Woodmere

How Woodmere began

Woodmere was part of Orange Township and, until the 1940s, little more than farmland at the intersection of what is now Chagrin Boulevard and Interstate 271. Its 1944 incorporation was the culmination of an effort by white homeowners to block African American do-it-yourself builders from constructing homes in the area, and in 1946 the new village enacted a building code with provisions calculated to frustrate that construction. Zoned initially for single-family residences only, Woodmere was rezoned for commercial use in the 1970s and became the site of the Eton Square shopping center in 1975, later renamed Eton Collection in 1990 and Eton Chagrin Boulevard in 2003; today it functions as the primary commercial district for the whole area once covered by Orange Township and, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, has become an integrated community of diverse nationalities despite its exclusionary origins.

Incorporated 1944, from Orange Township.

Where the name comes from

No source we reviewed explains the origin of the name Woodmere. It is an open question, not a settled fact.

Before the town

No source reviewed identifies a specific, named Native American village, mound, or treaty site within present Woodmere; the land was part of Orange Township, organized in 1820 on ground ceded to the United States by the 1795 Treaty of Greenville. Pepper Pike, Moreland Hills, Orange, and Hunting Valley were also split from Orange Township.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1820 — Orange Township, which will include the future Woodmere, organizes.
2. 1940s (until) — The land that becomes Woodmere remains little more than an expanse of farmland.
3. 1944 — Woodmere incorporates as a village, the culmination of an effort by white homeowners to block African American do-it-yourself builders from constructing homes in the area.
4. 1946 — The new village enacts a building code with provisions calculated to frustrate the construction efforts of the Black builders the incorporation had targeted.
5. 1960 — Population is 398.
6. 1970 — Population peaks at 1,041.
7. 1970s — Woodmere is rezoned from single-family-only to permit commercial development.
8. 1975 — The Eton Square shopping center opens.
9. 1990 — Eton Square is renamed Eton Collection.
10. 2003 — The shopping center is renamed again, to Eton Chagrin Boulevard.

Stories

Incorporated to exclude, rezoned to sell

Woodmere's founding was not a response to growth or a school dispute, as in some neighboring villages, but a direct act of housing exclusion: the 1944 incorporation was, in the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History's own words, 'the culmination of an effort by white homeowners to block African American do-it-yourself builders' from putting up houses on the area's remaining farmland, and the village's first building code, passed in 1946, was written with provisions calculated to frustrate exactly that kind of construction. The village's later history moved in a different direction: once its farmland was mostly built out, Woodmere was rezoned in the 1970s to allow commercial development, and land once fought over for exclusionary housing purposes became instead a shopping center, opening as Eton Square in 1975 and rebranded twice since, in 1990 and 2003. The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History describes the resulting village as an integrated community of diverse nationalities today, a notably different outcome from the one its founders organized to produce.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · case.edu · en.wikipedia.org

The Five Mile Crib, a small structure about 5 miles out in Lake Erie north of Cleveland's Edgewater Park The water here

• Cleveland Public Water System100% of residentsLake Erie

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Police stations (1)

Public EV charging (1)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• OP&F Examination, 2024, released 2026-05-19
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-03-11

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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