Industrialization helped build the wealth of the United States, but it came a terrible cost for the environment. Like many rivers in industrial cities across the nation, the Cuyahoga River was a dumping ground for waste from factories and sewage, and was “legally dead” by the time it emptied in Erie.

By the time the waters of the Cuyahoga reached the Industrial Flats area west of downtown Cleveland in 1969, they were full of raw sewage and covered in an oily slick of chemicals with an occasional pile of trash reporter Larry Buhl shared on the Distillations podcast about the river’s history. The toxic concoction “was just a spark away from disaster,” he said and one of those came on Sunday morning, 22 June, 1969.

One report said that flames shot up around five stories and the fire department showed up to put the fire out. They did so in about 30 minutes, so fast that no one was able to get a picture. Since it wasn’t the first time this had happened either, the river had burned at least dozen times before, no one paid particular attention to the event either locally or nationally.

However, that blaze has become the mythical event that sparked the environmental movement. Thanks to an uncaptioned photo and the city’s mayor who would use the incident to draw attention to the problems ailing not just Cleveland but all urban areas.

The “fake news” that started an environmental revolution

Seventeen years before the 1969 fire on the Cuyahoga, there was a much bigger blaze which caused roughly $1.5 million in damages. That incident was captured by photographers and when Time was looking for a photograph to publish along with an article about the 1969 fire they used that one.

However, there was no caption stating that it was a different fire as far as historian John Grabowsi knows. That the photo and others from the 1952 blaze are always used to reference the later fire on the Cuyahoga. But this was just one piece of the puzzle to make the 1969 fire common knowledge for all Americans and put it as the start of a environmental movement.

Environmental awareness was already growing before the Cuyahoga fire

The hosts of Distillations, Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago, explain that several events played a part in the 1969 Cuyahoga fire becoming the mythical impetus for the environmental movement but that for them “it boils down to two things: timing, and who Cleveland’s mayor was.”

Seven years before the now famous fire, Rachel Carson’s book ‘The Silent Spring’ was published. The bestseller about the harmful effects of pesticides on the environment helped awaken a consciousness about the damage being caused. This awareness would grow throughout the rest of the decade and beyond.

Additionally, six months before the fire, astronauts aboard Apollo 8 took a picture of the Earth rising over the lunar landscape called ‘Earthrise’. The blue and white orb floating in the vastness of space would be described as “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.”

So people were primed to be receptive to the message that something needed to be done. In comes the messenger.

The mayor of Cleveland shines a light on his city to solve problems of the “urban environment”

Carl Stokes was the first elected African American mayor of a major US city, which was news in and of itself at the time. “A different mayor might have shrugged off the event, minimized it, issued no comment,” explained Pedrick, but “Stokes leaned into it.”

He held a press conference at the site of the fire and showed reporters what was making the river a toxic cesspool that oozed along its course. He was using the opportunity to make his case to state and federal lawmakers to get them to pitch in funds to help clean it up.

He wasn’t seeking to just clean up the river, which was actually getting cleaner at the time of the fire and a $100 million bond initiative to clean up the river had passed the year before, but also air pollution and fix a slew of problems affecting the “urban environment” like substandard housing, jobs, poverty and transportation.

While the Cuyahoga fire of 1969 wasn’t the reason a raft of new environmental protections were passed in the years after says Buhl, Stokes managed to amplify the problems that needed fixing by shining a light on his city.

However, in the process he made his city a laughingstock. But as Buhl says, “It’s a story that something good came from something very bad. And the city needed a good story to tell.”

Get your game on! Whether you’re into NFL touchdowns, NBA buzzer-beaters, world-class soccer goals, or MLB home runs, our app has it all.

Dive into live coverage, expert insights, breaking news, exclusive videos, and more – plus, stay updated on the latest in current affairs and entertainment. Download now for all-access coverage, right at your fingertips – anytime, anywhere.