Creating a National Park

The Cuyahoga Valley's history as a tourist destination dates to the late 19th century, when residents of Cleveland and other nearby cities took excursions by carriage, canal boat, and the Valley Railroad to escape their urban environment and take in the sights, sounds, and smells of the countryside. The first formal parklands here were developed by the cities of Cleveland and Akron in the 1920s, and land donated by Cleveland businessman Hayward Kendall in 1929 was developed into a public park by the Civilian Conservation Corps, including the Happy Days Lodge and the Octagon, Ledges, and Kendall Lakes lodges. Concerns about urban sprawl in the 1960s and 1970s spurred calls for a national park in the Cuyahoga Valley by advocates like George Watkins, executive director of the Lake Erie Watershed Conservation Foundation, and local resident and outdoorsman John F. Sieberling. Allied with groups like the Cuyahoga Valley Association and the Cuyahoga Valley Park Federation, Sieberling took his battle to Capitol Hill as a U.S. Congressman, finding an ally in Rep. Ralph Regula, a fellow lawmaker from Ohio. Officials at the National Park Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior, however, initially resisted the idea, worried that smaller parks like Cuyahoga might distract attention and money from big parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite. After a bill to establish a Cuyahoga Valley park failed in 1971, Sieberling, Regula and their allies finally pushed a measure onto the desk of President Gerald Ford in 1974. Ford reluctantly signed the bill establishing the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area, but it would take another 26 years before the park was firmly established as the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. In the decades since the original law was signed, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to acquire park land and the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway, restore historic structures, and build visitor centers. One of the most popular of these additions, the Ohio & Erie Canalway bike and hiking trail, became part of the park in 1996.