Cleveland Trivia
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67 free Cleveland trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
63 free Cleveland trivia questions with answers. Cleveland has a knack for firsts, feuds and comebacks. This quiz covers the whole story: the general who founded the city and never came back, the mysterious missing letter in its name, the river that caught fire and helped launch the modern environmental movement, and the radio DJ whose Moondog Coronation Ball became the first big rock and roll concert. Sports fans get plenty to chew on too, from the logo-less Browns and the 2016 Cavaliers comeback to the Guardians of Traffic that gave the baseball team its new name. There are also questions on Terminal Tower, the West Side Market, the teenage creators of Superman, the A Christmas Story house and the Cleveland Clinic. It is built for locals, transplants, visitors and anyone who likes a city with character. Every answer has been checked against primary sources, and each explanation adds one detail worth remembering.
30 of 67 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Legend says the extra 'a' in the city's original name was dropped so it would fit where?
On a newspaper's front-page banner
Another theory is simply that the surveying party misspelled the name on their original map, and the shorter spelling stuck.
Q 02How many times did the city's founder return to the settlement bearing his name after 1796?
Never
He never came back: after the 1796 survey Moses Cleaveland went home to New England, practised law and died in 1806, though an 1888 statue of him stands on Cleveland's Public Square.
Q 03What ignited the famous June 22, 1969 fire on the Cuyahoga River?
A spark from a passing rail car
A spark from a passing rail car ignited oil-slicked debris under the railroad trestles; the blaze lasted about 30 minutes, did around $50,000 of damage to two bridges and drew little local coverage at first.
Q 04Time magazine's influential 1969 story on the burning Cuyahoga was illustrated with a photograph of what?
The much larger 1952 river fire
Time ran a dramatic photo of the much larger 1952 river fire, because the 1969 blaze was out before photographers arrived and no pictures of it are known to exist.
Q 05Which Cleveland brewery named its Burning River Pale Ale after the Cuyahoga's fires?
Great Lakes Brewing Company
Great Lakes Brewing Company, Ohio's first microbrewery when it opened in 1988, brews Burning River Pale Ale and has sponsored the Burning River Fest on Whiskey Island.
Q 06Who became the first African American mayor of a major US city, in Cleveland in 1967?
Carl B. Stokes
Carl B. Stokes beat Republican Seth Taft, grandson of President William Howard Taft, by about 1,600 votes in November 1967, becoming the first Black mayor of a major American city.
Q 07Cleveland's pioneering first Black mayor was later appointed U.S. ambassador to which island nation?
Seychelles
Carl Stokes was ambassador to the Seychelles from 1994 until illness brought him home in 1995; between City Hall and the embassy he had been a TV anchor in New York and a Cleveland municipal judge.
Q 08Which architect designed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame building on Cleveland's lakefront?
I. M. Pei
I. M. Pei, who admitted he knew little about rock music before taking the job, designed the glass pyramid and tower that opened on the lakefront in September 1995.
Q 09The Rock Hall's tower had to be cut from a planned 200 feet to 162 feet because of its proximity to what?
Burke Lakefront Airport
Burke Lakefront Airport sits just east of the museum, and height limits near its runway forced the tower down from 200 to 162 feet; planners had once considered the vacant May Company store instead.
Q 10Which figure joined Little Richard in cutting the ribbon at the Rock Hall's 1995 dedication?
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono and Little Richard cut the ribbon at the dedication on 1 September 1995; an all-star concert followed the next night at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
Q 11Which record-label chief established the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in 1983?
Ahmet Ertegun
Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder of Atlantic Records, set up the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in 1983; Cleveland was chosen as the museum's home in 1986 after a long search among several cities.
Q 12Alan Freed's 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball, called the first major rock concert, was held where?
Cleveland Arena
The Cleveland Arena on Euclid Avenue held about 10,000, but roughly twice that many ticket-holders turned up on 21 March 1952, and the show was shut down early amid a near-riot.
Q 13On which Cleveland radio station did Alan Freed start playing rhythm and blues records in July 1951?
WJW
Q 21The Cavaliers' 2016 title ended a Cleveland championship drought dating back to which year?
1964
The 1964 Browns, coached by Blanton Collier, beat the Baltimore Colts 27–0 for the NFL title; no Cleveland major-league team won another championship until the Cavaliers in 2016.
Q 22The NBA rule barring trades of first-round picks in successive seasons is named after which Cavaliers owner?
