NBC affiliate television station maintained its offices and broadcast facilities here from 1967 to 2001

East Ohio Gas Company Building, Cleveland Ohio

Date added: January 05, 2024 Categories:

North and West Walls, looking southeast (2002)

The East Ohio Gas Company was formed by Standard Oil Company to bring natural gas from West Virginia to Akron in 1898. It moved into the Cleveland market in 1902. By 1910 it had absorbed the older artificial gas companies in the city. East Ohio provided cheaper, more efficient fuel for home heating and light than the artificial gas companies could offer. The company thrived and continues in business today. In 1915, the East Ohio Gas Company Building on East 6^th Street was the earliest private sector response to the 1903 Group Plan concept and it set a precedent for the other private sector buildings that followed near it on the east border of the Mall. The only other major urban utility company in Cleveland, The Illuminating Company, elected to construct its headquarters building the same year at the northwest corner of Public Square as a Sullivanesque skyscraper. The East Ohio Gas Company Building provided a model for urban office building fireproof construction and retains its integrity in this respect today.

John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) began his rise to fortune with the discovery of abundant oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859. Refining and transporting this resource with innovative efficiency, he built the huge consortium that came to be known as the Standard Oil Company.

Drillers in search of oil often discovered natural gas instead. During the oil rush, disappointed oilmen frequently burned off the gas. But there were a few people who could envision the potential value of natural gas as an efficient, clean-burning fuel for industry and for improving the quality of daily life. One such person who valued natural gas was Daniel O'Day (1844-1906) a tough hard-driving pipeline builder. O'Day was put in charge of Standard Oil's pipeline construction. He was obsessed that large amounts of natural gas were being wasted in the oil fields. He believed that pipelines could transport the natural gas to market and he persuaded Rockefeller to enter the natural gas business. The National Transit Company was formed as part of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey at least in part for this purpose. By 1898, National Transit owned the richest natural gas fields in Appalachia, including a number in West Virginia. They owned, also, the most advanced gas pipeline building methods and the most satisfactory methods for measuring; and therefore profitably selling; natural gas.

In late summer of 1898, National Transit organized Hope Natural Gas Company, its first big gas producer. On September 8^th, the corporation spawned a marketing company to deliver gas to the people of northeastern Ohio. They named it, appropriately, The East Ohio Gas Company.

Akron, Ohio in 1898 had a population of 40,000, but the sudden demand for automobile tires was about to quadruple this number. Akron had the Goodrich Rubber Company and Goodyear Tire Company and would shortly have Firestone Tire & Rubber Company. At this time, if you wanted gas in Akron, you could buy manufactured gas at $1.25 per thousand cubic feet (which was very expensive; when the average American earned less than $1,000 annually). The market for natural gas was wide open, and the East Ohio Gas Company set about filling the vacuum. Akron's City Council granted East Ohio a franchise in September of 1898, and the company set up an office and shop at 42 & 44 East Mill St. The pipe fitters went to work November 1^st and within 2 months had completed and buried 22 miles of pipe under the city's streets.

Throughout the winter of 1899, East Ohio's employees constructed a 10-inch, wrought iron main transmission line from the Ohio River to Akron, with branches to Canton, Massillon, Dover, New Philadelphia, Uhrichsville, and Dennison, where East Ohio delivered its first cubic feet of natural gas. At this time, the country's ablest pipe-building organization was East Ohio's parent company, National Transit. National Transit shipped most of the natural gas in the U.S., and 85 percent of the petroleum.

As East Ohio's long transmission line snaked up from the south, the company began to set its sights north to the booming industrial, port city of Cleveland. More than 120,000 people had poured into Cleveland from 1890 to 1900, bringing the total population to over 380,000. Oil refineries worked day and night on Cleveland's Flats. All of the iron ore from Lake Superior passed through Cleveland's huge port, to be loaded onto train cars in Cleveland railroad yards for distribution throughout the nation. Additionally, Cleveland was also making more steel wire, wire nails, and nuts and bolts than any other city in the world and building more merchant vessels in the shipyards than any other American city. Cleveland would be the jewel in East Ohio's distribution crown.

The man who would place the jewel in the crown was Martin B. Daly (1860-1926), transferred by East Ohio in 1902 from National Transit's North Western Ohio Natural Gas Company. More than any other person, this one-time pipe fitter forged the character of the East Ohio Gas Company, for nearly a quarter of a century, he molded the East Ohio Gas Company into the largest natural gas company in the world.

