Cuyahoga Valley National Park Trivia
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48 free Cuyahoga Valley National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Cuyahoga Valley National Park trivia quiz covers the unusual national park squeezed between Cleveland and Akron along the Cuyahoga River, the only one in Ohio and the only one that began life as a national recreation area. Questions cover the river that caught fire in 1969, the Ohio and Erie Canal and its towpath, the Valley Railway that became a scenic railroad, Brandywine Falls, the Ledges, the Everett Covered Bridge and the Krejci Dump that became a Superfund cleanup. History ranges from the Hopewell mound builders and the Lenape through the Treaty of Greenville, the canal diggers of 1825–32, Hayward Kendall's gift of the Ledges, the CCC's Happy Days Lodge, Gerald Ford's reluctant 1974 signature, the 2000 redesignation and the 2024 sister-park deal with Dartmoor. There are also questions on Blossom Music Center, Hale Farm, the Richfield Coliseum site and the park's ranking among America's most visited. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy this one, try our US National Parks quiz next.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which winter sport is offered at two commercial resorts inside Cuyahoga Valley National Park?
Downhill skiing
Boston Mills and Brandywine, two downhill skiing resorts operated as a pair, lie inside the park boundary, a rarity among US national parks.
Q 02What was Cuyahoga Valley's status when it joined the park system in 1974?
National recreation area
Cuyahoga Valley entered the system as a national recreation area on 27 December 1974, a category meant for parks near big cities, before Congress later made it a national park.
Q 03Which president signed the bill protecting the valley in December 1974 despite his administration urging a veto?
Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford signed the bill on 27 December 1974 even though his budget office and Interior Department had recommended a veto, doubting the valley met national-park standards.
Q 04In which year did Congress redesignate the area a national park?
2000
Congress redesignated Cuyahoga Valley a national park in October 2000 through the Interior appropriations bill for fiscal 2001, rather than a stand-alone park act.
Q 05How many national parks does Ohio have?
One
One: Cuyahoga Valley is Ohio's only national park, and one of three in the Great Lakes Basin, with Isle Royale in Lake Superior and Indiana Dunes on Lake Michigan.
Q 06What did Cleveland's heavily polluted Cuyahoga River famously do on 22 June 1969, helping spur the American environmental movement?
Caught fire
It caught fire, for at least the 14th time, when a spark from a passing rail car lit an oil slick; the 1969 blaze did about $50,000 of damage, mainly to a rail bridge.
Q 07Which magazine's August 1969 article made the Cuyahoga River's pollution a national scandal?
Time
Time's 1 August 1969 article used a photo from 1952 because no photographs of the 1969 incident exist; the same issue launched the magazine's Environment section.
Q 08Which Cleveland mayor took reporters to the river in 1969 to draw attention to its pollution?
Carl Stokes
Carl Stokes, the first Black mayor of a major US city, led reporters to the damaged rail bridge on 23 June 1969; he had already won a $100 million clean-water bond and later testified to Congress.
Q 09Which band's 1986 song is titled 'Cuyahoga'?
R.E.M.
R.E.M.'s 'Cuyahoga', from the 1986 album Lifes Rich Pageant, mourns the river's despoiling and the Native people displaced from its banks.
Q 10The name Cuyahoga is usually said to mean what?
Crooked river
Cuyahoga is usually said to mean 'crooked river', from a Mohawk word, though the Mohawk never lived here; a Seneca phrase meaning 'on your chin', for the river's jawbone-like V shape, is another candidate.
Q 11The Everett Covered Bridge crosses which stream in the park?
Furnace Run
The Everett Covered Bridge spans Furnace Run, a small tributary that joins the Cuyahoga near the village of Everett; the present bridge is a 1986 reconstruction.
Q 12Cuyahoga Valley's best-known trail, the Towpath Trail, follows the route of which historic canal?
The Ohio and Erie Canal
The Ohio and Erie Canal, opened through the valley in 1827, linked Lake Erie with the Ohio River; mule teams towed boats along the towpath the trail now follows.
Q 13The canal, built between 1825 and 1832, linked Cleveland on Lake Erie with which town on the Ohio River?
Portsmouth
Q 21The Everett Covered Bridge holds what distinction?
The last of its kind left in Summit County
Ohio once led the nation in covered-bridge building with more than 2,000; this one uses Robert W. Smith's 1867 patented truss.
Q 22What happened to the Everett Covered Bridge in 1975?
