Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1980. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
one of 338 National Register listings in Cuyahoga County · listed in 1980 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Cuyahoga County.
National Register reference number.80002983- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Specimens collected near this property
12 of 1,021 shown
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,021 specimens
collected within 10 miles of First Universalist Church of Olmsted between 1849 and
1975: 930 Animalia, 59 Plantae, 27 Fungi, 4 Protozoa, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. D. Huryn, A. G. Newhall, A. Hall and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
North Olmsted, the town this property stands in, in 37 storm reports between 1995 and 2026: 24 thunderstorm wind, 10 hail, 3 flash flood.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Extensive flash flooding in North Olmsted, Brooklyn, Brook Park, Parma, and Parma Heights. Widespread basement flooding and road closures. Several underpasses under I-480 inundated with flood waters. A structure collapse was reported in North Olmsted due to the weight of water on the roof. Flooded roadways include Brookpark Road, West Ridgewood Drive, Pleasant Valley Road near York Road, and Sprague Road near West 130th Street. Multiple water rescues reported in this area. Cleveland Metroparks Zoo experienced flood damage due to flooding of Big Creek. The USGS river gage near the zoo on Big Creek rose from 3.8 feet to 12.8 feet in 70 minutes before the gage was knocked out of service by a fallen tree. Radar estimated 1.5 to 2.25 inches of rainfall in less than three hours, with much of the rainfall falling in less than one hour.
A thunderstorm downburst caused a path of damage from North Olmsted to Berea to Middleburg Heights. Dozens of trees were downed along the damage path which was intermittent. Some of the downed trees blocked roads, including Interstate 71. Damage occurred at a construction project at the Great Northern Mall in North Olmsted. Thunderstorm winds damaged a food court roof and toppled a section of wall at the mall. Several homes elsewhere along the damage path were damaged by the fallen trees.
Thunderstorm winds downed trees and limbs across all of Cuyahoga County resulting in scattered power outages. At the peak of the storm several thousand customers were without power.
Power pole downed at corner of Sparky Lane and Lorain Road in North Olmsted. This damage was caused by the outflow-dominant portion of a line of thunderstorms.
Thunderstorms dumped between one and two inches of rain in less than 90 minutes. The heavy rain caused the Rocky River to leave its banks in North Olmsted. A car became stuck in the flood waters and two people in the car had to be rescued by firefighters.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
1,488 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
cornice, and a low pyramidal roof. Originally the pediment and the belfry rested on four slender pillars, was added, and Victorian stained glass replaced the original clear However, the belfry was incorrectly drawn (since it was never altered), being shown one-third wider than its correct dimension, and showing including the oldest. At an undetermined date between 1936 and 1955, the entrance was widened to accommodate double doors and to fit an interior vestibule. The new In 1963 the widening of Lorain Road at the original site, plus the increased traffic from the Ohio Turnpike, made it imperative to move the building for preservation. The building was moved 1/4 mile north . unnoticed from the front of the lot. 1963 unexposed 7. Description Condition ruins glass in all of the windows.
fair exterior and interior structure were unaltered, and new pews and Check one pointed window above.The walls have clapboarded siding.On the roof a semi-elliptical fan.There are four rectangular windows on the side _ unaltered This is a rectangular church building of wood frame construction in the a low-pitched gable roof with a finely-detailed facade pediment containing elevations and two on the front. The entrance has double doors with a opening is flanked by fluted pilasters. furnishings were made. At the same time an education wing was added church is still visible within the addition, and the addition is almost there is a square louvered belfry with Tuscan pilasters, a projecting forming a porch.
In 1881-1882 the porch was enclosed to increase the In 1936 the church was recorded by the Historic American Buildings Survey. on an adjacent street and placed on a prepared basement foundation. The setting is a lot 100 feet by 564 feet on a residential street. The deteriorated the church by a wood frame and glass passageway.
(in one paragraph) church structure in Cuyahoga County (greater Cleveland), excepting only an important community center as well as a religious structure. The liberal views of the congregation made it possible for the church to have its first woman minister as early as 1878. Architecturally the building is a well-preserved example of the classic Greek Revival period modified with some Victorian features. organized in 1834. Meetings were held in a building used jointly by the Ames was the carpenter-designer and supervisor of the building. The democratic body with a stress on personal responsibility. The building was always used as a community building for meetings, gatherings, and celebrations of all kinds.
The bell, installed in the belfry in 1851, has been used as a fire alarm and to toll the death of residents as well as announcing the Sunday worship services. From 1878 to 1880 and again in Inez Shipman was a second woman minister. period, in Strongsville and Gates Mills (both 1853). (St. John's Episcopal Universalist Church in 1881-1882 its Victorian features were added. workmanship, feeling and association which conveys the period of its architectural and historical significance. 1700-1799 1600-1699 economics communications 1500-1599 1800-1899 commerce education invention humanitarian art transportation industry exploration/settlement Period theater science 1400-1499 prehistoric sculpture 8. Significance church was not legally incorporated until 1872.
It is a self-governing, conservation -politics/government addition, the original structure possesses integrity of materials, design, 1900- St. John's Episcopal Church in Cleveland (1838).
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 80002983, 10 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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