Sarah Jaquay

Ohio's national park

sbradford — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 20:20:02 +0000

Ohio's national park

January 1, 2025

Imagine, if you will, the 1974 landscape in the valley carved out by the Cuyahoga River between Akron and Cleveland: beautiful waterfalls surrounded by deep woods, interesting and plentiful rock formations, colorful meandering meadows, idyllic small lakes.

But those 33,000+ acres also were heavily used by residents, by industry, by commerce. The land also included Richfield Coliseum, then a popular concert venue and home of the still-fledgling Cleveland Cavaliers; a declining (now abandoned) paper mill and surrounding company town that had sprung up around it; and a private dump that would soon become an EPA Superfund site because of its toxic contamination.

In December of 1974, 50 years ago last month, the U.S. Congress passed legislation to create the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area, the third national recreation area created as part of the federal government’s “Parks for the People” movement (the others were the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco and Gateway National Recreation Area near New York City). The CVNRA became a national park in 2000 — 25 years ago this year.

“There’s a lot of hope involved in taking a landscape and turning it into a national park,” says Jennie Vasarhelyi, chief of interpretation, education, and visitor services at Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which marks its anniversaries with a series of events and celebrations over the coming year.

The “Parks for the People” movement was partly in response to urban unrest that had spread across America during the Vietnam era, and partly to make National Park Service lands more accessible to people who couldn’t visit the more iconic but remote locations, such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, or the Badlands.

Deb Yandala, president and CEO of the Conservancy for the CVNP, a nonprofit organization that promotes and fundraises for the park, says there was incredible local support for the CVNRA at the time. “This park exists because of our community members,” she says, crediting everyone from garden club members who led bus tours of the valley to politicians like the late Ralph Regula (R-Canton) and the late John Seiberling (D-Akron), who worked across the aisle in support of the founding legislation.

Even Carl Stokes, the iconic former Cleveland mayor, New York City news anchorman, United Auto Workers general counsel, and U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles, had a role. “When the Cuyahoga River burned (in 1969), he really raised environmental awareness,” Yandala says. That national moment, with Stokes’ advocacy, helped lead to the Clean Water Act and other federal legislation protecting natural resources, and helped push both the Cuyahoga Valley’s original designation with the NPS and its elevation to a national park 25 years later.

“The park didn’t really change that much when it achieved national park status,” Vasarhelyi notes, ”but the public’s perception of it did.”

And almost immediately, the region saw an uptick in tourism. “The CVNP became a must-stop for people who want to hit every national park,” says Lindsay Regan, the conservancy’s director of park experiences.

The park is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year (with the exception of a few specific areas that close from dusk until dawn). No entry fee or pass is required. Click here for general information about the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and for specific anniversary information, click here. Keep checking back, as new events are added regularly.

Celebrating success

The CVNP and its conservancy are hosting a variety of smaller events and programs to mark its anniversaries over the coming year, rather than one or two signature events.

A speaker series runs through April and features topics including the urban parks movement, recreation as a human right, and the importance of beavers to restoring biodiversity.
The conservancy’s Rhythm on the River concert series will also continue at the park’s Howe Meadow in 2025, free and open to the public.
The conservancy also commissioned a public art project to mark the anniversary — a mural that covered layers of graffiti on the Boston Mills Road bridge abutment that’s visible to kayakers on the river and to tourists at the visitor center on Riverview Road.

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national parks

Cuyahoga Valley

nature

outdoors

Roadway robots

sbradford — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 18:39:20 +0000

Roadway robots

May 1, 2023

Sarah Jaquay

Features

Sam Bell, a retired auto mechanic, and Wyatt Newman, a retired Case Western Reserve University professor of electrical engineering, have been friends and bicycling buddies for years. “We talk about everything on our rides,” Bell says. “We make bad jokes, we laugh, and we complain.”

On one of their rides, for example, Bell recalls telling Newman how frustrated he was that his suburban hometown city council couldn’t approve funds for bike lane markings. Told by city officials that it would take $30,000, Bell wondered why it cost so much for such a seemingly mundane task. There were several answers, but the main reason was the cost of person-power both to paint the markings and to maintain them, since water-based paint fades quickly.

Newman’s response, as it often is when Bell complains about human folly: “Can we get a robot to do it?”

Not long after, the pair launched RoadPrintz, LLC.

