There's a statue of Richard Wagner overlooking Lake Erie, in Cleveland. Why?

A permanent Cleveland example of Wagner-mania can be found in Edgewater Park. In 1911, the Goethe-Schiller Society, made up of German immigrants and German-Americans, commissioned sculptor Herman N. Matzen to create a statue of Wagner for the park. The statue depicts the composer standing in long coat and beret, his left hand holding gloves and a document, which could be a score or one of his polemical writings.

Wagner himself was never in Cleveland.