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The 1800s map that shows a city that was never built, found it in a library archive in Cleveland
I was killing time at the downtown library last month, digging through their local history section for something else entirely, and I found this folded up map from 1888. It showed a whole street grid and neighborhoods on the east side of Cleveland, with names like 'Prosperity Park' and 'Grandview Station.' Problem is, I looked it up later and none of that ever existed. No records of the land being sold, no construction permits, no mention in any newspaper from back then. Just this one detailed map, drawn by some guy named H. R. Feldspar, who apparently vanished after making it. I asked the archivist about it and she said they've had it for decades but nobody could ever figure out what it was for. Maybe a real estate scam that fell through? Or someone's personal daydream they had printed for fun? Has anyone else run across a map of a place that just never happened, and if so, did you ever find out why it was made?
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simonp4018m ago
My buddy found a similar thing in Pittsburgh, a 1905 map for the "Allegheny Airship Terminal" that had like landing pads and a whole hangar district, but the only records were the map itself and a weird lawsuit over a chicken coop. We figured it was either a scam to sell stock in a fake airship company or a rich dude's hobby project that never got off the ground, pun intended.
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