A spring flood lifted it off its abutments
A spring flood in 1975 lifted the bridge off its abutments and wrecked it; schoolchildren and locals raised money and the Park Service rebuilt it faithfully in 1986.
Q 23Which Cleveland businessman's estate donated 430 acres around the Ritchie Ledges to the state in 1929?
The canal ran from Cleveland to Portsmouth on the Ohio River, opening in stages between 1827 and 1832 and giving Ohio farmers a route to eastern markets via Lake Erie.
Q 14How long was the full canal whose towpath the park trail follows?
308 miles
The full canal ran 308 miles from Lake Erie to the Ohio River and was completed in 1832; the park's Towpath Trail follows only a short northern stretch of it.
Q 15The park's scenic railroad runs on the route of which line, opened to passengers in 1880?
The Valley Railway
The Valley Railway opened from Cleveland through Akron in 1880, later becoming the Baltimore and Ohio's Valley Division; the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad runs excursions on its tracks.
Q 16Which outdoor amphitheatre inside the park is the summer home of the Cleveland Orchestra?
Blossom Music Center
Blossom Music Center opened in 1968 as the Cleveland Orchestra's summer home, built because George Szell wanted year-round work for his musicians; its pavilion and sloping lawn hold well over 15,000.
Q 17Which work opened the park's summer concert venue on 19 July 1968 under George Szell?
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with its choral finale, opened Blossom on 19 July 1968 under George Szell; the concert was broadcast live on local television.
Q 18What is the tallest waterfall in the park?
Brandywine Falls
Brandywine Falls, dropping about 65 feet over a sandstone lip, is the tallest waterfall in the park and is reached by a boardwalk from the Brandywine Falls trailhead.
Q 19What hard rock caps Brandywine Falls, protecting the softer shales beneath?
Berea Sandstone
Berea Sandstone, later quarried for grindstones and canal locks; the Bedford and Cleveland shales below break in thin chunks, giving the water its bridal-veil look.
Q 20What did George Wallace build at the top of the park's tallest waterfall in 1814?
A saw mill
George Wallace built a saw mill at the top of the falls in 1814; grist and woollen mills followed and a village grew around them, largely erased later by Interstate 271.
Hayward Kendall
Hayward Kendall, a Cleveland businessman who died in 1927, left 430 acres around the Ritchie Ledges with the instruction that the land be 'perpetually used for park purposes'; the state accepted it in 1929.
Q 24The Ledges are outcrops of which resistant rock, which caps the valley's highest hills?
Sharon Conglomerate
The Ledges are Sharon Conglomerate, a pebbly quartz sandstone that resists erosion; as the shale beneath washes away, huge blocks settle and frost pries them apart, opening the crevice caves among the boulders.
Q 25Which New Deal agency built the Happy Days Lodge and the Ledges and Kendall Lake shelters?
Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civilian Conservation Corps built the Happy Days Lodge in 1938-39 along with the rustic stone-and-timber shelters at the Ledges and Kendall Lake, all in the National Park Service rustic style.
Q 26The Krejci Dump, acquired by the park in 1985, was declared what in 1986?
A Superfund site
The Krejci Dump, 47 acres of industrial waste near Boston Heights, was declared a Superfund site in 1986; hundreds of thousands of tons of contaminated soil were hauled away before restoration finished in 2015.
Q 27Which company refused to settle over the Krejci Dump and lost at trial?
3M
3M alone refused to settle, lost at trial and was ordered to share the cleanup cost; Ford, General Motors, Chrysler and others had settled over the 47-acre dump's industrial wastes.
Q 28The site of which demolished sports arena is now a grassy meadow and birdwatching spot in the park?
Richfield Coliseum
The Richfield Coliseum, home of the Cavaliers from 1974 to 1994, was torn down in 1999 and its site became park meadow the following year, now prized for grassland birds.
Q 29In 2024 the park signed a first-of-its-kind 'sister park' agreement with which English national park?
Dartmoor
It was the first such deal between the National Park Service and an English national park, focused on conservation.
Q 30Which living-history museum in Cuyahoga Valley National Park began as a Connecticut farmer's 1810 homestead?
Hale Farm and Village
Hale Farm and Village grew from the homestead Jonathan Hale, a farmer from Glastonbury, Connecticut, established in 1810; its brick farmhouse dates from 1825 and craftspeople demonstrate glass-blowing and blacksmithing.