Doan Brook Parks explores park landscape in the hand of natural and human forces. Find evidence for the rise of local bedrock, for bulldozing glacial ice and for Doan Brook’s cutting of a beloved ravine.Review the impacts of park development, including the outstanding Cleveland Cultural Gardens. See the recently completed Doan Brook Enhancement Project in terms of stormwater mediation and the restoration of local natural habitats.
7. Springs &
Small Streams
Wade Park spring
The feature lies at the head of a small Doan Brook tributary. During his land tenure, 1872-1882,
Jeptha Wade assembled boulders and a rustic sandstone staircase. Some of the physical
components are still present at the Cleveland Botanical Garden’s Japanese Garden.
Rockefeller Park spring
Little has been recorded about this feature which was improved with J.D Rockefeller’s bequest of
1896. A boulder assemblage lies on the east bank of the Doan Brook ravine opposite the
Rockefeller Park lagoon. In a nearby low spot, a sewer grate may indicate the spring outflow.
Cleveland lies on a sandwich of alternating
porous and impervious rocks. Such conditions
breed springs.
Springs provided drinking water and social gathering
places. They also played into the Victorian era
hydrotherapy movement. Private springs were thus
commercialized. At public springs, the settings were
often ‘improved’ by assembling glacial erratic
boulders around the outflow.
Wade Park Spring. 1900
Doan Brook cuts through an area where fossil
beaches (porous) lie over glacial clay (impervious).
Early settlers here found numerous springs.
10. Wade Park spring
Wade Park, man at Spring Valley Ravine,
west from new Garden Center building
WRHS 2833
"The Spring" in Wade Park WRHS 2800
11. Rockefeller & Wade Parks 1898
Cozad mill
Wade Park spring
Rockefeller Park spring
next slide
12. Spring Pond Brook
Rockefeller Park
E93rdSt
Wade Park spring
In 1881, Spring Pond Brook was a Doan Brook tributary draining an area now covered by the
Cleveland Clinic and Fairfax. The name derives from spring –fed wetlands in the Amesbury-E 93rd-
Lamont area. The stream is now entirely buried with outflow near the Rockefeller Park lagoon.
lagoon
Lamont Ave
13. Wade Park
north, 1881
Wade Park spring
The Wade Park spring feeds a small stream (let’s call it
Cozad Run) that flows westward to Doan Brook. Jeptha
Wade ‘improved’ the land with several features.
Cleveland Museum of Natural History now sits on the
stream course, including the area of Wade’s ‘iron
bridge’. In the mouth area, Wade’s carp pond now holds
the Cancer Survivors memorial and the new bioswale.
carp pond
CMP
14. Cozad Mill
One of the pair of Cozad’s granite millstones
is on display on the east side of the lagoon.
Doan Brook millpond
Samuel Cozad’s gristmill was of the latter
type. To create a millpond, Cozad
dammed the north end of a large Doan
Brook meander. Jeptha Wade later
expanded the millpond. This is the origin
of the current Fine Arts Garden lagoon.
The East Side’s earliest water powered
grist mills were built at bluestone
waterfalls on the Portage Escarpment
(Mill Creek, 1799; Dugway Brook, 1809;
Euclid Creek, 1809).
Later, milling moved down onto the lake
plain. On the plain, a millpond had to be
built to provide the necessary hydraulic
head.
WRHS
18. Rockefeller Park
Wade Park Ave
masonry arch bridge
Designed by Charles Schweinfurth
(1856-1919)
Built, 1897-1900
Partially funded by the J.D. Rockefeller
bequest of 1896
19. Gasparini, Vermes & Conley.
Cleveland's historic bridges:
architectural and engineering
masterpieces.
Wilbur J. and Sara Ruth Watson
Bridge Book Collection, CSU
Special Collections. 2002.
Revised, 2003.
Wade Park carriage road
arch (missing spandrel wall)
MLK Jr arch with Berea
Sandstone spandrel wall
Concrete-Steel Engineering Company,
‘Successors to the Melan Arch
Construction Company,’
Park Row Bldg, New York NY
1907
Wade Park
Melan Arch bridges
About 1900, the City of Cleveland
contracted for two Melan Arch
bridges in Wade Park. At an early
date, the Melan Arch system
combined steel truss and cast
concrete construction. The
bridges are now historic.
20. carriage rd
Melan Arch
MLK Drive
Melan Arch
Rockefeller & Wade Parks 1912
Rockefeller Park
Minus its decorative sandstone spandrel walls, the carriage road Melan Arch
is still in place as the outflow of the Doan Brook University Circle culvert.
carp pond
CMNH construction on Cozad Run, 1960s CMP
21. Doan Brook
Enhancement
Project
Doan Brook Enhancement Project
2013-2014 (+2-yr warranty period)
4 acres covering 1,700 lineal ft of the DB channel
upstream start: MLK Blvd culvert inflow (at Jeptha Dr)
downstream end 1st MLK bridge after the lagoon
$4.3M ($2.5M Cle/$1.8M NEORSD)
lagoon
DoanBrook
North
Cancer Survivors Memorial
Rockefeller Park spring
Wade Park Ave
E105thSt
CWRU
Sun Farm
VA Hosp
Mt Sinai Dr
deep
riffle
structure
shallow
riffle
structures
22. Improve aquatic life habitat
stable pools, riffles and grade controls
low-flow channel along thalweg to reduce dry spell stagnation
use terraced flood plains of re-used wall materials
use plantings that fit the park setting
Goals:
Stabilize stream channel with dimension and profile to handle local flows
reconstruct historic walls to slow slope & stream bank erosion
reduce bank erosion & deteriorating walls
create areas where the stream can safely access a floodplain
Maintain current stream channel alignment
Minimize impact to the historic Cultural Gardens
Doan Brook
Enhancement
Project
23. Doan Brook Enhancement Project
Bio-retention basin and footbridges
Bioswale with native planting in area of the Wade carp pond
24. Boulder-cobble point bar reflects high velocity culvert outflow
Doan Brook Enhancement Project
emerging from the MLK – E 105th – Mt Sinai Dr culvert
25. Doan Brook Enhancement Project
Rockefeller Lagoon parking lot bioswale
parking lot outflow bioswale inflow
26. Doan Brook Enhancement Project
Rockefeller Lagoon segment deep riffle structure
Looking upstream
Stream bank native planting
in foreground
mid
ground
Looking downstream
27. Doan Brook Enhancement Project
Rockefeller Lagoon segment shallow riffle structures
Structure 2
Looking downstream to Structure 1
Structure 1