To obtain its Cleveland franchise, East Ohio needed every bit of Mr. Daly's legendary salesmanship. Cleveland had just elected Mayor Tom L. Johnson (1854-1911), the progressive leader of Cleveland during its period of most rapid growth and development. However, when the Rockefeller-controlled East Ohio Gas Company offered to supply the city with natural gas at a price considerably below that charged by existing franchise holders, Johnson was willing to consider the matter, despite his preference for publicly owned utilities. East Ohio's proposed entry was hotly debated by two artificial gas companies amid charges that Standard Oil had offered the mayor a million dollars in exchange for the franchise approval. Despite these allegations, East Ohio's request was granted. City Council approved the franchise on June 23^rd, 1902. On February 9^th 1903, Cleveland held a public celebration to commemorate the entrance of natural gas to the city.

East Ohio quickly built a 30-mile pipeline from Gross Farm Station, near Canton, and soon began another transmission line from the Ohio River to Cleveland. It was 18-inches in diameter and 118 miles in length. Within two years, from his office (#437) on the fourth floor of The Old Arcade, Mr. Daly signed contracts to supply natural gas to American Steel & Wire Company, Pabst Brewing Co., and more than 280 other big corporate consumers. Natural gas gave Cleveland industry a tremendous impetus. By 1905 East Ohio was sending bills to 30,000 customers who paid only 30 cents per thousand cubic feet of natural gas. Soon the company gained franchises in East Cleveland, Newburgh Heights, and Lakewood. By 1907, when a third transmission line to Cleveland was completed, East Ohio's customers numbered almost 150,000.

East Ohio's success led to further expansion. In 1908, East Ohio absorbed the 21-year old Mahoning Gas Fuel Company of Youngstown. A 14-inch line soon connected Youngstown, Warren, and surrounding communities with the company's lines at Gross Farm Station, near Canton. This was significant because Youngstown was a prime customer, well on its way to becoming the city where more steel was produced than anywhere in the world other than Pittsburgh. East Ohio began to produce its own supply of natural gas in 1909, although most of the gas it sold still came from West Virginia's Hope Natural Gas Company.

In 1910, East Ohio added 65,225 customers by absorbing its Cleveland manufactured gas competitors, the Cleveland Gas Light & Coke Company and the People's Gas Light Company. For a time, the East Ohio Gas Company continued to supply manufactured gas to those who wanted it. In 1911 East Ohio purchased the Canton Gas Light & Coke Company, another manufactured gas concern. In 1913, the company took over Mohican Oil & Gas, which had struggled for years to compete with East Ohio in the Akron market. That year the expanding organization began construction on a 200-mile 20-inch main transmission line directly linking eastern Ohio to the natural gas fields of West Virginia.

The East Ohio Gas Company had established itself as a thriving industry with capitalization of over $20 million. In an effort to help its 1,900 employees maintain the feeling of a personal "family" company, The East Ohio News made its debut in 1914 filled with announcements of promotions, dances, engagements, vacations, births, deaths, advice from Mr. Daly, and developments in the natural gas industry. The East Ohio News offered East Ohioans an easy way to keep in touch. Roads were terrible and the telephone was at this time, in its infancy, with the only communication link among compressor stations for gas dispatching being a telegraph line. In 1914, East Ohio established direct communication with West Virginia gas fields from Akron to Clarington with the installation of a telephone line.

Virtually everything in these early years were firsts, for East Ohio and for Cleveland. East Ohioans had the satisfaction of knowing that they were helping to shape a new and exciting industry that was improving people's lives. Named president of East Ohio in 1906, Martin Daly did much more than advance the quantity of gas sold, he made East Ohio a quality company. Deciding that the time had come to make its Cleveland presence permanent, with capital exceeding $20 million and the need for additional office space an ever-increasing problem, in 1915 Martin Daly announced that the East Ohio Gas Company would erect a Headquarter Building that would satisfy all of their needs. In 1916, the main office staff moved into the brand new building on East 6^th Street, which they noted as being "roomy, airy and functional." This 6-story structure was built with fire safety in mind. It was said to be of a design that eliminated ornament and was completely fireproof. All doors, windowsills and even furniture were made of metal. President Daly observed proudly stating, "In building for the convenience, pleasure and service of our customers we have also built for the convenience, happiness and health of our own men and women - for a more deserving, faithful and ambitious lot of men and women do not exist."

The lobby was designed with teller stations, new service offices, and to display the newest state-of-the-art appliances to tempt customers into using even more gas power. By 1916, the majority of homes in Cleveland had gas heat. During World War I, Liberty Bond drives were held in the lobby to show support for our men in service while the East Ohio Gas band called "The Gas Meeters" played patriotic tunes to evoke sentimentality from customers coming in to pay their gas bill. Over 1,200 East Ohioans bought the Liberty Bonds during these drives at the East Ohio Gas Building.

