Garden History and Design
Ruth Swetland Eppig
The Shaker Lakes Garden Club's history is entwined with that of the Shaker Lakes Park and the Nature Center of Shaker Lakes. Our members were active in the founding of the Nature Center of Shaker Lakes and the successful attempt to save the Shaker Lakes from being destroyed by the proposed Clark Freeway. The freeway would have passed straight through our Shaker and Cleveland Heights communities as well as through the minority neighborhoods below the Heights along Doan Creek. Historically, many cities have succumbed to community displacement by thruways connecting our cities to further out suburbs. Not only was this a tragedy for our parks and greenspaces but also created the destruction of our inner suburbs and urban neighborhoods.
Virgnia Dawson has written a comprehensive paper on the amazing coalition of partners that came together to defeat the proposed freeway. In the end, the political engagement of our then mayor, Carl Stokes, was essential.
Click here to read the paper.