A Brief History of Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Patrick Stepanek

December 1st, 2015

The Cuyahoga Valley National Park located in parts of Summit & Cuyahoga counties was commissioned in 2000, after having been a national recreation area since 1974. The park is a thirty-three thousand acre nature preserve which attracts over two million visitors annually. The valley was formed by earth’s most recent ice age in which glaciers carved large canyons, expansive gorges, and incredibly impressive waterfalls. The area was first used recreationally in the 1870’s by the large metropolitan area of Cleveland, as an area where people could ride carriages and take boat trips down the canal, which connected the greater Ohio area for the purpose of commodity and agricultural trade. The park itself began developing during the early twentieth century as a result of the freedom and solitude in close proximity to one of the largest cities in a growingly industrialized American landscape.The first and most influential action relating to expanding the park occurred in 1929
when Hayward Kendall donated 430 acres of what could easily be considered the most beautiful part of today’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Today we know this plot of donated land as Virginia Kendall Park, named after Hayward Kendall’s mother. The land encompasses Happy Days Lodge, The Octagon, The Ledges, and Kendall Lake, each of which having an interconnecting trail constructed during the 1930’s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. This was an effort to provide jobs to hard working middle class Americans during the great depression, and the efforts of these hard working blue color men, mostly made up of immigrants from Western Europe, still benefits hundreds of thousands of outdoorsmen every year. An essential part of the history of the valley is the Ohio Erie canal, which was the largest part of the areas infrastructure before the wide range commercialization of railways. Visitors to
the park are able to observe what was once the only connection between the Ohio River and Lake Erie making it one of the most prominent transportation methods in American history which was used to connect much of the east coast to the Midwestern United States. Today, the park is truly the exemplification of how the United States parks department is to operate. Private businesses have constructed many forms of infrastructure for everyday citizens to enjoy. Visitors can experience every aspect of the valley, from skiing down the slopes of it’s rather steep hills, to listening to a headlining band under the stars at a 23,000 patron amphitheater, to golfing 18 holes along a scenic railway. The National Park Service has made fantastic work of preserving the area’s environmental integrity while utilizing the natural beauty and usefulness of the historic valley.

references:
1.http://www.nps.gov/cuva/learn/historyculture/upload/History7-final-for-web.pdf
2.http://www.nps.gov/cuva/learn/historyculture/index.htm
3.http://www.nps.gov/cuva/learn/historyculture/places.htm
4.http://goo.gl/rLhwle
5.http://hikingohioparks.com/virginia-kendall-park-hiking-ohio-parks.html
6.http://www.conservancyforcvnp.org/file/other/NPSHistory7-final-for-web.pdf
7.http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Cuyahoga_Valley_National_Park

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