World’s 1st billionaire left a legacy in Northeast Ohio

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – “Oh, he was a real rich guy. He was the first really, really rich guy,” explained Tom Kelly, author of “The Cleveland 200: The Most Noted, Notable and Notorious in the First 200 of a Great American City.”

“Cleveland boomed because of Rockefeller,” he added

Born in 1839, John Davison Rockefeller boomed as well, making his fortune in Cleveland with the founding of Standard Oil in 1870.

“He was brutal with his competitors,” said Kelly. “He found ways to put them all out of business.”

He not only built an oil empire but a mansion on Millionaires’ Row on Euclid Avenue, then a summer home at his estate at Forest Hill in East Cleveland, all while Standard Oil grew.

“He just kept building his business,” Kelly explained, controlling not just oil but the refineries and transportation. “He just kept buying everything up that just made it a total vertical and horizontal monopoly.”

That monopoly was broken up by the Supreme Court in 1911. Standard Oil was split into 39 different companies, but Rockefeller still prospered.

“He was very strait-laced person where he really didn’t have any fun with his money,” Kelly said. “He went to church. Oh, he loved golf! He was a terrible golfer, but he loved the game but that was his only recreation.”

Rockefeller left Cleveland over a tax feud in 1913, only returning when he died 25 years later in 1937 at almost 98 years old.

“He never came back to Cleveland again,” Kelly said. “It was regrettable that Cleveland pushed him away; Cleveland would have been New York City in a few more years.”

Aside from his family burial plot at Lake View Cemetery, signs of Rockefeller’s wealth and impact dot the city: he donated Forest Hill Park in East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights, the Rockefeller Building still stands on West 9th Street at the top of The Flats, Rockefeller Park just north of University Circle, and the Rockefeller Homes developed by his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. are a few of his lasting legacies.

Rockefeller came from humble beginnings, the son of a con man, “Wild Bill” Rockefeller. He rose to heights previously unseen. And he proved something in the process.

“You didn’t have to come from royalty, you didn’t have to have Old World connections, you weren’t born rich, but you worked hard, you got rich, and you worked harder, you got richer,” said Kelly. “I think he was a model for millions of Americans.”

“I don’t think there’s ever been anyone quite like him.”

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