This Place Needs Advertising

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Oh, I know what you might be thinking...... “Yeah, that R.E.M. song ‘Cuyahoga,’ that’s why she went there.” Or, “that line in ‘My City Was Gone,’ ‘Muzak filled the air from Seneca to Cuyahoga Falls’.” No, I went there because there was a waterfall. What I found was a national park I had never heard of! And that is a shame, because this is Ohio’s only national park! Plenty of history can be found here. One of the things I enjoyed was the Ohio and Erie Canal history (an empty “ditch” that used to be part of the canal is near the welcome center and along the Towpath Trail). The canal was constructed in the 1830s to connect rivers with Lake Erie, providing an extensive waterway transport system. After the Civil War, where railroads showed its importance, canals slowly fell by the wayside. (Picky Wedia says that former president James Garfield once worked driving mules along the canal, but wasn’t very good at it.). The photo above is of the long-since dried up canal that once had boats, pulled by mules, traveling it. I found this aspect of the park most fascinating (but then, I’m into strange history like that). I think this place needs more advertising!