Cleveland's Greatest Disasters: Sixteen Tragic Tales of Death and Destruction—An Anthology

by John Stark Bellamy II

Fifteen incredible true disaster stories from Cleveland history, including … This anthology collects the very best disaster tales from John Stark Bellamy’s five-book Cleveland crime and disaster series.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History

226 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

John Stark Bellamy II is the author of six books and two anthologies about Cleveland crime and disaster. The former history specialist for the Cuyahoga County Public Library, he comes by his taste for the sensational honestly, having grown up reading stories about Cleveland crime and disaster written by his grandfather, Paul, who was editor of the Plain Dealer, and his father, Peter, who wrote for the Cleveland News and the Plain Dealer."

Reviews

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not a Cleveland native, so I enjoy reading the history of the area. I enjoyed learning about these events and explaining to my kids lesser known stories of the city they were born in.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Couldn't put it down!

[Jenn Swanson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Growing up near Cleveland I never heard of most of these disasters. In fact, the only one I remember hearing about was about how Lake Erie kept catching fire. I didn't know that it did it as many times as it did until I read this book though. All the tales covered are interesting and I would recommend this book overall.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the stories, they were all fascinating, but not all are set in Cleveland -- one story is the great Ashtabula Bridge Disaster of 1876. Also, the Doodlebug Crash in Cuyahoga Falls made the book.
This didn't really bother me, though, because I found both stories just as interesting as the ones set in Cleveland.

What did drive me a bit bonkers was the arrangement of the book. In the book, there are some stories that relate to others. In the latter story ( how it was organized in the book), the author keeps referring to the other event (that usually occurred later in history, but was showcased earlier in the book). An example of this would be the S.S. Kresge Fireworks Explosion of 1908 (pp. 145-158), which is still considered "Cleveland's Saddest 4th (of July). "Damn the Torpedoes" (The Fireworks Factory Horrors of 1902-1903) follows later beginning on pg. 177. From the start of this piece, the author talks about the 1908 fire ... It would have been better if the author would have talked about the earlier disaster and then dedicated the very next chapter to the 1908 fire.

[April Helms · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of 16 disaster tales, told from Bellamy's other considerable books on famous (and infamous) Cleveland-area events. This is a noce collection for local history buffs to have on hand. Bellamy had a narrative writing style that is easy to follow, filled with a dry wit and a no-holds barred attitude when reflecting on what went wrong. That is the tragedy in so many of these cases -- isn't that usually the case though? There were usually hints that something bad could happen, and they could have been prevented. The hardest story to read was the 1908 Collinwood Fire tragedy, where 172 died in a schoolhouse fire. Another heartbreaker was the 1916 waterworks collapse, and the story of arguably the biggest hero, inventor Garrett A. Morgan, whose invention -- the gas mask -- allowed the possibility for any rescue at all.

[Romana1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally thought about only giving this book three stars, because I was a little disappointed that this book was an anthology of 16 tales taken from his 5 earlier books about Cleveland's "darker" side. However, that would not be fair to a new reader to his works, considering I thought his previous books were all excellent.

If you enjoyed this book, I recommend all the books he pulled these stories from-he has a way about writing about Cleveland's rougher past that makes this an easy read, despite the horrific subject matter (like the Collinwood school fire and our infamously burning river).

[Erika Schoeps · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing and well-written with an underlying political message. Not just about the narrative of the disasters, but about who disasters happen to and why. The victims of most of these accidents were immigrants and the working class, and the responsible parties were always unregulated and heartless corporations.

The one qualm I had with this book was the creepy way the author referred to some accidents and deaths as "beautiful" or "beautifully tragic." I like reading about disasters as much as the next person, but I certainly wouldn't call them beautiful.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read all the tales in this book as this is an anthology of his previous 5 complete works. That said, this work picks the 16 tragic tales that showed the best in heroics and the best in people who were involved.

[Dawn Livingston · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories were interesting, especially for someone from Cleveland born after they all happened but... many of the stories were very hard to read. Make sure you have some tissue with you as you read, and you might need to take a break between stories.

[Jeff Minar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was more interesting than I thought at first. The account of the 150+ school children who died in a school fire in the 1930's was heartbreaking.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author is a poor writer, but at least the history was interesting

[Lana]

These stories were very interesting but also very sad. I am surprised I hadn't heard about some of these tragedies before, seeing that my grandparents lived in Cleveland all their lives. I like how the author describes what happened but also puts the tales in a historical context (for example, not only Cleveland had fireworks factories in the middle of neighborhoods in the late 1800's). He also is sure to point out the heroes of each story as well. Educational for sure, but if you read it, be prepared to be a little disturbed as well.