48 Fun Facts About Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Which winter sport is offered at two commercial resorts inside Cuyahoga Valley National Park?

Boston Mills and Brandywine, two downhill skiing resorts operated as a pair, lie inside the park boundary, a rarity among US national parks.

What was Cuyahoga Valley's status when it joined the park system in 1974?

Cuyahoga Valley entered the system as a national recreation area on 27 December 1974, a category meant for parks near big cities, before Congress later made it a national park.

Which president signed the bill protecting the valley in December 1974 despite his administration urging a veto?

Gerald Ford signed the bill on 27 December 1974 even though his budget office and Interior Department had recommended a veto, doubting the valley met national-park standards.

In which year did Congress redesignate the area a national park?

Congress redesignated Cuyahoga Valley a national park in October 2000 through the Interior appropriations bill for fiscal 2001, rather than a stand-alone park act.

How many national parks does Ohio have?

One: Cuyahoga Valley is Ohio's only national park, and one of three in the Great Lakes Basin, with Isle Royale in Lake Superior and Indiana Dunes on Lake Michigan.

What did Cleveland's heavily polluted Cuyahoga River famously do on 22 June 1969, helping spur the American environmental movement?

It caught fire, for at least the 14th time, when a spark from a passing rail car lit an oil slick; the 1969 blaze did about $50,000 of damage, mainly to a rail bridge.

Which magazine's August 1969 article made the Cuyahoga River's pollution a national scandal?

Time's 1 August 1969 article used a photo from 1952 because no photographs of the 1969 incident exist; the same issue launched the magazine's Environment section.

Which Cleveland mayor took reporters to the river in 1969 to draw attention to its pollution?

Carl Stokes, the first Black mayor of a major US city, led reporters to the damaged rail bridge on 23 June 1969; he had already won a $100 million clean-water bond and later testified to Congress.

Which band's 1986 song is titled 'Cuyahoga'?

R.E.M.'s 'Cuyahoga', from the 1986 album Lifes Rich Pageant, mourns the river's despoiling and the Native people displaced from its banks.

The name Cuyahoga is usually said to mean what?

Cuyahoga is usually said to mean 'crooked river', from a Mohawk word, though the Mohawk never lived here; a Seneca phrase meaning 'on your chin', for the river's jawbone-like V shape, is another candidate.

The Everett Covered Bridge crosses which stream in the park?

The Everett Covered Bridge spans Furnace Run, a small tributary that joins the Cuyahoga near the village of Everett; the present bridge is a 1986 reconstruction.

Cuyahoga Valley's best-known trail, the Towpath Trail, follows the route of which historic canal?

The Ohio and Erie Canal, opened through the valley in 1827, linked Lake Erie with the Ohio River; mule teams towed boats along the towpath the trail now follows.

The canal, built between 1825 and 1832, linked Cleveland on Lake Erie with which town on the Ohio River?

The canal ran from Cleveland to Portsmouth on the Ohio River, opening in stages between 1827 and 1832 and giving Ohio farmers a route to eastern markets via Lake Erie.

How long was the full canal whose towpath the park trail follows?

The full canal ran 308 miles from Lake Erie to the Ohio River and was completed in 1832; the park's Towpath Trail follows only a short northern stretch of it.

The park's scenic railroad runs on the route of which line, opened to passengers in 1880?

The Valley Railway opened from Cleveland through Akron in 1880, later becoming the Baltimore and Ohio's Valley Division; the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad runs excursions on its tracks.

Which outdoor amphitheatre inside the park is the summer home of the Cleveland Orchestra?

Blossom Music Center opened in 1968 as the Cleveland Orchestra's summer home, built because George Szell wanted year-round work for his musicians; its pavilion and sloping lawn hold well over 15,000.

Which work opened the park's summer concert venue on 19 July 1968 under George Szell?

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with its choral finale, opened Blossom on 19 July 1968 under George Szell; the concert was broadcast live on local television.

What is the tallest waterfall in the park?

Brandywine Falls, dropping about 65 feet over a sandstone lip, is the tallest waterfall in the park and is reached by a boardwalk from the Brandywine Falls trailhead.

What hard rock caps Brandywine Falls, protecting the softer shales beneath?

Berea Sandstone, later quarried for grindstones and canal locks; the Bedford and Cleveland shales below break in thin chunks, giving the water its bridal-veil look.

What did George Wallace build at the top of the park's tallest waterfall in 1814?

George Wallace built a saw mill at the top of the falls in 1814; grist and woollen mills followed and a village grew around them, largely erased later by Interstate 271.

The Everett Covered Bridge holds what distinction?

Ohio once led the nation in covered-bridge building with more than 2,000; this one uses Robert W. Smith's 1867 patented truss.

What happened to the Everett Covered Bridge in 1975?

A spring flood in 1975 lifted the bridge off its abutments and wrecked it; schoolchildren and locals raised money and the Park Service rebuilt it faithfully in 1986.

Which Cleveland businessman's estate donated 430 acres around the Ritchie Ledges to the state in 1929?

Hayward Kendall, a Cleveland businessman who died in 1927, left 430 acres around the Ritchie Ledges with the instruction that the land be 'perpetually used for park purposes'; the state accepted it in 1929.

The Ledges are outcrops of which resistant rock, which caps the valley's highest hills?

The Ledges are Sharon Conglomerate, a pebbly quartz sandstone that resists erosion; as the shale beneath washes away, huge blocks settle and frost pries them apart, opening the crevice caves among the boulders.

