Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland was a prominent nineteenth century professor, physician, naturalist, and horticulturalist. In 1837, he purchased land in Rockport Township that stretched from Madison Avenue to Lake Erie and used it as a natural laboratory, filling it with gardens, greenhouses, and an arboretum where he developed fruit and grape varieties best suited for the region. His success with new varieties inspired area farmers to concentrate on fruit and grape growing. He built a home in 1837 at Detroit and Bunts Roads and lived there until his death in 1877. Among his accomplishments, Kirtland helped found the organizations that developed into today’s Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He served as a state representative from 1828 to 1834 and was appointed to the Ohio geological survey in 1832, for which he prepared a nearly complete and scientifically important list of Ohio’s animals. As a physician, he served as the examining surgeon of Ohio’s Civil War recruits and donated his income from that service to the Soldiers’ Aid Society.