From Clark to Marvin and Daisy: The Stories Behind La Villa’s Street Names
- Ronaldo Rodriguez Jr.
- Sep 4
- 11 min read
Walk through Cleveland’s neighborhoods, and the street names themselves become a guidebook to the past. Each one carries a story of merchants, mayors, judges, landowners, families, and institutions that shaped the city’s formative years.
Taken together, these names create a map of memory that preserves the lives and legacies embedded in Cleveland’s neighborhoods.
Scranton Road
Scranton Road takes its name from Joel Scranton (1793–1858), an early Cleveland entrepreneur whose life intersected with a pivotal moment in the city’s history.
In 1795, the Treaty of Greenville set the Cuyahoga River as the western boundary of the United States. Lands east of the river were ceded to the U.S., while those to the west remained home to Indigenous nations such as the Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape, and Ottawa. Over the following decades, additional treaties forced those nations further west, and the land along the west bank of the Cuyahoga opened to newcomers.
Against this backdrop, in 1819 Joel Scranton undertook a grueling month-long journey west from his New England roots by way of upstate New York and arrived in Cleveland, then a small settlement on the nation’s frontier.
He first operated a dry goods store at what is now Superior Avenue and West 9th Street, supplying the town’s growing population with cloth, tools, and other household necessities. Not long after, he purchased a farm on the west bank of the river. That land became known as Scranton Flats, a name still familiar in Cleveland today.
His wife, Irene (Hickox) Scranton, helped to found Old Stone Church, linking the family to the city’s civic and spiritual roots. The Scrantons’ story was marked by both prominence and tragedy: four of their five children, along with Irene herself, died before Joel. Yet those who knew him remembered Joel Scranton as a man of quiet strength, writing that he carried "a calm dignity that arrested attention and insured respect." ▲
Barber Avenue
Barber Avenue is named for Josiah Barber (1771–1842), one of the leading figures in the early development of Cleveland’s West Side. Born in Connecticut, Barber settled in 1809 on land that would later become Brooklyn Township, quickly establishing himself as a builder, landowner, and civic leader.
In 1834 he built Cleveland’s first brick house at the corner of West 25th Street and Franklin Boulevard, co-founded one of the city’s earliest manufacturing firms, and helped shape the commercial heart of Ohio City. Barber also played a role in establishing the West Side Market, which remains one of Cleveland’s best-known institutions.
When Ohio City was incorporated in 1836, Barber was elected its first mayor, guiding the young community during its rivalry with Cleveland across the river. Through his land ventures, business interests, and public service, he left a lasting imprint on the city’s map. Barber Avenue endures as a reminder of his vision for the West Side and the foundational role he played in its growth. ▲
Clark Avenue
Clark Avenue honors Diodate Clark (1798–1876), an early businessman and civic leader whose life reflected Cleveland’s growth from a frontier settlement into an industrial city.
Born in Haddam, Connecticut, Clark set out for Ohio in 1817 at the age of nineteen, traveling with his brother in search of opportunity. The journey tested them both, and when they reached Albany his brother turned back. Diodate pressed on alone, walking the rest of the way with only a dollar in his pocket and a knapsack on his back, determined to reach Cleveland.
When he arrived, Cleveland was little more than a handful of houses clustered on the east bank of the Cuyahoga. Clark found work chopping wood and clearing land, and soon saved enough to buy a tract of land near what is now West 25th Street.
Over the years, he expanded that purchase into more than 200 acres. His homestead stood on the southwest corner of West 25th Street and Clark Avenue, anchoring the neighborhood that grew up around it.
Clark’s career rose in step with the city’s growth. He established Cleveland’s first lime kiln on Detroit Street, providing quicklime essential for mortar and plaster in an era of rapid building. He later turned to lake shipping, moving goods along the Great Lakes as Cleveland’s harbor bustled with activity. Beyond business, he also served twelve years as a county commissioner, helping guide public affairs during a period of sweeping transformation.
Family and faith were central to Clark’s life. He was married three times, each following the death of a spouse, and had nine children, though only four lived to adulthood, most of whom made their homes in Cleveland.
Clark was also a pillar of the Methodist community. He was a trustee and major donor of the Franklin Boulevard Methodist Episcopal Church, a Gothic Revival landmark built at Franklin Boulevard and Duane Street (now West 32nd). Dedicated in 1870, the church stood as a symbol of both faith and civic pride until it was destroyed by fire in 1947.
Known for his energy, generosity, and punctuality, Clark lived to see Cleveland transformed into a thriving city. He died in 1876 at the age of 77 and is buried in Riverside Cemetery. ▲
Starkweather Avenue
Starkweather Avenue takes its name from Samuel Starkweather (1799–1876), a lawyer, judge, and civic leader who helped shape 19th-century Cleveland.