Which New Deal agency built the Happy Days Lodge and the Ledges and Kendall Lake shelters?

The Civilian Conservation Corps built the Happy Days Lodge in 1938-39 along with the rustic stone-and-timber shelters at the Ledges and Kendall Lake, all in the National Park Service rustic style.

The Krejci Dump, acquired by the park in 1985, was declared what in 1986?

The Krejci Dump, 47 acres of industrial waste near Boston Heights, was declared a Superfund site in 1986; hundreds of thousands of tons of contaminated soil were hauled away before restoration finished in 2015.

Which company refused to settle over the Krejci Dump and lost at trial?

3M alone refused to settle, lost at trial and was ordered to share the cleanup cost; Ford, General Motors, Chrysler and others had settled over the 47-acre dump's industrial wastes.

The site of which demolished sports arena is now a grassy meadow and birdwatching spot in the park?

The Richfield Coliseum, home of the Cavaliers from 1974 to 1994, was torn down in 1999 and its site became park meadow the following year, now prized for grassland birds.

In 2024 the park signed a first-of-its-kind 'sister park' agreement with which English national park?

It was the first such deal between the National Park Service and an English national park, focused on conservation.

Which living-history museum in Cuyahoga Valley National Park began as a Connecticut farmer's 1810 homestead?

Hale Farm and Village grew from the homestead Jonathan Hale, a farmer from Glastonbury, Connecticut, established in 1810; its brick farmhouse dates from 1825 and craftspeople demonstrate glass-blowing and blacksmithing.

What is Stanford House, near Peninsula?

It served as a youth hostel from 1978 and became rentable lodging in 2011; the only other park-owned lodging is an inn beside the big waterfall, and camping is prohibited.

Which 1795 agreement set the Cuyahoga River as the boundary between Native lands and European settlement?

The Treaty of Greenville, signed in August 1795 after the Battle of Fallen Timbers, drew the boundary up the Cuyahoga River and along the old portage path, opening the land to the east to American settlement.

Which Native nation, once of the Cuyahoga Valley, is called 'the Grandfathers' of upper Ohio Valley peoples?

The Lenape, also called the Delaware, are known as 'the Grandfathers' by neighbouring Algonquian peoples; pushed west from the Hudson Valley and New Jersey, they lived along the Cuyahoga in the 1700s before removal to Oklahoma and Ontario.

The Portage Path near Akron linked the Cuyahoga with which other river?

The eight-mile Portage Path carried canoes over the divide between the Cuyahoga and the Tuscarawas, the only break in a water route from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico; it gave Portage County its name.

Which prehistoric culture built the Everett Mound in the park around AD 200?

People have lived in the valley for more than 12,000 years, from Paleoindian big-game hunters onward.

Which congressman earmarked some $200 million for the park and has 25 miles of towpath named after him?

The 18-term Republican sat on the appropriations committee and championed the Ohio & Erie National Heritage Canalway.

How large is Cuyahoga Valley National Park?

Cuyahoga Valley covers about 33,000 acres, small for a national park, and unusually contains county parks, a railroad, power lines, small towns and private businesses within its boundary.

Roughly how many miles of hiking trail does the park contain?

The park contains over 125 miles of hiking trail, from the flat Towpath to the Ledges loop; horses are allowed on several routes and leashed dogs on most.

Which Nixon-era policy encouraged federal recreation land near big cities, helping the case for Cuyahoga Valley?

'Parks to People', the Nixon administration's slogan for bringing national recreation areas to city dwellers, produced Gateway and Golden Gate in 1972 and strengthened the case for a Cuyahoga Valley unit.

Which bird nests in a large colony beside Bath Road in the park?

Great blue herons nest in a colony of dozens of stick nests high in sycamores beside Bath Road, the park's best-known heronry; bald eagles returned to nest in the valley in 2006.

How many people visited the park in 2023?

Nearly 2.9 million people visited in 2023, ranking Cuyahoga Valley about twelfth among US national parks thanks to its location between two metropolitan areas.

Roughly how many waterfalls are found in the Cuyahoga Valley?

About 100 waterfalls tumble off the side creeks of the Cuyahoga Valley, most of them small drops over resistant sandstone ledges; only a handful, like Blue Hen Falls, have formal trails.

How long is the section of the Towpath Trail that runs through the park?

About 20 miles of the Towpath Trail run through the park, a flat crushed-limestone path where mules once towed canal boats, part of a longer route continuing to Cleveland and Akron.

The park's Beaver Marsh formed on the site of what earlier business?

Beaver Marsh lies where an auto salvage yard once stood beside the old canal; volunteers hauled the wrecks away in the mid-1980s and returning beavers dammed the canal bed, flooding the site.

To what depth does glacial drift fill the Cuyahoga valley?

The fill is complex because meltwater ponded in front of the ice, leaving beach deposits from ancient Lake Maumee and other glacial lakes.

The glacial ridge that pushes south into the valley as far as Peninsula is named for which Ohio town?

It marks the last notable stand of the ice front in the region and is 2 to 4 miles wide.

The Boston Store, built in 1836, housed a museum devoted to what craft?

The Boston Store, an 1836 canal-era warehouse and general store, housed the park's canal boat-building museum, showing how boats were built by hand for the Ohio and Erie Canal.

Passengers once waited at the Canal Exploration Center building to pass through which numbered canal gate?

The Canal Exploration Center stands beside Lock 38 on Hillside Road, in a restored canal-era tavern and store where passengers waited for their boats to lock through.