proposal from the first were correct in their charges,” Gahn said. “Barber and his friends have no intention of digging the subway. They are seeking to grab the lakefront for investment purposes. They promised to start work immediately.
“Despite the fact that more than a year has passed, not a shovelful of dirt has been disturbed. Heaped on top of this violation of faith, the company chooses to ignore council’s request that a report of progress of the work be made.”
The council repealed the franchise.
Although Barber still hoped the project could be revived, the U.S. entry into World War I sidetracked any plans for a subway. His death in 1920 at age 78 was the final knell for the proposal.
During the subway campaign, the Beacon Journal hailed O.C. Barber as a man who dared to dream big.
“The thing that singles him out from other great businessmen of America is his power to visualize the future, to think in millions, to discount the development of two centuries,” a 1915 editorial noted. “… And among those men that future centuries look back to and pay its tribute of respect to, may be one practical dreamer … who once lived in Akron in our time.”
Beacon Journal copy editor Mark J. Price is the author of the book Lost Akron from The History Press. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.