1816-1904

American School 20th Century

Union Club, Gift of Charles W. Bingham

The Union Club’s first president, William Bingham was a quiet and unassuming man who played an indispensable role in many of Cleveland’s great civic projects, most notably the construction of the city’s waterworks, an engineering marvel of the day. After the link between bad drinking water from contaminated wells was established, the new water system placed its intake out in Lake Erie. Bingham also created one of the nation’s largest hardware companies with enormous headquarters in the warehouse district.

Bingham served as the Union Club’s president from 1873 to 1874.