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Canal Visitor Center Closure
Canal Visitor Center will be closed for construction, starting Monday, May 6, 2013. It will reopen with new exhibits in early 2014.
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Riverview Road Closure
Riverview Rd from the Cuyahoga Falls line north to the Peninsula line will be re-paved, beginning the week of April 22. Expect delays. Flaggers will direct traffic. Final resurfacing and striping will take place following the Memorial Day holiday.
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Bald Eagle Closure in Effect
RR tracks, and 30 foot right of way on either side, are closed to all foot traffic from the Rt. 82 Bridge at Station Rd, north to the RR tracks at. The Cuyahoga R. downstream of the Brecksville Dam to the Fitzwater Rd Bridge is closed to water activities.
Farming Equipment
Modern tractors help farmers work quickly and efficiently. NPS/Arrye Rosser Using the railroad, manufacturers of farm implements and fertilizers could showcase their wares to all farmers in the area over the course of several days. These fairs encouraged a more scientific approach to farming, rather than simple reliance upon tried, but less-than-true, inherited farming practices. The C. Aultman & Co. of Canton, Ohio, which manufactured a popular and highly successful harvesting machine called the Buckeye, opened up a branch in Akron in 1863. In 1865 and 1880, John F. Seiberling began production of mowers and reapers for making straw and hay. By 1890, Seiberling's company, the Empire Mower and Reaper Works, was one of the world's largest manufacturers of harvesting machines. In spite of all these advances, farmers were slow to abandon practices which their ancestors had used for hundreds of years. The county fairs, as well as farmers' institutes, served an educational role to reduce fear of change and to encourage innovation. It was not until the Civil War, when the labor supply diminished, that agricultural improvements began to take hold. The introduction of the thresher in the 1850s, for example, enabled a farmer to thresh a ten-acre field in a day or two, a task that previously would have taken most of the winter with the use of a flail. Tractors came into popular usage in the 20th century after World War II. After 1945, within two or three years, the majority of farmers in the Cuyahoga Valley began to use tractors instead of horses. Tractors, which enabled farmers to complete a previous week's worth of work in just a couple days, increased the trend towards "weekend farming." 
In Their Own Words Click the topics to hear stories about Cuyahoga Valley life. Tractors (33 seconds) Quickly Plowing Fields (35 seconds) Hay Bayler (41 seconds) |
Did You Know?
Dragonflies and damselflies look almost alike while flying. However, if you wait until they land, dragonflies lay their wings to the side while damselflies lay them back and above their bodies.