The Akron Metropolitan Park District – now named Summit Metro Parks – was established in December 1921. The park's early board of commissioners – which included tire baron Frank A. Seiberling – hired the well-known landscape architect brothers, John and Fredrick Olmsted, to plan the new parks.
In 1926 Harold S. Wagner was named the first Director-Secretary of the new parks system. In Wagner's first five years leading the city's parks, he built the system up to 1,600 acres. Some of those early parks included the Gorge, Sand Run, and Furnace Run.
By the time Wagner retired in 1958, the park system had grown to 3,760 acres and was drawing out more than 800,000 people each year.
Today if you enjoy the 40,000 daffodils that bloom along the Wagner Daffodil Trail, you owe a debt of gratitude to Wagner and his wife, who planted the first bulbs in the 1930s.
The 60s and 70s saw great growth for the park system. The reservations increased to over 6,000 acres and included the F.A. Seiberling Nature Realm and Cascade Valley, among others. It was also during this time that the Fall Hiking Spree was first introduced – an event that is wildly popular to this day.
Now, Executive Director Lisa King manages the 14,300 acre-park system with over 125 miles of trails – including more than 22 miles of the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail. With an average of 5 million visits each year, the Summit Metro Parks continue to grow and connect visitors with the great outdoors.
The Summit Metro Parks isn't Akron's only park system. The Cuyahoga Valley National Park runs through Akron as well.
When the Olmsted brothers first surveyed the area for Akron's new park system, they reported the recreational potential of the Cuyahoga Valley. About 40 years later that potential was threatened by development. John R Daily - then Director-Secretary of the Summit Metro Parks - helped acquire the land to save it from Akron's sprawl.
In 1974 President Gerald Ford advanced that protection by signing the bill that established the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area. For the next 30 years, more land was purchased for the new park, historic structures were restored, and activities for public enjoyment were planned – all tirelessly championed by Congressman Ralph Regula. In the year 2000, Regula helped to change the park's name to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Today the park protects 33,000 acres of land and welcomes about 2.2 million visitors annually, making it one of the most visited National Parks. The park offers hiking, biking, wildlife watching, canoeing, and even a scenic railroad ride.
City life, or the great outdoors – the choice is yours in Akron.
The story of Akron is the story of moving. Sometimes it's people moving stuff, sometimes it's stuff moving people, but either way, Akronites are always on the move.
This fascination with movement goes back before there was actually an Akron. The native people in the area were able to travel by canoe from Lake Erie to vast distances all over the country by using the rivers. However, there was one stretch of land that wasn't connected by a waterway.
To get from the Cuyahoga to the Tuscarawas river the native people had to pull their canoes out of the river and carry them over an 8 mile stretch of land. Now this route is referred to as the Portage Path and 50 bronze arrowhead statues mark the exact route used all those years ago.
In 1825, work began on the Ohio and Erie Canal. Simon Perkins noticed that there was nothing around the high point of the canal. He was sure that a town around that slow moving part would do a lot of business selling to the travelers even as they were moving goods. He began to make plans, and Akron – taken from the Greek word meaning summit – was born.
The canal stayed in operation for almost 90 years. In 1913, a record amount of rainfall fall and flooding caused major damage to the canal and it was shut down. The canal had been struggling to compete with the faster transportation competition from train lines which began to show up in 1850s.
The influence of rails even made their way into the city. In the early 1880s, horse drawn carriages called “herdics” shuttled people around town. However, in 1888 Akron got its first electric streetcar. It cost passengers 5 cents to ride the entire route which traveled Market Street from the eastern border of town to just short of Portage Path at what was then the western boundary of the city.
However, even with all the influence rails were having in reshaping the city, it was the shortcomings of the railroads in the area that helped to create Akron's trucking industry.
As Akron's rubber industry grew, thanks to the growth of the automobile industry, Akron's tire manufactures needed a way to get their products to their clients. Roadway Express was founded in 1930 to transport the tires made in Akron to the automobile manufactures. After the United States passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act in 1956, creating the nation's interstate highway system, the trucking industry began to boom.
With all of this, there's every reason to believe Akron will keep on moving.