Powell Crosley Jr. - Cincinnati, OH - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

Powell Crosley Jr. was born in 1886 to an affluent Cincinnati family. After pursuing degrees in engineering and law, he tried his hand at entrepreneurship in automobile manufacturing. When this effort failed, he continued in the automobile industry for a while in various capacities but never achieving anything of note. In reference to these early failures, Crosley once said, “I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but it was jerked out before I could distinguish its taste from that of the common dime-store variety.”

When he was 30 years old, Crosley hit the jackpot with the purchase of an auto parts business which became very successful largely due to several innovative products developed by Crosley himself. By reinvesting his earnings back into his own business ventures, he avoided much of the economic loss due to the Great Depression. Crosley’s industries branched out into radio sets, radio broadcasting, consumer products, automobiles and even airplanes.

In 1934, Powell Crosley Jr. bought the Cincinnati Reds baseball team. In his honor, the Reds renamed their stadium “Crosley Field.” This made Crosley a household name among baseball fans across America. During World War II, Crosley’s factories were retooled to produce various war supplies and they became the leading producer of proximity fuzes in the U.S.

Either directly or indirectly, Powell Crosley Jr. is associated with a number of “firsts,” many of which became commonplace in subsequent years. These include the first use of 4-wheel disc brakes, the first car radio, shelves on refrigerator doors, first broadcast of soap operas on radio, first broadcast of a baseball game and the first night game in major league baseball. Crosley is a member of both the Radio Hall of Fame and the Automotive Hall of Fame.

Powell Crosley Jr. is laid to rest in the Crosley family plot at Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery.
(Sources: Ohio History Central, Society for American Baseball Research)

Description: See Long Description above. Date of birth: 09/18/1886 Date of death: 03/28/1961 Area of notoriety: Other Marker Type: Monument Setting: Outdoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: 8:00 am - 6:00 pm Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

Visit Instructions:
To post a visit log for waymarks in this category, you must have personally visited the waymark location. When logging your visit, please provide a note describing your visit experience, along with any additional information about the waymark or the surrounding area that you think others may find interesting.

We especially encourage you to include any pictures that you took during your visit to the waymark. However, only respectful photographs are allowed. Logs which include photographs representing any form of disrespectful behavior (including those showing personal items placed on or near the grave location) will be subject to deletion.

Recent Visits/Logs:

There are no logs for this waymark yet.