Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Shaker Heights, OH

Shaker Heights is a planned inner-ring streetcar suburb of Cleveland in Cuyahoga County, developed by railroad moguls Oris and Mantis Van Sweringen as a garden-style retreat from industrial Cleveland.

The city is built on land once owned by the North Union Community of Shakers, a religious settlement founded in 1822 that dammed Doan Brook to create its Upper and Lower lakes before dissolving in 1889 — the "Shaker" half of the city's name comes from them.

The Van Sweringen brothers bought the land in 1905; Shaker Heights was incorporated as a village in 1912 and reached city status in 1931.

Shaker Heights is home to the oldest house in Cuyahoga County, built in 1817 by Moses Warren.

About 75% of Shaker Heights is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Shaker Village Historic District, protected by the city's famously strict building codes and zoning laws.

Shaker Heights had 29,439 residents at the 2020 census, living in about 12,806 households with an average of 2.24 persons per household.

Shaker Heights is one of Ohio's most highly educated cities: about 69% of residents age 25 and older hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and about 60% of its homes are owner-occupied, with a median owner-occupied home value of about $303,200.

Shaker Heights is nationally known for its voluntary racial integration efforts, which began with neighbors in the Ludlow school area in the late 1950s and continued with the Fund for the Future of Shaker Heights in 1986, which offered down-payment loans to support integrated neighborhoods.

The city's nine neighborhoods — including Fernway, Lomond, Mercer, Moreland, Onaway, and Sussex — were each named after one of the city's nine original elementary schools.

Shaker Heights High School, one of Ohio's most storied public high schools, sits in the Onaway neighborhood, and the city is also home to the private Hathaway Brown School, University School, and Laurel School.