Hidden Cleveland: Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument

What lies beneath Public Square’s Cuyahoga County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument might give you chills, but it’s all in the name of structural integrity. The underground catacombs’ unrefined, unfinished stone walls are eerie — and invite tales of a haunting by designer Levi Scofield — but the system of circular tunnels was needed to distribute the weight of hundreds of tons of black granite, bronze statues and a 125-foot tall obelisk. “If you’re familiar with the crypt system of a European cathedral, it’s the same architectural feature,” says Tim Daley, the 1894-built monument’s executive director. While that doesn’t exactly quash our ghostly fears, the damp, dark and confined space under the monument, which honors the 9,000 county residents who served in the Civil War, does feel like a sort of ancient basement. “It’s just a unique way of seeing a different piece of the monument that you don’t normally,” Daley says. Public Square, Cleveland, 216-621-3710, soldiersandsailors.com