On this day 20 years ago, The Coliseum at Richfield — known colloquially as the Richfield Coliseum, a sports arena nestled into Summit County — officially closed its doors for good. The last official event was a minor-league exhibition game by the Cleveland Lumberjacks.

As of this writing, the Coliseum has been history as long as it was alive: 20 years. (The 40th anniversary of the facility's grand opening on Oct. 26, 1974, arrives next month, so it's a bit of a double-champagne moment).

The Coliseum was a state-of-the-art sports arena for its time — "the Q," or Quicken Loans Arena for its generation. But ask anyone who spent time there, and they'll tell you it was a far more significant, mythological location than its eventual successor.

In fact, a number of the 4.3 million people in the 18-county footprint of "Northeast Ohio" still carry a torch for the grand dame — now a green plot of land reclaimed by the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

And if you read cleveland.com often, you're likely to find some of those folks in the comments below.

Once Upon a Time

The $36 million multi-use complex at 2923 Streetsboro Road in Richfield Township opened on October 26, 1974, with a concert by Frank Sinatra. Over the years, it served as the home for the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers and a myriad of other short-lived sports franchises. It also hosted hundreds of concerts and special events over its two-decade lifespan.

REMEMBERING THE COLISEUM

Up next in the series:

Thursday: From Sinatra to Daltrey: A Coliseum Concert History

Friday: The Miracle of Richfield, Ali vs. Wepner & more: Sports at the Coliseum

At the time, Cavaliers' millionaire owner Nick Mileti (who also owned MLB's Cleveland Indians) believed in a then-visionary belief that Cleveland and Akron were poised to merge into one big media market — think combined metropolises like Minneapolis-St. Paul and Raleigh-Durham.

Prior to the Coliseum's opening, Mileti's Cavaliers and his World Hockey Association team, the Cleveland Crusaders, called the ramshackle Cleveland Arena (formerly at East 37th St. and Euclid Ave.) home.

Rather than build within Cleveland's borders, Mileti looked to a midpoint with little in the way of development, but with plenty of possibilities because of accessibility: Richfield.

Grand Designs

Once the location and George E. Ross Architectural, Inc. design was settled, Mileti's plan was a simple one: eventually move all three of his franchises to Richfield and create a sports megaplex, with Interstate 271 and State Route 303 serving as its collective hub for Clevelanders and Akronites alike.

But the other half of this tiered strategy — to move the Indians out of Cleveland Municipal Stadium and into new diamond digs in Richfield, thereby dodging a possible move of the Tribe to New Orleans — simply never transpired.

During the Richfield Coliseum's planning and construction, Indians' creditors thought Mileti had become economically overwhelmed.

It was the elephant in the room that no one (including Mileti) could ignore.

He ultimately named business partner and fellow investor Ted Bonda as the team's Executive Vice President, and eventually sold his interest in the Indians to Bonda and other investors in 1975.

It would be another 20 years before the Indians, after two more ownership changes, would find a home "at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario" in downtown Cleveland.

"The Palace on the Prairie"

By sports venue standards, especially in Cleveland, the Coliseum was considered posh and downright chic. Athletes from opposing squads were glad for the relocation, having referred to the Cavs' old building — the timeworn Cleveland Arena — as "The Black Hole of Calcutta."

"The Palace on the Prairie," as it was affectionately nicknamed, seated 18,544 for ice hockey, 20,273 for basketball and, depending on which rock concert you attended there, well, the numbers were a bit more variable.

It had (mostly) good sight-lines, and relatively decent acoustics for live music events. Among its other amenities, The Coliseum was outside the bustle of downtown Cleveland. It had ample loge accommodation and radial parking that surrounded the facility. It also featured an interior concourse, presumably so patrons wouldn't miss the action while waiting in line to enter the various concessions areas.

All of these same comforts and conveniences developed into hindrances over a short time.

Fans complained about the hike out to the venue. The luxury loge suites — literal "sky boxes" at the topmost quadrant of the arena — were deemed too far away from the action. The interior concourse, which was the only access for the upper and lower bowls of the arena, was often congested with people. The parking lot? Sheer gridlock, especially if post-event snow and ice was involved.

And that says nothing of what said inclement weather did to the roads surrounding the place. Ask around. Those stories are almost as legendary as Coliseum events themselves.

