Township of Cleveland

The town has a total area of 35.7 square miles, of which, 33.9 square miles is land and 1.8 square miles is water.
Most of the water area is Chequamegon Waters, also known as Miller Dam, a man-made lake in the southeast corner of the town.
The six mile square that would become Cleveland was first surveyed in 1847 by a crew working for the U.S. government. Then in 1854 another crew marked all the section corners in the township, walking through the woods and slogging through the swamps on foot, measuring with chain and compass. When done, the deputy surveyor filed this general description:

The Township contains several swamps. All are unfit for cultivation. The Meadow and Alder bottoms are all subject to be overflowed to a depth of 1 too 2 feet and are good for hay. The surface is generally low and level apart is upland where the soil is 2nd rate. This Township is heavily Timbered and is chiefly composed of Hemlock, Y. Birch, W. Pine and Balsam. The undergrowth is generally thick and is composed of Hemlock Hazel and Balsam. Balsam and elm line the margins of the meadow and Alder bottoms. The River enters the Township near the center of its East Boundary and flows in a Southerly and South-Westerly course with a switft current and is from 1 too 3 feet deep in a low Stage of water and is adaped to the forming of a good motive power for mills. There is no improvements in this Township.

Cleveland was logged starting in the late 1800s. In 1903 the Stanley, Merrill and Phillips Railway built its line up the west side of the town, generally running a little west of the present Highway 73. That same year the Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls, and Northeastern Railway (a.k.a. Omaha) built its line across the township, from Hannibal east to Hughey on the Yellow River. Logs were floated down the Yellow and loaded on railcars at Hughey to be shipped out. Hannibal grew at the junction of the two rail lines.

In 1933 much of the cut-over east half of Cleveland was designated part of the Chequamegon National Forest Bear Creek Hemlocks is a State Natural Area in the north east corner of Cleveland on the border with the town of Jump River, which includes two stands of old-growth hemlock. Part of the Pershing Wildlife Area occupies a thousand acres in the northwest part of the town. The remainder of the town is privately owned - mostly farms, homes and wild land