Lakewood is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, on the southern shore of Lake Erie.

[5] The area now called Lakewood was populated by the Ottawa, Potawatomi, Chippewa, Wyandot, Munsee, Delaware and Shawnee tribes until the Treaty of Ft. Industry pushed them west in 1805.

It was purchased from the Connecticut Land Company by a syndicate of six men headed by Judson Canfield on April 4, 1807, for $26,084.

Settlements were mostly along Detroit Avenue, a toll road operated by the Rockport Plank Company from 1848 to 1901, with large farms and properties extending north to Lake Erie.

Making bricks and planting orchards were among the most prolific occupations until natural gas and oil wells were developed in the early 1880s.

Financially unsuccessful as a pleasure and amusement venture, the line was sold to the Nickel Plate Railroad in 1881.

[citation needed] Notably, Lakewood was home to two pioneering automobile manufacturers: Winton Motor Carriage Company (est.

Rockport Square was developed on the eastern end of the city in 2004 and incorporated residential townhouses all along Detroit Avenue.

[13] In 2009, the American Institute of Architects and the Cleveland Restoration Society honored the City of Lakewood Department of Planning & Development and LakewoodAlive with an award for Creative & Effective Preservation Advocacy.

[30] Lakewood's ethnic mosaic includes Albanian, Arab, Chinese, German, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Mexican, Nepalese, Puerto Rican, Polish, Russian, Slovak, and Ukrainian ancestries.

[31] As of 2019, 12.2% spoke a language other than English at home, including Arabic, Spanish, Albanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Hungarian.

[32] The community is a hotspot for immigrants, arriving primarily from Southeast Europe (especially Albania, Romania, Greece, and the former Yugoslavia),[33][34] the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, and Iran),[34][35] South Asia (India, Nepal, and Myanmar),[6][36] and the former USSR (Russia, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine).

[38] In January 2015, the Cleveland Clinic announced it would close the hospital in 2016 and replace it with a family medical center.

The new medical center which included outpatient programs, an emergency department and wellness services opened across the street from the old hospital site in 2018.

[40] Cleveland Clinic completed construction of a new one-story facility on Detroit Avenue in 2005, adjacent to Rockport Square.

[45] The Madison branch of the Library, designed by architectural firm Walter and Weeks, opened in 1929 in the southeastern part of the city.

[47] The facade of the auditorium features the world's largest free-standing ceramic sculpture, Early Settler, created by Viktor Schreckengost.

[55] The Rocky River Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks System forms part of the city's western border.

[56] Once politically dominated by New England Republicans, Lakewood has become a center for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in Ohio.

It was a stronghold of support for former Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, its voters strongly backed Bernie Sanders.

[62] The Lakewood City Schools was rated as having "Continuous Improvement" by the Ohio Department of Education in 2013.

Since its founding, over $1.5 million has been invested in capital improvements, making LCA a "significant institution for parochial education in Lakewood.

[65] St. Edward High School serves boys in grades 9–12 throughout the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland.

Padre Pio Academy is a K–12 elementary/high school founded by lay Catholics that operates independently of the Diocese.

Post secondary education in Lakewood includes The North Coast College, focusing on graphic and fashion design.

[69] Two RTA rapid transit stations exist just across the Lakewood/Cleveland border, at W. 117th St. and Madison Avenue and the other between Lakewood Heights and Triskett near West 140.