Cuyahoga Valley NP Geology 115

Not an expected spot for a National Park… 40 miles between Akron (pop. 200,000) and Cleveland (pop. 400,000)

Cuyahoga River Watershed Kind of a weird pattern: Starting in NE Ohio, it heads south and west, then abruptly turns north near Akron. It is a consequent stream, the result of the melting continental ice sheet over Lake Erie at the end of the last Ice Age. The area east of Cleveland rose due to isostatic rebound, diverting the river around it. “Licking Divide”

Brandywine Falls on the Cuyahoga River Resistant Berea Sandstone Erodible Bedford Shale

The Ritchie Ledges area – More Berea Sandstone

Early history of the Cuyahoga Valley While a fertile area and long farmed, the Cuyahoga Valley’s original Native American settlers (Whittlesey) disappeared by Thereafter, there seemed to be no permanent residents until the early 1700s when the Lenape settled there. After losing the Battle of Fallen Timbers, they were displaced by the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, and eventually were wholly driven from the area.

American development of the land In the 1820s, the Ohio and Erie Canal was built along the Cuyahoga River, part of a system that connected the Great Lakes with the Ohio/Mississippi River With the canal, farming greatly increased in the valley. With the advent of the railroads in the 1860s, the canal ceased operation, and farming went into a decline.

Industrialization along the Cuyahoga As Cleveland (steel) and Akron (rubber) grew, the river became the dumping ground for industrial waste and sewage. The debris and oils floating on the river caught fire many times in the late 1800s to the mid-20 th century. The 1969 fire, though, became the icon of polluted American streams (even though that fire only lasted a few minutes and the photo that ran in Time a few months later was of the 1952 fire (left)). This pushed Congress to pass the Clear Water Act

A case study in restoration: the Richfield Coliseum Built in 1974, hosted the NBA All-Star Game in 1981, went bankrupt in 1994

The family that owned the Coliseum land decided to sell the land to the Trust for Public Land, which transferred the land to the National Park. The Coliseum was demolished, 80 acres of parking lots were torn up and 5000 pounds of topsoil were added.

Goatfeathers Point Farm Example of a Countryside Conservancy farm, a public- private partnership to maintain and encourage family farms in the Cuyahoga Valley. The Conservancy leases farmland to individual farmers, to keep farmland in use. This farm, for instance, has been around since 1875, but was in danger of having its land developed.