Cleveland State University History Professor Mark Souther will be leading a bicycle tour of Monticello-Noble on Saturday, October 20. The app-enhanced tour will feature the area’s greatest historic treasures and will give participants the chance to appreciate the rich history of Cleveland Heights like never before.
The tour is free of charge, and will begin at 9:30am at Oxford Elementary School, located at 939 Quilliams Road in Cleveland Heights. The ride will end at around 11:30am at the same location, with a tour of the school.
The tour is part of four neighborhood tours created by FutureHeights, with assistance from the Cleveland Heights Historical Society, the Cleveland Heights Landmark Commission, and the Center for Public History and Digital Humanities at Cleveland State University.
Souther will guide participants throughout the northern area of Cleveland Heights. Stops will include the Inglewood Historic District, Nela Park and the Warner Swasey Observatory.
According to Souther, “The Monticello-Noble area was largely farmland until about a century ago. Wealthy industrialists built their country estates here, Nela Park opened in 1910, and then the area opened to suburban development.”
And interesting feature of the tour will be the Cleveland Historical mobile phone app, developed by Souther’s team at CSU. However, he explains, “You don’t need to own a smart phone or be an expert cyclist to enjoy the tour. We’ll take a leisurely pace and use the app to enhance the tour with historic photos and audio clips of people telling the history of their neighborhood.”
For more information about the tour, please visit www.clevelandhistorical.org.
