Cuyahoga Valley National Park is turning 50, and celebrating the milestone by highlighting decades of expansion, development and environmental preservation.
In September, the park kicked off hikes, happy hours and scavenger hunts — events that will continue through the end of 2025 — to showcase how far Northeast Ohio’s national park has come since its founding in 1974.
"It took a lot of effort and restoration work and opportunity for natural processes to occur that heal the environment to make this wonderful national park," said Jennie Vasarhelyi, a park spokesperson.
Creating the version of Northeast Ohio's national park known today was not easy, she said. The National Park Service first had to acquire land previously owned by local metroparks, before shifting focus to restoration.
"It was pretty heavily impacted by human use over time," Vasarhelyi said. "So our birthday in 1974 really created the opportunity for all the restoration work that has happened in the last 50 years to really transform this valley."
The result, Vasarhelyi said, is a national park that provides green space, walking trails and riverfront access all nestled between nearby metropolitan areas like Cleveland and Akron.
The park will also mark the occasion with a self-paced scavenger hunt where visitors will use clues to navigate the park and uncover ways it's changed over time, but this is just the beginning of anniversary events, Vasarhelyi said.
"We have ... a really robust calendar of programs that will take place actually through next December," she said. "We really want to use the anniversary as... an invitation for the community to come to the park and try new things."
For CVNP, the goal is really to bring more first-timers in.
"We're really trying to showcase the wide range of activities that this park offers so that people can find something that interests them," Vasarhelyi said. "We really do think that our diverse offerings at this park give something for everybody to do."
CVNP anniversary events will continue through the end of 2025 to highlight the park’s rich history and upcoming projects, Vasarhelyi said, like ongoing work to develop the former Brandywine Golf Corse and establish a Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad connection to the City of Cleveland.
More details on the park’s schedule of events can be found online at CVNP50.com.