Ted Stepien
Ted Stepien, owner from 1980 to 1983, traded away so many first-round picks that the NBA created the Stepien Rule; his teams went 66–180 and churned through six coaching changes.
Q 23In 2010's The Decision, LeBron James announced he was leaving Cleveland for which team?
Miami Heat
WJW (850 AM) gave Freed his late-night slot in July 1951; record-store owner Leo Mintz sponsored it, and Freed called the show The Moondog House, billing himself King of the Moondoggers.
Q 14Alan Freed's 2016 Lake View Cemetery memorial, which holds his ashes, is shaped like what?
A jukebox
The granite memorial is shaped like a jukebox; Freed's ashes had been displayed at the Rock Hall from 2002 until the museum asked for their removal in 2014, and the Lake View monument was dedicated in 2016.
Q 15The Cleveland Browns are named after whom?
Paul Brown, their first coach
Paul Brown, their first coach and general manager, gave the team its name after a 1945 fan contest; the franchise won all four All-America Football Conference titles from 1946 to 1949.
Q 16The Browns are unique among the NFL's 32 clubs for what reason?
They have no logo on their helmets
The plain orange helmet with a brown-white-brown stripe serves as the team's official logo.
Q 17Which new franchise did Art Modell take his Browns roster to in 1996, leaving the name in Cleveland?
Baltimore Ravens
The Baltimore Ravens, named by fan vote after Edgar Allan Poe's poem, debuted in 1996 with Modell's players; Cleveland's Browns were deemed suspended and returned in 1999, restocked via an expansion draft.
Q 18In 2017 the Browns became only the second NFL team to finish a season 0–16. Which team was the first?
2008 Detroit Lions
The 2016 and 2017 Browns went a combined 1–31, the worst two-year stretch in NFL history.
Q 19Which Browns defender coined 'The Dawgs' in 1985, giving the Dawg Pound its name?
Hanford Dixon
Hanford Dixon, with fellow cornerback Frank Minnifield, started calling the defense the Dawgs in 1985 and barked at fans in the bleachers, who barked back and became the Dawg Pound.
Q 20The 2016 Cavaliers were the first team to win the NBA Finals after trailing by what margin?
3–1
Down 3–1 to the 73-win Warriors, the Cavaliers won Games 5, 6 and 7, the first Finals comeback from that deficit; about 1.3 million people lined the parade route on June 22, 2016.
'I'm going to take my talents to South Beach': LeBron chose the Miami Heat, joining Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh; the ESPN special raised $2.5 million for Boys & Girls Clubs.
Q 24LeBron James, drafted first overall by the Cavaliers in 2003, was born and raised in which nearby city?
Akron
LeBron James was born in Akron in 1984 and starred at St. Vincent–St. Mary High School there; he went straight to the NBA and was the 2003-04 Rookie of the Year with the Cavaliers.
Q 25The Cleveland Guardians take their name from eight Art Deco statues on which bridge?
Hope Memorial
The Guardians of Traffic stand on the Hope Memorial Bridge, the 1932 Lorain–Carnegie span renamed in 1983 for Bob Hope's stonemason father; each figure holds a different vehicle, from hay wagon to 1930s automobile.
Q 26Cleveland's AL club was nicknamed after which star player-manager from 1903 to 1914?
Nap Lajoie
Nap Lajoie, the second baseman who had hit .426 in 1901, joined Cleveland in 1902 and a 1903 newspaper poll renamed the club the Naps; when he left after 1914, sportswriters chose Indians.
Q 27The 1899 Cleveland Spiders finished with the worst record in major league history. How many games did they win?
20
Their owner had shipped the best players, including Cy Young, to his other club in St. Louis before the season.
Q 28Which Cleveland owner signed Larry Doby in 1947, breaking the American League's color barrier?
Bill Veeck
Bill Veeck, who bought the Indians in 1946, signed Larry Doby in July 1947, eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson's debut; in 1948 he added 42-year-old Satchel Paige, the oldest rookie ever.
Q 29Cleveland's 1974 Ten Cent Beer Night riot erupted during a game against which visiting team?
Texas Rangers
The Texas Rangers were the visitors on June 4, 1974; a brawl between the teams in Arlington six days earlier had primed the crowd, and drunken fans storming the field forced a forfeit to Texas.
Q 30Which building surpassed Terminal Tower in 1964 as North America's tallest outside New York?
Prudential Center in Boston
It also housed the studios of classical station WCLV for decades.