An official website of the United States government
Here's how you know
Official websites use .gov A
.gov website belongs to an official government
organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A
lock (
) or https:// means you've safely connected to
the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official,
secure websites.
Life on the farm brings expected and unexpected hardships that affect families physically and emotionally. While most farmers have loved living and raising their products in the Cuyahoga Valley, the region's climate and wildlife present certain difficulties. Farmers' incomes and food supplies remain subject to storms, predators, and human energy. Flooding, frost, water shortages, pests, and disease-compounded by family struggles-make farm life challenging.
Explore the sections below to hear real farmers talk about some of the challenges they faced throughout their lives and careers.
Cuyahoga Valley residents have survived many floods throughout history. A flood in the 1930s washed away Bolanz Road (above).
NPS Collection
1913 flood, Peninsula.
NPS Collection
Flooding
Farming in a floodplain requires a certain acceptance of natural forces. The Cuyahoga River and its tributaries normally flood throughout the year, especially during the spring. The effects are not all bad. Stormwater washing into the floodplain deposits sediments that replenish the soil.
Periodically, devastating floods sweep the region and beyond. The most famous is the Great Flood of 1913. It swept away homes, barns, livestock, and more. The Ohio & Erie Canal was so overwhelmed that some structures had to be dynamited to release the water and the canal never recovered.
Cuyahoga Valley flood, 2004.
NPS Collection
Urvan Murphy and his family survived the 1913 flood, but the rising waters damaged their home and fields. The historic Murphy Farm was located between the Cuyahoga River and the canal, just south of present-day Station Road Bridge Trailhead.
In the 21st century, Cuyahoga Valley farmers continue to deal with high water and crop loss. With increased land development and more numerous severe storms, water now pulses more rapidly into streams that feed the Cuyahoga River, threatening downstream communities. Despite this hardship, farmers find help from their neighbors and work together to rebuild homes and businesses.
Flooding and Help From Friends
Earl Foote, a Valley View farmer, talks about the flooding challenges he faces almost every year.
First speaker: Well probably in the fifty-plus years that we have farmed we have probably had fifty floods. Not every year but some of the times we've had as high as four floods in a year. But in '06 we had one that was seven foot deep in our retail business and two foot deep in our house that we lived in. The house was raised up by the federal insurance company and so forth, so this last one that was last week, we didn't get flooded. But if we hadn't we would have had a foot of water on our main floor then.
Got a lot of nice friends in people. When we'd have friends . . . er, a flood. '04? That was it?
Second speaker: Pretty big one.
First speaker: There was people came from all over. Customers came in and helped shovel mud. My relatives and a couple churches that people came down. We were at a point where, in '06, we were going to probably tear down the house, we'd had that much damage in it.
Second speaker: Yeah . . .
First speaker: By the time we decided for sure that's what we were gonna do there were so many people in there scrapin’ wallpaper off the walls and scrubbin’, and we just couldn't walk away from it then.
Cuyahoga River
Henry Fortlage, who grew up in Independence, talks about the Cuyahoga River and why it is prone to floods.
The floods that we get now are common. I mean, I remember the river floods every year. They make a big . . . the paper makes a big thing about it and everything. It's the Cuyahoga River. You have understand it. The Cuyahoga River starts way up east of here in, what, Geauga County? Makes a big U, comes down through Akron, Cuyahoga Falls, Akron, comes right back. So when all the storms come from the west, right? So they blow through the Cuyahoga Valley here, and then they get out there in Geauga and they hit it again, and so it gets a double whammy so . . . so the river will flood pretty easily. And it's probably prone to flooding now more because, so much development the water doesn't soak in. The streams and tributaries will catch all the storm sewers, storm drains, and it's almost instant flooding, you know, for them. It hits the river and the river can't handle it so quickly. It used to take a little while for it to drain out but . . . I always judged how high the river is is by going down to the hillside road. If it's a couple feet under the deck of the bridge, it's pretty high. ~laughs~ I've never seen it any higher than that.