The East Ohio Gas Company came to be one of the most innovative gas distribution companies in the U.S. and has played a truly significant role in the making of mid-America. In 1927, the East Ohio Gas Company was the largest natural gas distributing company in the world. The company remained in its East 6^th Street building until 1959.

The prime occupant of this building after 1960 was the NBC affiliate television station, WKYC-TV, Channel 3, which maintained its offices and broadcast facilities here from 1967 to 2001. This station is one of the three main national affiliates in Cleveland. The other two are, currently, WEWS-TV, Channel 5, (ABC) and WJW-TV, Channel 8, (CBS). WKYC-TV introduced the "Mike Douglas Show" in the early 1960s, which grew to national stature. During its 34 years in this building, the station was host to numerous famous and infamous personalities and covered all major Cleveland news stories from urban riots and decay in the 1960s and 1970s to urban rebirth and revitalization in the 1980s and 1990s.

Building Description

The East Ohio Gas Company Building stands on the east side of East 6^th Street on the east border of the Cleveland Mall, which is the most visible manifestation of the 1903 Group Plan. It has a rectangular ground-level plan, 166 feet along East 6^th Street by 116 feet wide, that occupies the western portion of an urban site that is bounded on the west by East 6^th Street, on the north by Theresa Court, on the east by a parking lot and parking garage, and on the south by Rockwell Avenue. Above the tall first story, there are five floors of offices in a "U" shape configuration, open to the west, the buildings principal elevation. The central light court is 72 feet deep by 51 feet wide and originally allowed for three skylights over the main entrance lobby. This six-story structure is steel frame, clad in Bedford limestone on the west, north and south and clad in red brick on the east wall. The exterior of the building is in good condition and retains its original features and its architectural integrity. The interior retains its original structural configuration. However, partitions have been added and removed during numerous renovations under the original and subsequent owners. The East Ohio Gas Company Building is a good representative example of Beaux Arts urban architectural design in the first quarter of the 20^th Century.

The East Ohio Gas Company Building is 15 bays wide on the west wall, and 11 bays deep on the north and south walls. The east wall is a plain red brick with two light shafts in the center, presumably due to constraints from adjacent buildings that originally stood to the east. The tall first story is rendered in colossal Doric pilasters that are flat, except for the four in the center of the west wall defining the main entrance lobby that are half-round. Over the central main entrance is a stepped limestone entablature that supports a stone-wreathed clock flanked by two stone eagles. Between the pilasters in bays 1, 5, 11 and 15 of the west wall, and the west bay of the north and south walls, there are rectangular windows or niches, above which are bas-relief panels depicting the uses of natural gas. The Doric pilasters support a strong Doric entablature and cornice, which serves as the visual base for the five office stories above. Smooth ashlar masonry walls define the office stories with rectangular windows neatly incised into them. The building is capped by a deep cornice and classical balustrade. All windows, doors and trim are bronze or copper clad metal except for the second floor office level, where matching aluminum sash was installed twenty years ago. The roof is a flat asphalt roof, pitched slightly to roof drains. The overall condition of the exterior is good.

The original interior finishes were plaster walls and ceilings, reinforced concrete floors with resilient floor covering and ceramic tile in the toilet rooms. The original main entrance lobby was separated from a surrounding mezzanine, added in 1927, on three sides by tall Doric fluted piers. At the mezzanine level, there were paneled spandrels and a balustrade. The office floors were open, with few internal partitions. The "U" shape configuration allowed maximum natural light into the offices, which was supplemented by half-round dependent light fixtures. Similarly, three glass skylights for natural illumination covered the main entrance lobby. The skylight openings remain, and are evident from below, but are concealed by a flat asphalt roof. The interior office areas retain much of their plaster walls and ceilings, with wall coverings used in some areas. Suspended acoustic tile ceilings have been inserted below the original plaster. The floors have been covered with carpet. The elevator lobbies have marble wainscots that were added during remodeling, probably in the 1950s. Television offices and studios that were added during the NBC occupancy from 1967 to 2001 largely conceal the original main entrance lobby. An additional second floor level has been added as well. Most of the original classical details of the original lobby remain, including the Doric pilasters (scarred by later NBC era partitions). The Doric cornice and decorative elements in the ceiling (both in good condition) remain above the acoustic tile. The basement auditorium was removed and the area subdivided into utility and storage rooms probably during the NBC occupancy. The overall condition of the original main floor and mezzanine levels is fair to good. The original steel stairs, north and south, on the east side of the building remain in good condition. The overall condition of the interior is good.