The Forest City

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For other uses, see Forest City.

The Forest City is a nickname or alternate toponym for Cleveland, Ohio.

The inspiration for the name is a famous reference to Cleveland, describing a highly sophisticated society amid a heavily forested environment in Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, which contains the Frenchman's observations of the United States in the 1830's. Early use of the moniker is uncertain. Some say that Timothy Smead, editor of the short-lived Ohio City Argus first put the name to use. But many believe that William Case, secretary of the Cleveland Horticultural Society and Cleveland's mayor from 1850 to 1851, carried the name forward. Case was well known for encouraging the planting of fruit trees, and thus the name stuck.

In the late 1860s, the city's best baseball club adopted the name, chose professionalism in 1869 or 1870, and helped found the first professional league in 1871. The first National Association game was a visit by the Forest City club of Cleveland at the Kekionga club of Fort Wayne, Indiana on May 4, 1871. It is considered the first major league game by those who count the NA as a major league.