The common, labor-intensive practice is that all those turn arrows, handicapped space designations, sharrows (shared lane markings), and other specialty markers are stenciled by hand. It’s not only costly, it puts America’s road workers in danger every time they do their jobs. RoadPrintz changes that by producing a truck-mounted robotic arm that can paint even custom markings that are too complicated for striping trucks.

“My favorite part of the process is when the robotic arm is mounted on the truck,” Newman noted. Their first truck-mounted robotic arm, called Lester, was a prototype. They worked out some kinks in their second truck, Stella, and the current iteration, Electra, “is a template for manufacturing vehicles for our customers,” Newman says.

Bell and Newman had collaborated before. They worked together on a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) competition in 2007 to build a vehicle capable of autonomous operation in an urban environment — Bell working on the automotive aspects while Newman took on the robotics. It was that experience that led them to believe they could make a concept like RoadPrintz actually come together.

Why would a municipality, department of transportation, or other potential customer want to buy an Electra or one of its progeny? “Cleveland, Cincinnati, or Columbus would benefit because the person-hours would be cut in half,” says Newman. He explains that when specialty road markings are painted manually, several trucks and a four-person crew are involved, including flaggers and a couple of painters. With a RoadPrintz robotic arm-mounted truck (that can do the pre-work coning automatically), only two trucks and their drivers are required. The painting is accomplished robotically from inside the truck. “We don’t want the driver to get out. That’s when bad things happen,” notes Newman.

Newman and Bell can rattle off national statistics about how many road workers are injured and killed doing precisely the work these robotic arms can do. Those numbers hit home last August in Stow, Ohio, when a driver careened into a coned-off work zone, critically injuring the two workers who were painting a crosswalk at an intersection. Impaired or careless drivers may always be a threat, but the damage they do will be greatly reduced if they collide with a huge truck versus workers protected only by cones.

RoadPrintz has conducted successful demonstrations of its technology in northeast Ohio, including painting bike lanes on the Payne Avenue Bridge over Cleveland’s Innerbelt with green boxes, white bike symbols, and white arrows. Bell and Newman estimate that a typical long-line road painting truck can sell for about $500,000. “RoadPrintz expects to be about 20 percent cheaper,” notes Newman.

For more information, visit www.roadprintz.com. To see the company’s video of the process, search “Road Printz” on YouTube.

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The 'other' Columbus

hgraffice — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 18:19:42 +0000

The 'other' Columbus

March 30, 2017

Sarah Jaquay

Features

When Americans conjure a place called “Columbus,” many imagine Ohio — home of The Ohio State University and its legions of Buckeye football fans.

There is, however, another Columbus not too far away — west across the state line to just south of Indianapolis. While its population is only about 45,000, the town enjoys an outsized reputation as a modern architectural Mecca.

Located just three hours from Ohio’s capital, this Hoosier hamlet has long been a transportation hub — especially for railroads. Its major employer, Cummins, Inc. (f.k.a. Cummins Engine) is an integral part of why this small municipality boasts more than 70 buildings and landscapes designed by celebrity architects from around the globe. Family vacation planners take note: Columbus captivates kids with a massive indoor playground and a three-story children’s museum. The whole family can indulge their sweet teeth at an old-fashioned ice cream parlor with vintage soda fountains.

The best place to start exploring is the Visitors Center on Fifth Street, where visitors may view films on Columbus’ architectural significance and preview one of its crown jewels, the Miller House and Garden. The Visitors Center offers two-hour bus tours that include historic and contemporary structures and tells the backstory of how this place came to be ranked among the world’s top destinations for innovative design.

A brief summary: Local businessman J. Irwin Miller suddenly became the CEO of Cummins Engine during World War II when his great uncle died unexpectedly. After the war, Columbus experienced rapid family growth, and projected a need for new schools. The first two prefabricated schools were built hurriedly. So Miller offered funding for the design of the next one, as long as school board officials would select an architect from a list provided by the Cummins Foundation (the company’s charitable arm). That was the start of renowned modern architects building public structures and art there: I.M. Pei’s Cleo Rogers Memorial Library, Kevin Roche’s Columbus Post Office, and sculptor Henry Moore’s “Large Arch” that unifies the plaza between the groundbreaking First Christian Church (designed by Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen) and the library.

