Cuyahoga Valley National Park is a national park of the United States in Ohio that reclaims and preserves the industrial, commercial, and rural landscape along the Cuyahoga River between Akron and Cleveland in Northeast Ohio.
The park is administered by the National Park Service, but within its boundaries are areas independently managed as county parks or as public or private businesses. Cuyahoga Valley was originally designated as a national recreation area (NRA) in 1974, then redesignated as a national park 26 years later in 2000, and remains the only national park that originated as a national recreation area.
Cuyahoga Valley is the only national park in the state of Ohio and one of three in the Great Lakes Basin, with Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior and Indiana Dunes National Park bordering Lake Michigan. Cuyahoga Valley also differs from the other national parks in the US in that it is adjacent to two large urban areas and it includes a dense road network, a railroad, high tension lines, small towns, commercial businesses, four reservations of the Cleveland Metroparks, four parks and one multipurpose trail of Summit Metro Parks, and public and private attractions. It was the twelfth-most visited American national park in 2023, attracting nearly 2.9 million visitors, primarily due to its proximity to Cleveland and Akron.
There are two in-park lodging locations, Stanford House and the Inn at Brandywine Falls. Camping and overnight parking are prohibited in the park.
History
Indigenous history The Hopewell Culture inhabited the area by ~200AD and constructed the Everett Mound near Everett within the park.
No Native American tribes currently have federal recognition in Ohio; however, the former inhabitants of the Cuyahoga Valley were Native Americans. The Wyandot, Iroquois, Ottawa, Ojibwe, Munsee, Potawatomi, Miami, Catawba, and Shawnee all lived in or traversed this area, but the Lenapé Nation, also known as the Lenape’wàk or Delaware Nation, are considered "the Grandfathers" of many Native Nations of the upper Ohio River Valley. They had a democratic and egalitarian sociopolitical structure where leaders (sachem) consulted elders who advocated for the expectations of the people before decisions were made. The Lenapé were actively involved in long-distance trade networks and were highly skilled at creating goods and art such as pottery, stone weaponry, clothing, and baskets. Wars, coercive treaties, and legislative changes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries resulted in Lenapé movement both west and south from their geographic origins in present-day New York City, the lower Hudson Valley, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and northern Delaware,"Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware - Welcome!". lenapeindiantribeofdelaware.com. Lenape Indian Tribe of Delaware. Retrieved May 5, 2019. through the Ohio River Valley and Cuyahoga Valley, to current residencies primarily in Oklahoma and Ontario, Canada. Land was vitally important to the Lenapé Nation. The fur trade required large hunting grounds, as did agriculture, which served as their central food source. As the Lenapé Nation was pushed west, ecological consistencies between present-day Pennsylvania and Ohio allowed them to continue similar agricultural, hunting, and fishing practices; however, as treaties and violent conflicts continued, the Lenapé were not permitted sufficient time to develop a relationship with land in the Ohio River Valley. While being pushed west, the Lenapé turned to each other to form alliances between Lenapé communities to preserve culture, territory, and resources.
The Lenapé’s hunting practices changed with the introduction of the fur trade. After contact with Europeans, the emphasis on hunting began to shift towards the demands of fur production rather than prioritizing sustainability. Because of this shift in Lenapé hunting practices, the populations of beavers and other fur-bearing animals plummeted. These trade networks depended on waterways used by indigenous people through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries:
Portage Path was located in modern-day Summit County, Ohio. The trail connected the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas Rivers and was approximately eight miles in length. American Indians used this path to transport their canoes overland from one river to the other. Using canoes, American Indians could travel by water from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico except for this small section. Today, most of the path is located in the city of Akron, Ohio, although interested parties can follow signs that trace the path between the two rivers. Portage County received its name from Portage Path.
Treaties and conflict
The Cuyahoga Valley is no longer inhabited by the Lenapé Nation primarily due to coercive legislative processes and numerous violent conflicts. The 1795 Treaty of Greenville set the Cuyahoga River as the boundary between indigenous peoples' lands and European settlement. In 1805, of land, including the present-day Cuyahoga Valley National Park, was ceded in the Treaty of Fort Industry with a promise of a thousand dollar annual payout to each Native Nation that lost land (the Wyandot, Ottawa, Objibwe, Munsee, Lenapé, Potawatomi, and Shawnee). The treaty also included a clause that allowed for the continuation of indigenous hunting on the ceded land; however, that portion of the treaty was neglected in practice. Other treaties, also took Lenapé land without their full knowledge or consent. Today, the Lenapé Nation is more commonly referred to as the Delaware Nation and has its headquarters in Oklahoma, although there are also populations in Kansas, Wisconsin, and Ontario, Canada, as well as in their ancestral homelands, including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.