Born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Starkweather graduated from Brown University in 1822 before heading west. He arrived in Cleveland in 1827, opened a law office, and quickly became active in civic life. Among his many contributions was helping to establish Central High School in 1846, Cleveland’s first public high school and one of the earliest tax-supported high schools west of the Alleghenies, a milestone in the city’s commitment to public education.
Starkweather twice served as mayor, first as the city’s 7th mayor (1844–1845) and later as its 15th (1857–1858). Between his terms, he became the first judge of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas under Ohio’s new constitution. His legal career, educational advocacy, and public service left a lasting imprint on the city.
At his resting place in Lake View Cemetery, Starkweather’s headstone bears a simple yet profound declaration from the Book of Job: “I know that my redeemer liveth.”
For a man who spent his life wielding civic authority, the verse suggests a final act of humility, placing his legacy not in the rulings he rendered or the offices he held, but in a faith that looked beyond earthly judgment to divine redemption. ▲
Willey Avenue
Willey Avenue winds through the old Walworth Run valley, linking Tremont and Ohio City as it crosses the railroad tracks. The street honors John Wheelock Willey (1797–1841), Cleveland’s very first mayor.
Born in New Hampshire and trained in the law, Willey came to Cleveland in 1822, when the settlement was still little more than a village with outsized dreams. His quick mind and forceful presence soon earned him a reputation as both a skilled attorney and a devoted public servant. Voters sent him to the Ohio House and Senate, where he spoke up for the interests of the growing town on Lake Erie.
When Cleveland was incorporated as a city in 1836, Willey was chosen as its first mayor. Almost immediately, he was thrust into the middle of the “Bridge War,” a fierce dispute with neighboring Ohio City over control of the new Columbus Street Bridge.
Built under the influence of real estate developer James Clark and supported by Willey, the bridge diverted commerce away from Ohio City and toward Cleveland’s ambitious new districts of Cleveland Centre and Willeyville opposite the river. For Ohio City, the stakes were existential, and anger soon boiled over.
Mobs of residents attacked the bridge with axes, crowbars, and even gunpowder charges. Willey marched to the site with Cleveland militia at his side. Stones and rifle fire soon filled the air, and several men were wounded before the county sheriff stepped in and a court injunction calmed the chaos. Though the clash ended without fatalities, it revealed the raw tensions of a young city competing for its future.
Beyond the turmoil, Willey’s hand can be seen in quieter, enduring achievements. He helped draft Cleveland’s first municipal charter, laying down the framework of laws and ordinances that guided the city’s early growth. More than a figurehead, he gave Cleveland not only its first mayoral office, but also its first civic identity.
Today, as cars trace the curves of Willey Avenue, they follow a road named for the man who stood at Cleveland’s threshold, guiding it through conflict and setting it on the path to become the city we know today. ▲
Sackett Avenue
Sackett Avenue most likely takes its name from Alexander Sackett (1814–1884), a Cleveland merchant active during the city’s formative years, though definitive records of the naming have not been found. His surname appears as both “Sacket” and “Sackett” in historical sources, a variation common to the era.
Accounts differ on his origins: some place his birth in Meadville, Pennsylvania, while others state he came from Sacket’s Harbor, New York, before arriving in Cleveland in 1835 at the age of twenty-one.
With a solid education and mercantile training already behind him, he quickly found work with Peter Weddell at his dry goods store on Superior and Bank Streets. The site was later occupied by the Weddell House hotel and, eventually, the Rockefeller Building.
In 1836, Sackett married Hannah Johnson, daughter of Capt. Levi Johnson. Together they raised seven children, first in a home on Ontario Street and later in a mansion on Millionaire’s Row at Euclid Avenue and East 69th Street.
As Cleveland expanded, Sackett moved his business to the riverfront, where his warehouse became a familiar landmark. In later years he turned to real estate, acquiring property in the area where Sackett Avenue now runs.
Several of his daughters married into prominent Cleveland families, while his only son to reach adulthood carried on the family’s business interests before his early death.
Alexander Sackett died in 1884, and Hannah in 1897. Both are buried with their family in Lake View Cemetery. ▲
Holmden Avenue
Holmden Avenue takes its name from Mr. and Mrs. Edward J. Holmden, longtime members of Pilgrim Congregational Church. In the mid-19th century, the couple made their home at the edge of the Cuyahoga Valley, at a time when much of this area was still largely unsettled by Euro-Americans.
Before Buhrer and Brainard Avenues were laid out, a simple private driveway ran from Scranton Avenue down to the Holmden house. That path would eventually be extended, surveyed, and developed into Holmden Avenue, carrying the family’s name into the neighborhood map. ▲
Walton Avenue
Walton Avenue likely honors James P. Walton (1811–1878), a Cleveland landowner and real estate developer whose property once covered parts of the Clark–Fulton area where the street now runs. As the neighborhood was laid out in the late 19th century, one of the new thoroughfares was named Walton Avenue, presumably in recognition of Walton’s role in developing the land.