A must-see is the Miller House and Garden designed by Eero Saarinen, Eliel’s son. Eero gained international recognition for St. Louis’s Gateway Arch and the TWA Flight Center at JFK International Airport, and was crucial in selecting Jorn Utzon to design the Sydney Opera House. Among architecture aficionados, Miller House is as revered as Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic Fallingwater in Western Pennsylvania.

Travelers who visit this summer and fall will experience the inaugural Exhibit Columbus (Aug. 26 through mid-November.) There will be five large temporary installations at important architectural locations in the downtown area, including “Wiikiaami,” located at the First Christian Church and designed by studio: indigenous, a Wisconsin-based firm known for expression of American Indian culture; and the “Conversation Plinth,” located at the library and designed by IKD, a Boston firm known for its work at the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum.

Smaller installations also will be placed along Washington Street (Columbus’ main thoroughfare), and local high school students will produce their own installations. While this charming town has long been known for its mid-century architecture, civic leaders believe that the biennial event will put Columbus “back on the map,” even for those who have visited before.

The Columbus in Hoosierland may not have a football team to root for, but this burg is once again rooting for and promoting quality modern design.

For the kids

After a large dose of architecture, visitors with kids can head for Washington Street, where they’ll discover “kidscommons,” the three-story, 12,000 square-foot children’s museum.

In keeping with the design theme, it offers hands-on exhibits that allow visitors to design their own communities, while subtly exposing them to tenets of architecture and urban planning. There’s a 17-foot climbing wall and Bubble-ology — a contraption that creates body-sized bubbles. Kids can let off even more steam at The Commons, a community gathering space with a 5,000 square-foot indoor playground featuring a Luckey Climber — a free-of-charge multi-story structure laced with mazes and jungle gyms, designed by the late architect and sculptor, Tom Luckey.

When hunger pangs set in, Zaharakos Ice Cream Parlor and Museum, across from The Commons, should help. The institution was started in 1900 by three brothers. After they attended the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, they were inspired to buy two ornate soda fountains. Today, “soda jerks” still draw carbonated water from these machines to make handcrafted ice cream delights.

Sarah Jaquay is a freelance writer from Shaker Heights.

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Indiana

art

The island where it happened

hgraffice — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 17:36:54 +0000

The island where it happened

June 2, 2019

Sarah Jaquay

Features

Thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash hit musical, Hamilton, most Americans know how and where Alexander Hamilton’s story ended: in a duel with Aaron Burr in Weehawken, New Jersey, in July 1804 — Burr killed Hamilton and became persona non grata among the Eastern political elite.

Fewer Americans know what became of Burr after that infamous duel. Ohioans and West Virginians, however, are among the fortunate who can take a day trip to Blennerhassett Island Historical State Park (BISP) and explore the place where Burr made his last attempt to become king of something.

The park is in a gorgeous sylvan setting in the middle of the Ohio River between Marietta and Parkersburg, part of the West Virginia state park system. Along with a fascinating bit of history, it offers plenty of natural beauty and fun activities for the whole family.

Visitors are transported back in time the minute they step onto the Island Belle, a steam-powered sternwheeler that departs Parkersburg from May through October. Visitors may hike, bike, take wagon rides, and picnic on the island. Docents in period-appropriate clothing take visitors through the accurately rebuilt mansion, decorated according to its time in history, and tell the tale of the island’s part in a strange bit of U.S. history.

Burr and Blennerhassett

A few years before the infamous duel, in 1797, an Anglo-Irish aristocrat named Harman Blennerhassett and his wife, Margaret, bought part of the island. They carved space out of the wilderness to build an imposing Palladian-style mansion and furnished it with the finest goods from England and Ireland: paintings, sculptures, Oriental rugs, alabaster lamps, and marble clocks.

The estate included a 2-acre flower garden and was considered the most beautiful home in the country west of the Alleghenies. The island “Eden” drew the attention of travelers plying the Ohio River, and the Blennerhassetts were known to be gracious hosts. Among their visitors was the former vice president, Burr.

Burr visited Harman and Margaret for the first time in 1805, a year after the duel. Having lost his political influence and in search of funds, he’d undoubtedly heard about the Blennerhassetts’ opulent lifestyle. After three visits, the couple had been charmed by the witty and persuasive Burr, and by 1806, Burr was using the island, and the couple’s funds, to stockpile weapons and supplies — and militiamen.

