The site's early owner, Jeptha Wade, began to develop it into a park in 1872; in 1882, he donated the 63-acre plot to the city government, which later purchased additional land to expand it.

The collection includes a large cast of Auguste Rodin's The Thinker, which sits atop the museum's main staircase.

Partially destroyed in a 1970 bombing (allegedly by The Weathermen), the statue has been left largely unrestored both because of Rodin's personal involvement in its original casting and his own willingness to exhibit damaged versions of his works during his life.

[3] Other prominent sculptures in the garden include Gaetano Trentanove's 1904 monument to the Polish expatriate and American Revolutionary War-hero Tadeusz Kościuszko; Chester Beach's 1927 Fountain of the Waters, and a 1928 bronze statuary sundial by Frank Jirouch, Night Passing the Earth to Day, which sits across Wade Lagoon from the museum, near the park's entrance on Euclid Avenue.

One lies on Wade Park's northwestern border along Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. and the other directly across University Circle to the southeast on Euclid Ave. Media related to Wade Park (Cleveland) at Wikimedia Commons