The Hot Sheet

The painting of a policeman guiding and protecting a small girl has graced the walls of the Cleveland Police Department, and now the Cleveland Police Museum, for many years. Many…

The Third and Sixth precincts bordered each other, with both having station houses along Woodland Avenue.  In 1878, between the two precincts there were “eight hundred arrests, two hundred and…

The two-story brick building included ten prison cells, offices, an armory, a lunch room, and bath rooms.  At the time, it was described as being “of creditable appearance and…is an…

Prior to 1853, the city rented buildings to house both the Watchmen and the prisoners.  Newspaper records show Council authorizing the payment of rent and repairs for a Watch House…

The Cleveland Police Department installed a new communication system at Central Station in 1929. The radio was designed by Ralph C. Folkman and using the call letters WRBH, the station…

Designed by architects Lehman and Schmitt, the new station was “as much in touch with the advances made in the last thirty years as was the old one at the…

The First Precinct boundaries at this time ran from the Cuyahoga River along the lake shore to Erie Street, to Euclid Avenue, to Brownell Street, to Woodland Avenue, to Cross…

After voluntary closures and suggested social isolation proved unsuccessful in keeping the case numbers down, the city and county mandated closures and quarantines.  Calling the pandemic “the most serious menace…

As automobile traffic increased in the United States, auto clubs sprang up across the country.  In the early 1900s, these clubs began discussing the need for uniform traffic regulations.  Individual…

In 1907, Jerry Murphy developed his most efficient and successful version of the call box system.  The new call boxes were significantly smaller – still tall, but made of steel…

In 1904, George Koestle and Chief of Police Fred Kohler traveled to the St. Louis World’s Fair to witness a demonstration of a new method of criminal identification, fingerprinting.  Based…

Many more attempts at designing a functional traffic signal followed. In 1916, Clevelanders John Tomko, CW Oppenlander and SW Oppenlander invented an “electric semaphore” for “minimizing traffic hazards.” The device…

The Memorial Service for Eliot Ness, his wife Elisabeth and their son Robert took place on September 10, 1997, organized by the Cleveland Police Historical Society and Museum. The service…

The Cleveland Police used traffic semaphores to bring order and safety to our streets.  The officer set up the semaphore in the middle of the intersection and controlled the flow…

In 1896, the Cleveland Police Department created the Bureau of Criminal Identification, led by George Koestle. As a young man, Koestle worked for one of the commercial photographers hired by…