Historians are divided on the exact intent of Burr’s scheme, but many think it was a plan to invade the Spanish-owned territory that’s now Texas and create a new, independent nation there.

When then-President Thomas Jefferson got wind of the military exercises, he dubbed it a treasonous plot to separate the American West from the Union and had Burr and Harman Blennerhassett arrested. Blennerhassett was released only after Burr was ultimately acquitted of treason in 1807. Both men’s reputations and finances were irreparably damaged by the scandal, and both finished their lives in obscurity. Sadly, Virginia militiamen occupied and plundered the Blennerhassett Mansion shortly after the arrests, and irate locals burned it to the ground in 1811.

Today, there are numerous special events at the Blennerhassett Island State Park throughout the summer and fall, but the pinnacle may be “Mansion by Candlelight,” when visitors can experience one of the Blennerhassetts’ legendary parties at the carefully reconstructed mansion.

During the annual event (Oct. 11 and 12), visitors time-travel to the year 1805. On this evening, Harman and Margaret greet guests at the entrance, and music and dancing fills the mansion, while elsewhere on the island, the Servants’ Party features a bonfire, cloggers, ghost stories, and fortune-tellers.

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Ohio history

Ohio attractions

Hocking Hills: Birth and rebirth

hgraffice — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 13:36:10 +0000

Hocking Hills: Birth and rebirth

September 3, 2019

Sarah Jaquay

Features

Jim Schaefer is a northeast Ohio native who’s dedicated his life to “improving Ohio.” Jim and his wife, Joan, have a particular passion for Hocking Hills State Park, where their family has visited for more than 30 years.

Indeed, the Schaefers’ enthusiasm for the undulating, sylvan southeast corner of Ohio is widely shared. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources doesn’t track visitation because the entire state park system is free, but Hocking Hills Tourism Association estimates more than 4 million people visit annually, making it Ohio’s most popular state park.

Hocking Hills is nationally known for its interesting geological formations and waterfalls, such as Old Man’s Cave, Ash Cave, and Cedar Falls. Since 2017, another pair of hiking destinations have been drawing crowds — and their story is one of persistence and timing.

The Schaefers were a driving force in getting the previously unused Hemlock Bridge Trail reopened and in starting the process that led to the opening of a new spur trail to the little-known but astonishing Whispering Cave — one of Ohio’s largest recessed caves.

Jim is a retired Cleveland businessman. He’s never worked for ODNR nor any park system. He is, however, a self-described change agent, with the skills to get complicated projects done. When asked what it takes to get a new state park trail or an old one restored, Schaefer is succinct: “Persistence.”

In 2014, he read an article in The Plain Dealer calling for suggestions about new services in Ohio’s parks. Schaefer proposed restoring a then-dilapidated trail that started at Hocking Hills Lodge’s former dining hall (which burned down in 2016 but is being rebuilt as part of an overnight lodge and conference center, slated to break ground in 2020) and led to an observation deck and ultimately to Old Man’s Cave.

He articulated three advantages to reopening Hemlock Bridge: It would increase trail mileage in Ohio’s most popular park, it would increase patronage at the desolate dining hall (which has an adjacent 180-space parking lot), and it would ease parking congestion at Old Man’s Cave’s crowded lot because hikers could park at the lodge and walk the half mile to Old Man’s Cave.

Schaefer encountered reluctance because of the amount of staff that would be required to restore and maintain the trails, but he had answers for every objection. He found an energetic ally in Gary Obermiller, ODNR’s chief of state parks at the time. The pair hiked Hemlock Bridge Trail together and Obermiller immediately got on board. “Hocking Hills is our premier state park and anytime we [ODNR] can offer additional recreational opportunities — well, that’s our job,” he says.

Along the way, Schaefer and Obermiller discovered a remarkable recessed cave that hardly anyone knew about — some local firefighters practiced rappelling there, but that was about it.

The restoration process was complex. It required building a new swing bridge over a small, flood-prone creek along the Hemlock Trail and getting people and equipment down to Whispering Cave — which required rappelling. Schaefer says the Hocking Hills maintenance staff loved working on the project because of that.

