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This statewide trail circles from the Ohio River (near Cincinnati) to Lake Erie (near Mentor), west to Toledo and then back to the Ohio River. Here in Summit County, the trail passes through Deep Lock Quarry, O'Neil Woods, Sand Run and Cuyahoga Valley National Park. "Follow the blue blazes" for the Buckeye Trail. Close this window Metro Parks and the Boy Scouts of America, Order of the Arrow, created this rustic trail that loops through the Cuyahoga Valley. From Deep Lock Quarry, the Cuyahoga Trail follows the towpath south to Everett before heading east along Bolanz Road. On Akron-Peninsula Road, the trail heads north to the Virginia Kendall Area of Cuyahoga Valley National Park, winds through Boy Scout camps Manatoc and Butler, travels to the Village of Peninsula, and then returns to Deep Lock Quarry. Close this window Discarded mill stones are scattered along Quarry Trail, which takes visitors through the forest to the old quarry. Close this window |
Within Deep Lock Quarry lies Lock 28, which at 17 feet was the deepest lock on the Ohio & Erie Canal, and an old quarry from which blocks of Berea sandstone were cut for the canal locks and other local structures.
Ferdinand Schumacher, who is credited with introducing oatmeal to America by supplying it to Union troops during the Civil War, purchased a portion of the quarry in 1879. The sandstone found in the quarry was ideal for mill stones, which were used to remove the outer hulls of oats processed at Akron's American Cereal Works (later Quaker Oats). Stone was last taken from the quarry in the 1930s, when the Civilian Conservation Corps used the sandstone to construct several Metro Parks facilities, including Pioneer Shelter in Goodyear Heights Metro Park. Deep Lock Quarry became a Metro Park in 1934.
Today, the park is home to more Ohio buckeye trees than any other Metro Park in Summit County. The old canal bed is home to frogs, turtles and salamanders. A shallow swamp has developed on the quarry floor, where rose pink (an herb) and the invasive narrow-leaved cattail grow. |
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