How a toxic junkyard was transformed into a national park

The National Park Service is celebrating 100 years of protecting and promoting America’s most awe-inspiring natural resources.

When you think of national parks, you may picture the Grand Canyon or the soaring trees of Redwood National Park. But not all getaway spots are that ancient.

In the middle of Cuyahoga Valley National Park – where the Brandywine Falls cascade and natural rock ledges carve through trails – lies Beaver Marsh. Looking at the beauty that surrounds it, it’s hard to imagine this place as a garbage dump.

Peg and Rob Bobel remember this spot as a neglected landscape, all too common in the industrial region known as the Rust Belt. “I can vaguely remember, before the beavers moved in, it was just open field where car parts had been dumped,” Peg said.

The National Park Service bought the property in the 1980s and a radical transformation began. “And then the beavers came in and built this beautiful wetland that you see right here,” Rob said. The Bobels joined a team of volunteers who cleared the growing wetlands of the remaining trash.

Reclamation is one of the central themes of this national park. Thirty-three-thousand acres nestled between two Ohio cities – Cleveland to the North and Akron to the South – the area was once so polluted, the Cuyahoga River caught fire. “The message is that there’s always hope for reclamation. There’s always hope for nature.”

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