Do right by Dugway Brook

Many of us know the name of Doan Brook, which traces the southern boundary of Cleveland Heights and was dammed in the 1830s by the Shakers, to provide waterpower for their mills.

Less familiar is Dugway Brook, which originates at Lyman Circle, on a high spot in Shaker Heights. As it flows downhill, Dugway divides in two. Following roughly parallel courses, its east and west branches head northwest, through seven communities. As they enter Bratenahl the branches reconverge to form an estuary, which continues north to Lake Erie. On their way from the Heights, they have taken on runoff, stormwater, refuse and debris from an 8.7-square-mile area—the Dugway watershed. Of the land drained by the stream and its tributaries, 45 percent lies within Cleveland Heights. Most of what goes into Dugway ends up in Lake Erie.

For 14,000 years, Dugway provided water for indigenous peoples who frequented this area. When European-descended settlers arrived, they established homes, farms, vineyards, mills, churches and schools within easy reach of its banks. Beginning in the 1830s, Dugway's ravines were quarried for the Euclid bluestone still visible in our oldest buildings and original sidewalks.

As Cleveland Heights grew into a built-out streetcar suburb, most of Dugway was buried in pipes, to accommodate residential and commercial development. During the 1930s, Cain Park was constructed over the culverted east branch between Taylor and Lee roads.

In the mid-1980s, the city covered the section from Lee Road to Euclid Heights Boulevard, intending to provide parking for Cain Park patrons. When neighbors objected, they scrapped the idea and planted grass. Forty years on, engaged residents are encouraging the city and the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District to restore that section of Dugway East and make it a feature of the informally designated Schoolhouse Park.

Today, our local streams remain in evidence, not only in the ravines they have carved into soil and rock, but on our city's street maps and in its topography. Meadowbrook Boulevard follows the undulating diagonal of Dugway West, while its sloping yards are literally the banks of the hidden stream.

The most absurd insult to Dugway is the dam on its west branch in Lakeview Cemetery, which stands 90-feet high and 500-feet wide. This monstrosity, a boondoggle built during the 1970s after Doan Brook stormwater flooded parts of University Circle, serves no purpose and should be removed. Neither branch of Dugway runs through University Circle, nor have they ever endangered life or property by flooding.

Jim Miller, who has documented Dugway from its headwaters to Lake Erie, proposes a "Dugway Brook Walk," to encourage awareness of this significant East Side waterway. Using mostly existing sidewalks and paths marked by distinctive signs, walkers, stroller-pushers, scooter-riders and cyclists could follow Dugway East from Thayne Road through Cain and Cumberland parks, to Forest Hill Park at the Cleveland Heights Community Center.

If the stream were daylighted in Schoolhouse Park, native plants could provide wetland habitat and filtration. Small stone weirs could slow the waters, reducing erosion downstream. Vacant Superior Road property, adjacent to Cumberland Park, could become an overlook for viewing the brook in the open. Behind the Community Center, those who wanted to could continue walking on an existing trail in the Dugway East ravine.

A Dugway Brook Walk would link neighborhoods, connect us to the natural and historical features that shape our surroundings, and encourage us to care for our local waterways.

Thanks to Roy Larick, Jim Miller, Chris Roy and Mark Souther for valuable source materials. Jim Miller's multi-part video travelogue of Dugway Brook is on YouTube: "Searching for Dugway," parts one through seven.