American trivia - "Cleaveland" Ohio

For those of you who don't know already (I've featured it on this blog before), The Library of Congress has an American Memory project, which features (among other things), a "Today in History" feature - not a single snippet like at some sites, but a many-faceted write-up with pictures and links.

A tidbit from today's Today in History page:

On July 22, 1796, surveyors commissioned by General Moses Cleaveland completed the plan for the town of Cleaveland, Ohio. The Connecticut Land Company sent General Cleaveland to the northeastern region of Ohio to speed the sale of the 3,500,000 acres that Connecticut had reserved when Ohio was opened for settlement ten years earlier. In 1832, the city's name was changed to Cleveland when the a was dropped to reduce the length of a newspaper's masthead.

Located on the southern shore of Lake Erie, the town did not grow substantially until the Erie Canal was completed in 1825. The canal opened a passage to the Atlantic Ocean, making the city a major St. Lawrence Seaway port. Soon, the city became a center for commercial and industrial activity. This activity increased further in the 1840s when the railroad arrived...

From The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History website sponsored by Case Western Reserve University and the Western Reserve Historical Society, here is a timeline of Cleveland history.