​Willowick's Early Occupants Wandering Indians, using the heavily forested Willowick area as a hunting ground and the wide beaches for launching fishing expeditions, are the first people that we know of as occupants of this area. Settlements have been found to the west of Willowick in Cuyahoga County and to the east of Willowick along the Chagrin River, but there is no evidence of any permanent Indian settlement in Willowick itself. However, numerous sub-tribes of Erie Indians manifestly crisscrossed the Willowick area as they went about their businesses of hunting and trading. Lakeshore Boulevard was originally an Indian trail used by natives to trade with other tribes from as far west as Flint, Michigan. Earliest memories of Vine Street record it as being a crooked trail through dense woods, probably a branch of the Salt Trail which led from northeastern Ohio down to Licking, Ohio.