Cleveland and the Western Reserve
A two-day loop east of Cleveland — a witchcraft museum, a graveyard angel that weeps black tears, Chef Boyardee's grave, a castle built for a wife who never moved in, and a town that celebrates the return of vultures.
11 stops · 2 days · Ohio · roughly 111 miles point to point
See the whole route and everything odd beside it
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Every one of the 11 places in the index. Plan a route and the map narrows to what's actually near it.
Northeast Ohio has an unusual density of this, and a specific character: a lot of it is industrial money spent strangely, and a lot of the rest is a city being funny about itself.
Downtown first
The Buckland Museum holds the collection of Raymond Buckland, who brought Wicca to the United States in the 1960s. It is a serious collection of a subject usually handled badly.
The Free Stamp is a Claes Oldenburg sculpture Standard Oil commissioned for its plaza, then declined to install after the company was bought. It sat in storage for years before the city put it in Willard Park, on its side, where it reads as an accusation.
Lake View Cemetery
Two stops here and both are worth it.
The Haserot Angel is a 1919 bronze that has weathered into what look like black tears running down its face. Alan Freed's grave is marked with a jukebox — he coined the phrase rock and roll and was destroyed by the payola hearings.
It is a working cemetery. Be quiet.
East and south
Squire's Castle was the gatehouse of an estate Feargus Squire never finished; his wife disliked the place and they left. What remains is a stone shell in a Metropark that you can walk through freely.
The Girl in Blue at Willoughby is the grave of an unidentified woman killed by a train in 1933, buried by the town, and identified only in 1993.
Chef Boyardee is buried at Chardon and was a real person: Ettore Boiardi, who ran a hotel restaurant in Cleveland and spelled his name phonetically so Americans could pronounce it.
Two local legends
Hinckley has celebrated the return of turkey vultures every March since the 1950s. The Peninsula Python commemorates a large snake that escaped in 1944 and was never found, which the village has been enjoying ever since.
Helltown is the folklore attached to the empty houses federal land purchases left around Boston in the 1970s. The stories are nonsense and the trespassing is real — the visitor centre is the legal anchor.
Practical
Two days, everything within an hour of Cleveland. Most of it is free.
Finish at Center of the World, a hamlet named by a landowner with a sense of humour, and about which there is nothing else to say.
The Route
Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick
Cleveland, Ohio
Raymond Buckland created the collection that became the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick, one of the oldest collections of its kind in the United States. The Cleveland museum displays ritual objects, occult artifacts and material connected to modern witchcraft and ceremonial magic, and visitors can enter during ticketed public hours.
The Free Stamp
Cleveland, Ohio
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen designed this enormous steel office stamp for Standard Oil of Ohio in the 1980s, but it spent years in storage before finally being installed in Willard Park. The sculpture measures roughly 28 feet tall and 48 feet long and spells out "FREE," making it one of downtown Cleveland's easiest oversized-object stops.
Haserot Angel
Cleveland, Ohio
The Haserot family memorial in Lake View Cemetery features a life-sized bronze angel created by sculptor Herman Matzen in 1919. Weathering has produced dark streaks beneath its eyes that make the figure appear to cry black tears, earning it the nickname Angel of Death; visitors can see it in Section 9 during cemetery hours.
Alan Freed's Jukebox Grave
Cleveland, Ohio
Disc jockey Alan Freed, who helped popularize the term rock and roll, was reinterred at Lake View Cemetery in 2016 after his ashes had previously been displayed at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. His grave is marked by a distinctive jukebox-shaped monument that can be visited during cemetery hours.
Squire's Castle
Willoughby Hills, Ohio
Squire's Castle is the stone gatehouse of an estate that Standard Oil executive Feargus B. Squire planned but never completed. Stories later developed about the ghost of Squire's wife haunting the building, although the tale does not match the documented family history; the castle itself remains freely accessible in Cleveland Metroparks during park hours.
The Girl in Blue Grave
Willoughby, Ohio
An unidentified young woman dressed entirely in blue was struck and killed by a train in Willoughby on Christmas Eve 1933, and local residents paid for her burial and a marker reading "Unknown but not forgotten." She was identified decades later as Josephine "Sophie" Klimczak, and a second marker now gives her name beside the original grave in Willoughby Village Cemetery.
Chef Boyardee's Grave
Chardon, Ohio
Hector Boiardi, the Italian-born chef whose name became the Chef Boyardee brand, is entombed in the Crucifixion Mausoleum at All Souls Cemetery. Visitors can find his crypt in the Sacred Heart aisle during cemetery and mausoleum access hours, but this remains an active burial place and should be visited respectfully.
Buzzard Roost
Hinckley Township, Ohio
Hinckley has celebrated the supposed annual return of turkey vultures every March since the 1950s, creating one of Ohio's strangest recurring local traditions. Buzzard Roost in Hinckley Reservation is the public viewing area associated with the event, where Cleveland Metroparks continues to welcome visitors looking for the returning birds.
Peninsula Python Mural
Peninsula, Ohio
In 1944, reports of a roughly 15-to-18-foot snake supposedly loose around Peninsula triggered searches and national attention, although the Peninsula Python was never found. The large 1964 mural on the front of Peninsula Library maps the winding Cuyahoga River valley and has become physically associated with the monster-snake legend, making it an easy public stop in town.
Helltown at Boston Mill
Boston Township, Ohio
Federal land purchases around the former village of Boston in the 1970s left vacant buildings that helped fuel later urban legends about "Helltown," including stories of satanic churches, chemical disasters and mutant creatures. Most of the sensational landmarks described in those stories are gone or were never what the legends claimed, so Boston Mill Visitor Center in Cuyahoga Valley National Park is the legal public anchor for the story and visitors should not trespass on closed structures or private land.
Center of the World
Leavittsburg, Ohio
The tiny crossroads community called Center of the World was named in the 1840s by businessman Randall D. Wilmot, who hoped the stagecoach stop would become an important settlement. The dream never materialized, but an official green highway sign still marks the oddly named place near the junction of OH-82 and OH-5/OH-534; view it safely from a legal roadside position.