Water Shortage
In the valley lowlands, groundwater is not easily accessible. Most buildings in communities such as Peninsula need to obtain potable water from outside sources and store it in an outside cistern. In seasons with very little rainfall, this can be both expensive and in high demand. Throughout the 20th century to the present day, water haulers have helped valley residents overcome the shortage.
Valley communities need to find outside sources of water. In 1825, Richard Howe built this aqueduct near Yellow Creek to carry water.
Courtesy/Bath Township Historical Society
With a lack of predators, deer are frequently seen gazing in farm fields.
Like all farmers, those in the Cuyahoga Valley face challenges from wildlife. Deer, raccoons, coyotes, and other animals affect crops and livestock.
More than any other wild animal, deer threaten most crops, eating vegetables before they have a chance to fully grow. Within the last half century, the deer population has grown dramatically, creating more pressure on those who make a living off the land.
"Coyotes are mostly active around dawn and dusk, but being the opportunistic hunters that they are, they can also be nocturnal or spotted midday if an easy meal is available.
2011 Oral History Project: Alan Halko, who operates Spring Hill Farm and Market in Brecksville, talks about how hawks and raccoons threaten his chickens.
“Predation, for one thing, is uh . . . You know, we have a lot of hawk uh, a lot of hawks there. And certain times of the year they like to get chickens. So . . . ~laughs~ And raccoons. I’ve had raccoons wipe out twenty chickens in one night. The hawks take ‘em randomly here and there, usually in the colder weather.”
Deer Problems
2011 Oral History Project: Gerald and Marilyn Polcen, who no longer farm in the valley due to the rising deer population, talk about a creative method for warding off deer from their fields.
Marilyn: “There was land that you could plant, but, you know, it doesn’t pay to fence it. Fencin’ costs a lot of money, and these deer are very creative. They’ll crawl under fences, they’ll jump over ‘em . . .”
Gerald: “I don’t know if you’ve heard that before from any farmers, but it’s a big problem. I tell ya, I used to . . . we have a pickup truck camper . . . in Brecksville, when I was farmin’ over there, growin’ corn over there, used to take the truck and camper in the middle of the field, take my half Lab and half Golden Retriever (she’d sleep with me). I would get up every half hour, shine a light and if we seen the deer, I’d just say ‘Sam-sam, go get ‘em.’ It would . . . she would go out, just run the deer into the woods, turn right around, come back, get back in the camper, we’d go to sleep again. I mean, great dog.”
More Deer
2011 Oral History Project: Carl Boodey describes how the large deer population has affected the valley landscape and contributed to tree loss.
“You cannot farm in the valley no more with the deer. Only thing you can do is like the goats, or graze stuff, but the deer just eat everything up. I did see the woods change a lot. The deer ate lot of the foliage out and about. It’s hard. No new trees. The trees . . . I lived right across from a big woods on Hines Hill. The trees would get up two years old, about a foot, and they’d eat ‘em right to the ground.”
Family Struggles
Unlike flooding and wildlife pressures, family deaths and other personal loss create painful and unpredicted hardships for farmers. For many women, the loss of their husband meant that they needed to solely manage the farming operation while raising a family.
Selling the Farm
2011 Oral History Project: Elizabeth Thalman, who lived with her husband in Richfield, talks about the challenges her family faced after her husband suffered an injury. Unable to manage the farm, Elizabeth's family sold the property for the Richfield Coliseum development.
“My husband, he got hurt on the turnpike. He worked on the turnpike after we couldn’t make a go of it anymore. He got a job there, and he got hurt there. They had these great big Trojan wheels on a tractor, and he was holding the tire and two men were holding the rim, and they dropped it on his foot and crushed his foot. And after that he didn’t—he couldn’t work no more. I mean, he was disabled, so we had to quit farming then. And when Mileti came along and wanted to buy it, so we just sold it to him. ”
