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| Two men wearing life jackets on a small boat on Lake Erie, 1976. Both the boat and the men are covered in oil polluting Lake Erie. Image courtesy of Cleveland State University Library Division of Special Collections. |
When the oozing Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969, consider that it might not have even made the "Top 10" list of Cleveland river fires at the time.
A spark ignited pollution on the Crooked River 46 years ago today—June 22, 1969—but few realize that it actually was the thirteenth time it had happened.
Thirteen times. Take that in for a moment. The river had once been so polluted and abused since the 1860s that tar-black layers of filth burned on its surface on at least 13 other occasions.
