Notes on the tunes:

Pearl Road began as an American Indian trail connecting Lake Erie to present-day Wooster, Ohio and became the area’s main conduit for travel and European settlement. New Englanders followed the trail in the 1800s as they moved down from Cleveland into southern Brooklyn Township and Greenbriar, as Parma Township was known prior to being organized in 1826. Settlement south of Big Creek began in 1814 near today’s Broadview and Pearl roads. By the mid-1800s the route was known as the Cleveland-Columbus turnpike and saw heavy stagecoach use. In the 1890s 4 miles of the pike became the first red-bricked rural road in the nation. Electric streetcars first crossed Big Creek valley from Cleveland into South Brooklyn in 1905, after a trestle had been built. Maps from 1920 depict Pearl as the Three-C Highway. The 260-mile long highway crossed 14 counties and linked Ohio’s three largest cities: Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland. When Ohio numbered its routes in 1923, Pearl Road appeared as SR 3. It was federally designated as US 42 in 1927 and remained a busy thoroughfare until completion of I-71 in the 1960s. Though long-distance commuters now take the interstate, Pearl Road remains an essential corridor for commerce and residents.

Willow Creek was inspired by a childhood on the banks of Stickney Creek in Brooklyn.