page_title: Whiskey Island (Cleveland)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Whiskey Island (Cleveland) / History
caption_attribution_description: The old Cleveland Coast Guard Station is located on a pier off of Whiskey Island on the west side of the mouth of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood. Constructed in 1940, the Art Moderne-style building was intended by its designer J. Milton Dyer, also known for designing Cleveland City Hall, to be a prototype for many similar stations that would be located around the Great Lakes, but the outbreak of World War II caused those plans to never be carried out. The building features two garages, a streamlined facade, observation tower, and drew heavy inspiration from the appearance and design of ships. The building replaced an earlier, wooden structure on the same site, which had opened in 1876. The building remained in use until 1976, when, a century after the US Coast Guard's arrival on the site, the Coast Guard decamped for a more modern facility on the central lakefront next to Burke Airport. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, but it languished for much of the late 20th Century and early 20th Century, with the only significant use being a nightclub during the 1990s. The isolated building fell into severe decay until only a few years ago, when Cleveland Metroparks, whom has undertaken improvements at many parks throughout the greater Cleveland region, began the renovation of the structure, which so far has consisted of repainting and repairing the exterior, windows, roofs, and gutting the heavily damaged interior. Today, the building is in a state of incomplete renovation, but has improved in condition significantly, with high hopes by many for its future for the first time in decades, and is a hidden treasure on the city's waterfront.
context_page_description: Whiskey Island is a peninsula at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River at Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio. Its current configuration was created in 1827 when the river's mouth was moved to its present location. The western half of Whiskey Island is occupied by the Cleveland Bulk Terminal. The eastern section is home to a marina and public park, known as Wendy Park, which forms part the Lakefront Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks. The peninsula is 1 mile long and 0.3 miles at its widest, bounded by Lake Erie to the north, West 54th Street on the west, and the Cuyahoga River to the south and east.
caption: Whiskey Island Coast Guard station in 2018.
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