Kingsbury Run

King ***ury Run refers to the area on the east side of Cleveland near Shaker Heights, extending westward across Kin***an Avenue and to the Cuyahoga River. It also includes a natural watershed that runs through East 79th Street in Cleveland, where natural creeks drain stormwater from the areas now known as Warrensville Heights and Maple Heights into the Cuyahoga River.

The Kingsbury River is named for James Kingsbury, the first resident of Newburgh (1797) and a settler of the Western Reserve, one of the earliest rivers. At the end of the 19th century, the city commissioned a project for a new sewer tunnel system. This was built to pass through the Kingsbury running area under Kingsman Avenue.

Kingsbury Run separates Cleveland and Newburgh into a railroad transportation district. Industry flourished in the area, including John D. Rockefeller's crude oil refinery and William Halsey Doane's oil and naphtha works. However, the boom period was followed by a wave of poverty. During the Great Depression, the industry began to collapse and Cleveland's workforce suffered. Minorities and immigrants have been hardest hit. The groups most affected include African Americans, particularly those from the Cedar Center area; a Hungarian community east of Cedar Center; Czech and Slovak communities along the lakefront east of downtown; and along the banks of the Cuyahoga River of Polish, Czech and Irish communities. Many of these displaced and unemployed people live on abandoned land, forming their own communities called shantytowns. One type of settlement formed on the banks of the Kingsbury River.

Poverty in the region continued to grow into the late 1930s. As these were displaced by the city, large numbers of new residents moved in from other lakeside shantytowns. It was during this time that Kingsbury Long was thrust into the spotlight and infamous as a crime scene. Many of the unidentified Kingsbury Butcher's victims were found in shantytowns. The case, which hinted at the gruesome nature of the killings, soon became known as the Cleveland Torso Murders. In 1938, Cleveland security chief Eliot Ness ordered a raid on the area that resulted in the eviction of 300 squatters and the burning of at least 100 squatters. It is almost ironic that 20 years later, as part of the Garden Valley federal urban renewal project, the City of Kingsbury began to redevelop but instead encountered a low-income housing district. Built on a spoil dump donated by Republic Steel, Garden Valley was emblematic of the 1950s national tendency to move newer housing to the urban fringes.

The King ***ury Run is still remembered today, primarily as a violent period in Cleveland's history. When the city *** refers to the area, it mainly notes the massive sewer system that runs through it.