The name was reinforced through Walton School, opened in 1879, the year after Walton’s death, at the corner of Walton and Rhodes Avenue (now Fulton Road). The original 19th-century building stood where the modern school’s parking lot is today. It was later demolished and replaced by a new facility, which remained in use until its closure at the end of the 2024–25 school year, when Walton merged with Clark School into a new building at 5550 Clark Avenue. ▲
Marvin and Daisy Avenues
Marvin and Daisy Avenues are named for the children of Carlos and Mary Jones, founders of the Jones Home for Friendless Children. Chartered in 1886 and opened the following year on West 25th Street, the Home was one of Cleveland’s earliest institutions created to care for children without family support.
The Home grew out of tragedy: after losing their own son and daughter in a drowning accident, the Joneses began welcoming children from families broken by illness, desertion, and neglect.
In its early years, the institution operated out of the Joneses’ farmhouse before expanding to a three-story brick building in 1903, designed by architect Sidney R. Badgley, who also designed the three landmark churches at West 14th Street and Starkweather Avenue.
Life at the Home emphasized both order and community. Children were expected to make their own beds, wash dishes, and share in chores, and they received a small allowance and chances to join clubs outside the Home. Fundraisers like church bazaars and annual chicken dinners helped sustain operations, and a sponsoring board of women from West Side families supported the Joneses’ mission.
For generations, the Jones Home provided food, shelter, and schooling to children on Cleveland’s West Side. Yet its mission was also marked by exclusion, barring children who were not white and Protestant until the early 1960s.
Through naming two streets after their children, Marvin and Daisy, the Jones family left their legacy not only in stone and brick but also on Cleveland’s map. ▲
Roberto Ocasio Avenue
Not all street names in Cleveland date back to the 19th century. Some are much more recent, created through a process the city calls honorary naming.
On Hancock Avenue in Ohio City, "Roberto Ocasio Avenue" honors the late Latin jazz musician ensuring his legacy is visible in a community that was once the heart of Cleveland’s Latino life, especially for Puerto Rican families.
Ocasio was more than a gifted Puerto Rican pianist and bandleader. To thousands of fans, he was the elegant troubadour who introduced Northeast Ohio to mambo, salsa, and the Puerto Rican cha-cha.
To residents around West 33rd and Hancock, he was the neighbor who played piano at a child’s birthday party in the afternoon, then hurried to a gig at the Ritz-Carlton that evening.
For decades, the Ocasio family operated Our Family Market at that corner, a small bodega opened in 1961 after moving from Puerto Rico. Roberto, who grew up in the apartment next door, eventually took over the store in 1991, expanding and renovating it while raising his own family there. The market became a gathering place where neighbors swapped stories, drank café con leche, and felt a sense of belonging.
Even as Ocasio’s music career soared, numbering dozens of engagements each month, he still opened the shop most mornings, laughing with retired men from Ponce, Arecibo, and other Puerto Rican towns. His wife Evelyn later said the store had been a labor of love, part of a family tradition as much as his music.
When Ocasio died in a car crash in 2004 at the age of 49, the community mourned deeply. Friends and neighbors organized petitions to rename Hancock Avenue in his honor. As one longtime resident put it, "Everybody loved Roberto, trust me. He taught us what community meant. It was the subtle things."
After his death, the Roberto Ocasio Foundation was created to continue his mission of music education. The honorary street sign ensures that his presence remains, marking the lasting imprint of a man who embodied culture and community. ▲
Honorary Street Naming
Roberto Ocasio Avenue was created through a process the city calls honorary naming. These designations do not replace the legal street name but are added alongside it on special signs.
Cleveland has mostly embraced honorary street names to celebrate community figures. Leon Bibb Way (Parkgate Avenue) recognizes the pioneering Black broadcast journalist, and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony Way (East 99th Street) pays tribute to the Grammy-winning rap group that rose from Cleveland’s East Side to international fame.
The process begins with a petition, usually requiring the support of at least 70–75% of property owners on the street, along with a biography of the honoree, a written rationale, and even a sketch showing where the signs would go. Proposals are reviewed by the City Planning Commission and must be approved by City Council. Council members are limited to sponsoring no more than two honorary names per four-year term, and each designation typically lasts for ten years unless renewed.
Additional requirements in the city’s code specify that honorary names must not duplicate existing street names, should represent positively regarded individuals, and generally apply to deceased persons or to those over 70 years of age. Legal street names remain unchanged, and addresses must always use the official name.
While Cleveland has not seen major controversy around honorary names, concerns raised here and in other cities include the potential for confusion in navigation or emergency response, the risk of politicization in the selection process, and the possibility that frequent changes could weaken community memory.
Honorary names highlight how street signs are more than directions—they are choices about memory and identity. They tell us who we value, whose stories we carry forward, and who is missing. On the near West Side, where gentrification has transformed many neighborhoods, the question becomes all the more urgent: Whose names should we see on our streets? ▲