Later history The valley began providing recreation for urban dwellers in the 1870s when people came from nearby cities for carriage rides or leisure boat trips along the canal. In 1880, the Valley Railway became another way to escape urban industrial life. Actual park development began in the 1910s and 1920s with the establishment of Cleveland and Akron metropolitan park districts. In 1929, the estate of Cleveland businessman Hayward Kendall donated around the Ritchie Ledges"The Ledges" (archive). nps.gov. National Park Service. June 1, 2018. Retrieved November 19, 2018. and a trust fund to the state of Ohio. Kendall's will stipulated that the "property should be perpetually used for park purposes". The area was called Virginia Kendall Park, in honor of his mother. In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps built much of the park's infrastructure including the Happy Days Lodge and the shelters at Octagon, the Ledges, and Kendall Lake."Cuyahoga Valley: Ohio's National Park" (archive). nps.gov. National Park Service. Retrieved November 19, 2018. The Happy Days Lodge, near Peninsula, was constructed from 1938 to 1939 as a camp for urban children. The lodge is presently used only as a special events site."Operating Hours & Seasons" (archive). nps.gov. National Park Service. October 29, 2018. Retrieved November 14, 2018.
Park creation Although the regional parks safeguarded certain places, by the 1960s local citizens feared that urban sprawl would overwhelm the Cuyahoga Valley's natural beauty. An additional concern was the environmental degradation of the Cuyahoga River via factory waste and sewage, along with fires that burned on the river in 1952 and 1969."The Cuyahoga River". nps.gov. National Park Service. January 4, 2018. Retrieved October 19, 2018. Citizens joined forces with state and national government staff to find a long-term solution. Finally, on December 27, 1974, President Gerald Ford signed the bill establishing the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area, even as the administration recommended a veto because "The Cuyahoga Valley possesses no qualities which qualify it for inclusion in the National Park System" and the government was already providing funds for outdoor recreation.
After Congress authorized the land acquisition, it was left under the direction of Superintendent William C. Birdsell of the National Park Service and the Army Corps of Engineers . Under the direction of Birdsell, homes were either purchased outright, or given a scenic/preservation easement. There was no comprehensive plan to guide the land acquisition program, so the responsibility of choosing whether homes were to be purchased or preserved was solely Birdsell's decision. Birdsell's continually changing priorities frustrated local residents as land acquisition plans changed, and his management style was criticized by the National Park Service's Midwest Regional Office during a 1978 operational evaluation report (OER), citing his poor human-resource management skills, low staff morale, and Birdsell's inability to delegate.
National Park Service The National Park Service acquired the Krejci Dump in 1985 to include as part of the recreation area. They requested a thorough analysis of the site's contents from the Environmental Protection Agency. After the survey identified extremely toxic materials, the area was closed in 1986 and designated a superfund site under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980."Krejci Dump- A story of Transformation" (archive). nps.gov. National Park Service. July 10, 2017. Retrieved November 19, 2018. "Image caption: Krejic dump site in 2013 after clean up and restoration." Litigation was filed against potentially responsible parties: Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, 3M, Waste Management, Chevron, Kewanee Industries, and Federal Metals. Only 3M would not agree to a settlement, and the company lost at trial. Removal of toxic materials began in 1987 with of contaminated soils and debris removed by 2012, and restoration completed by 2015.
The area was redesignated a national park by Congress on October 11, 2000, with the passage of the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001, House Bill 4578, 106th Congress. The park is administered by the National Park Service. The David Berger National Memorial in Beachwood, a Cleveland suburb, is also managed through Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
The Richfield Coliseum, a multipurpose arena in the Cuyahoga River area, was demolished in 1999 and the vacant site became part of Cuyahoga Valley National Park upon its designation in 2000. The area has since become a grassy meadow that is a popular birdwatching site."Former Coliseum Property". nps.gov. National Park Service. August 28, 2015. Retrieved November 19, 2018.
In 2024, Cuyahoga Valley National Park entered into a "sister park" agreement with Dartmoor National Park in Devon, England, with a focus on collaborating to improve conservation efforts. The agreement is the first of its kind between the National Park Service and an English national park.
Wildlife Fauna Animals found in the park are animals typical throughout Ohio, including raccoons, muskrats, coyotes, skunks, red foxes, beavers, peregrine falcons, river otters, bald eagles, opossums, three species of moles, white-tailed deer, Canada geese, gray foxes, minks, great blue herons, and seven species of bats. Reptiles include eight species of turtle, including painted turtles, and eleven species of snakes, including black rat snakes. Amphibians such as salamander, toad, and newt are also present. Flora