Since the two trails opened in May 2017, Obermiller, now retired from ODNR, says he can’t even quantify all the positive feedback the department received about them. “It was worth all the effort. Even most of the Hocking Hills staff didn’t know about these trails, and now they’re among the most popular there. I’m a big believer that we’re public servants. Anytime we [ODNR] have the chance to redistribute people on our trail system, we’re interested.”

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Hocking Hills State Park

Ohio Department of Natural Resources

Dry state

sean.walker — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 20:43:07 +0000

Dry state

February 4, 2020

Sarah Jaquay

Features

“If [Howard Hyde Russell] could see what’s in his house now, he’d be spinning in his grave,” quips Nina Thomas, the lively and knowledgeable local history manager of the Westerville Public Library.

She’s referring to the ironic fact that the former residence of the founder of the Anti-Saloon League (ASL or the League) is now a fraternity house near the campus of Otterbein University in charming Westerville, Ohio.

This year marks the centennial of the Volstead Act, which enforced the ban on the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” pursuant to the 18th Amendment. On Jan. 16, 1920, Americans had to give up most of their spirits, wine, and beer, except for whiskey and brandy prescribed for medicinal purposes and sacramental wine used for “religious purposes.”

Many Americans are aware of Prohibition’s unintended negative consequences: It turned ordinary citizens into criminals, created a sharp divide between observers and flouters, and gave rise to criminal syndicates that controlled every aspect of bootlegging, from its manufacture to pricing and distribution. Prohibition’s consequences, however, were more complex than that. The era (1920–1933) brought more freedom for women and led to more integrated entertainment venues and accessibility to jazz; plus, the dry movement led directly to the imposition of federal income taxes.

Ohioans might be surprised to discover the crucial role the Buckeye State played in passing the 18th Amendment and the outsized influence the Ohio-based ASL exercised in making the “dry movement” a national phenomenon. History buffs can head to the Westerville Public Library to view the informative exhibition, “Prohibition: Expectation vs. Reality,” currently on display in the building that was once the League’s headquarters. Although axe-wielding women smashing up saloons made better press, the ASL’s singular focus and application of “pressure politics” at every level of government is regarded as the primary reason the 18th Amendment was ratified.

The dry movement began in the 1820s, before what many historians agree was the apogee of alcohol consumption. According to the exhibit, the average intake in the 1830s was a whopping 7 gallons per person per year (today, it’s about 2.34 gallons). Several factors contributed, including the lack of proper drinking water. The ill effects of so much alcohol consumption spawned a national temperance movement. The initiative, Thomas says, “took a break during the Civil War, but afterwards, many abolitionists joined the temperance movement. It was the new social movement to be part of.”

Howard Hyde Russell was an attorney who attended the seminary at Oberlin College. Russell and other Oberlin temperance reformers formed the Ohio Anti-Saloon League in 1893. The Ohio ASL successfully lobbied the legislature to enact a “local option” allowing towns to vote themselves dry. Russell believed their methods could work on a national level. So Russell and other state delegates met in 1895 and created the American Anti-Saloon League that eventually moved to Westerville.

How did this relatively small group of Ohioans spread the dry movement nationally? The League printed voluminous literature, including newspapers, posters, and other mailings, and stayed constantly on-message. “They were single-issue focused,” Thomas says. “They had no official opinion on women’s suffrage or any other prominent issue of the day” because the League was only concerned with electing politicians who would vote against alcohol.

Another secret weapon was Wayne Wheeler, an Oberlin graduate who worked as an ASL organizer while attending Western Reserve Law School. Wheeler became the League’s de facto head once its goal became a constitutional amendment. A tireless advocate, he was the “dry boss” who controlled politicians and legislators at every level. When the federal government wouldn’t support a national ban because 40% of its revenues came from alcohol taxes, Wheeler played a prominent role in the passage of the 16th Amendment, instituting the federal income tax.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the exhibit is Prohibition’s long-lasting cultural effects: Women began organizing around other political issues, including suffrage; speakeasy owners started hiring African American musicians, thus opening some of the earliest integrated entertainment venues where audiences were first exposed to jazz; and even NASCAR racing can trace its origins to moonshiners, who designed faster cars to outrun the feds.

The League and its leaders have been forgotten. But 100 years ago, they persuaded the nation to embark upon what was originally dubbed “America’s noble experiment.”

“Prohibition: Expectation vs. Reality” on display at the Westerville Public Library, 110 S. State St., Westerville, through the end of 2020.

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