A misconception still clings to Cleveland and it comes down to three words: river on fire. From 1868 to 1969, the polluted Cuyahoga River, which cleaves Cleveland into east and west, caught fire 13 times. In 1969, a photo in Time magazine dramatically showed a brave little fire department boat battling a wall of angry flames.

It didn’t matter that the photo was of a 1952 fire on the river. The article shocked a nation, and Cleveland’s burning river became a national punch line and shorthand for Rust Belt despair. James Earl Jones even narrated a documentary about it.

This June marks the 50th anniversary of the day in Cleveland when the Cuyahoga River burst into flames for the last time. Outrage over the disaster led to the creation of state and federal environmental protection agencies and to the passage of the federal Clean Water Act.

Thanks to environmental safeguards and the formation of a regional sewer district, the thriving river is helping to redefine Cleveland’s public face, to a point where tourism is up. In 2017, Destination Cleveland, the regional convention and visitors bureau, announced that Cleveland had seen an average increase of nearly 550,000 visitors per year for the previous eight years.