By the time brothers George and Gordon Gund had acquired controlling interest in the Coliseum in 1981 — and then in the Cleveland Cavaliers organization in 1983 — a shift in dynamics was well underway.

The Gunds announced plans to break ground in downtown Cleveland for Gund Arena (now "The Q") on the former Central Market site in 1991, which spelled the inevitable end for the Coliseum.

Two Decades of Legend and Lore

During the arena's 20-year-run, the Richfield Coliseum played host to home games by the Cavaliers and Crusaders, but also for the short-lived NHL Cleveland Barons, two indoor soccer franchises (MISL's Cleveland Force, NPSL's Cleveland Crunch), the IHL's Cleveland Lumberjacks (a farm team for the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins), and the AFL indoor football team, the Cleveland Thunderbolts.

The Coliseum also hosted the March 24, 1975, boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner — which is said to have inspired Sylvester Stallone's Academy Award-winning film, "Rocky." It hosted three prime-time pay-per-view pro wrestling events (the WWF's 1987, 1988 and 1992 "Survivor Series"), the 1981 NBA All-Star Game, and the final basketball game for Boston Celtics' great, Larry Bird.

And in typical Cleveland fashion, it was also the center of the region's sports heartbreak — namely for the "Miracle of Richfield" Cavaliers season that ended by proxy/injury to power forward Jim Chones.

Years later, Cavs championship basketball was again derailed by "The Shot," perhaps the greatest clutch shot by Chicago Bulls icon Michael Jordan, levitating over the Cavs' shooting guard Craig Ehlo.

Rocking Out

There were many, many concerts presented at the Coliseum over the years — most of them with outrageous stories from rock and roll's heyday to match.

Frank Sinatra performed on the venue's opening night; The Who's Roger Daltrey was the Coliseum concert swan song with a band that was one Pete Townshend shy of actually being The Who.

During that 20-year span, Richfield served up (among others) Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder, Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa, The Grateful Dead, David Bowie, Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, The Police, U2, Metallica and Guns N' Roses.

It also served as a stage for a three-night-stand by Pink Floyd — slices of which later became part of "Delicate Sound of Thunder," Floyd's 1988 double-live album, in the editing process.

These weren't just typical tour stops. They were (to use the oft-used millennial cliché) epic concerts.

Clapton played there with Muddy Waters. There was Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" tour. Two nights of Prince's "Purple Rain" tour. The Police's "Synchronicity" tour. Kiss' "Destroyer" tour. The Who's first "Farewell" tour. U2's "Unforgettable Fire" and "Zoo TV" tours. Bowie's "Sound and Vision" greatest hits tour with guest vocals on "Gloria" on the second night by U2's Bono.

Even heavy metal's come-uppance, "Clash of the Titans" featuring Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth and a little known Seattle band called Alice in Chains, played there.

Turn Out the Lights

The Roger Daltrey concert on September 1, 1994, was the Coliseum's last concert event. The official end came on Sept. 24, with that Lumberjacks' exhibition game.

But the Coliseum didn't disappear immediately, either. It sat inactive for five years — enduring rumors of it becoming everything from a medium-security prison, to the headquarters of the Home Shopping Network, to a Mall Of America-style shopping complex.

In the end, the venue ended up an albatross of sorts, one that no one wanted until the Cuyahoga Valley National Park system decided to purchase it. They chose to demolish the building in March of 1999, returning the site to nature.

The former arena's 327-acre site is now simply part-and-parcel of the park system. There was a lot of controversy and environmental concern surrounding the latter years of the venue; readers will likely delve into that part of the story with razor-sharp teeth. We'll leave that stuff to the Forum pages.

But on a clear night, when the moon is bright... Or on a hazy day, when the heat rises from the pavement surrounding the plot in such a way... you can almost see the faint outline of the Coliseum — like the grimy, shadowy outline left from a picture mounted on the wall in someone's living room.

It's an outline called nostalgia. And during the second and third parts of our anniversary tribute to the venue, we'll delve deeper into the sports and music legacies that came to be at the Coliseum.

What are your favorite Richfield Coliseum memories? Share them with us in the comments below and look for the other two parts of this series in the coming days on cleveland.com.



Chakerian is a freelance writer in Bay Village