Howard Street District

During the mid-20th century, Howard Street was the center of African-American culture in Akron, home to many of the city's black-owned business and entertainment establishments and an atmosphere in which minority-owned businesses could thrive. Drawn by the neighborhood's vitality, entrepreneur George Mathews (1887-1982) established a barbershop there in 1920 and opened the adjoining Mathews Hotel in 1925, which quickly became the anchor of the district. His success enabled him to endow a scholarship fund at the University of Akron in 1964. From 1930 to 1950, Howard Street reached its heyday as a vibrant cultural center, and the Mathews Hotel regularly hosted black entertainers including Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie when they performed in Akron. Local music clubs included the Green Turtle, the Cosmopolitan, the High Hat, and Benny Rivers'. The district declined in the 1960s, and much of it was razed for urban renewal in the 1970s and 1980s.

Akron, Ohio · United States