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History Cleveland is a tiny unincorporated community in Klickitat County, Washington, United States. It contains an old cemetery and a rodeo. The rodeo, the oldest in the state, has been completely refurbished. Also on the rodeo grounds is a 100-year-old Spillman carousel that has been completely refurbished thanks to grants and private funds. The closest town is Bickleton. In 1881, Sol Lowenberg a Jewish merchant from Goldendale decided that a store in Wood Gulch, three miles west of Bickleton , on the wagon road from Goldendale and Dot neighborhoods would be a great "trade catcher." He acted on his hunch and built a store on the homestead of Ripley Dodge. In 1883 Ripley Dodge had a townsite surveyed and platted. Located in a wide hollow, fringed by pine forests, Cleveland, was a sheltered and ideal location for a town. Ripley Dodge named his town Cleveland in honor of his home city, Cleveland, Ohio.This was the nearest the place ever came to being a city. Plans to incorporate Bickleton in 1903 were dropped, because the citizens did not think it necassary to assume the eatra tax burden. Cleveland had about the same starting activity as Bickleton. David Mason, drugstore; George Merton, general store; Archibald Dodge, general store; J.J. Purviance, furniture store; Ripley Dodge, hotel; W.A. McCredy, hotel and livery barn; Charles McClain, blacksmith shop. In 1896 the entire business section of Cleveland was wiped out by a disastrous fire which started at daybreak in the livery barn. The flames were fanned by the strong Klickitat wind. Buildings were quickly destroyed. The town rebuilt at once and business prestige retained until the boom at Bickleton when the town of Cleveland started to decline in favor. The following years merchants folded up and left. Reference; Early Klickitat Valley Days, Robert Ballou.
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