This article is based on a misleading promotion for a political cause. It focuses exclusively on visitors to the park claiming "solitude" and "nature as a church", but says nothing about the bitter memories of the families who were brutally removed from their homes, land and businesses taken by eminent domain to make the Federal park at Cuyahoga. What about their "solitude"?

Neither Ken Burns' nor PBS's upcoming promotions of the National Park Service featuring the notion that the Federal government taking over private property is America's "best idea" have any concern for what they are doing to the owners of private property they covet for government ownership in their "nature church".

The brutal seizure of private homes and other property by the National Park Service using eminent domain to wipe out five rural communities at Cuyahoga has been documented in at least three film documentaries not widely known today, including the 1982 PBS Frontlines one hour documentary "For the Good of All". The library at Peninsula has extensive files on this travesty, which is worse than the recent Kelo eminent domain case of national notoriety. There are still exiles living near the park who could be interviewed today.

How National Parks are made and expanded by trampling the civil rights of residents targeted by powerful pressure groups is not something the National Park Service and its boosters want anyone talking about and is being suppressed in the Burns/Duncan national promotion of the National Park Service.

If PBS wants to honestly document the Cuyahago National Park and not propagandize for more Federal takeovers nationwide, the means by which they got the land and displaced the former residents in the Cuyahoga Valley should be emphasized, not suppressed.

Tell those folks we " THANK THEM" ....it was the right thing to do......it is a beautiful park that all can enjoy, not just a few.......

Appraisit's statement "Tell those folks we ' THANK THEM' ....it was the right thing to do......it is a beautiful park that all can enjoy, not just a few......." is quite an admission on behalf of the morally repugnant population diplacement agenda of the wealthy, politically connected viro pressure groups and the Federal government destroying rural communities, seizing private property with eminent domain and throwing people out of their homes. Remember this the next time you walk into a government park: ask yourself how they got the land, what they don't want you to know, and why the apologists promote it with quasi-poetic emotional imagery of scenery while hiding what they are doing to people and cannot defend.

ewv,

How about posting some facts that can be proven or disproven instead of a bunch of wild general accussations. You sound like a consipiracy theorist, just throwing out all your political BS.

Who had their land siezed to create CVNP? Where, when, facts, links from reputable sources.

ewv: I'd rather have the park, than some trailers on the land...sorry. I remember what the area what is the park was before it became one. Nobody cares about some double wides, or vacated barns...

I'm sure the area's businesses are also generating a heck of alot more income than before....and the river is cleaned up...

Steve: sorry missed your post, but you can see in my post exactly what type of people were basically evicted to create the park....

As was stated above, "The brutal seizure of private homes and other property by the National Park Service using eminent domain to wipe out five rural communities at Cuyahoga has been documented in at least three film documentaries not widely known today, including the 1982 PBS Frontlines one hour documentary "For the Good of All". The library at Peninsula has extensive files on this travesty, which is worse than the recent Kelo eminent domain case of national notoriety. There are still exiles living near the park who could be interviewed today."

The entire transcript of the PBS Jessica Savitch Frontlines documentary was entered into the Congressional Record. Around the late 1970s and early 1980s the General Accounting Office documented the seriousness of the problem of Federal condemnation for parks during this period. Cuyahoga is not unique for this in the history of the National Park Service.

The videos and other articles written at the time (including in the Wall Street Journal) document the homes that were taken, one of which had been personally constructed by its owner and won an architectural award. Some of the homes were shown being burned for practice by the fire department. Many people in the Akron area remember what happened and are still appalled by it even as its apologists now pretend it never happened and try to smear those who dare to mention it.

The attempts to dismiss the significance of the former property owners and residents in the Valley and their rights irrelevant trash who only owned "trailers" are reprehensible. It is not only a smear campaign to protect the apologists for the takings, it reveals the arrogant political elitism of the park boosters who have no concern for other people's rights.

ewv: I can guarantee, that the overwhelming amount of people evicted to make the park, were welfare recipients (Sec. 8, and yes even whites can get Sec. 8), subsidised, and/or renters; a massive net loss for the government....

Until you convince me otherwise, this is an overwhelming win/win/win situation. I am extremely glad they made the park. Nobody goes to the "Valley" to see trailers.....

It is astonishing to see such racist and false class stereotyping so openly and arrogantly stated by elitists like Jabarten denigrating and dismissing people as subhuman rural trash without rights as an excuse to condone throwing them off their property. But that attitude is common throughout the National Park System. No matter who you are, your rights don't matter if they covet your property: homeowner, renter, landlord, small business owner or farmer, you don't count if they want what you have. How many people have to be clobbered before the likes of Jabarten will stop slandering the victims and permit you to care about what he arrogantly deems to be a "win" because he got what he wanted at the expense of someone else whom he doesn't care about?

Contrary to the myths being hyped by Burns and his producer Duncan (who is a National Park lobbyist and promoter) about being for "the people", National Park takeovers have a long history of being orchestrated by the wealthy politically-connected who view their victims as so much dirt to be removed for the 'higher cause' of emotions about scenery, often accompanied by government-aided business ventures for the elite.

This has been the case from the begining and across the country, from the direct removal of Indian inhabitants for Yellowstone and other early western parks to the removal of rural property owners at Shenandoah and the Smokys in the 1930s to the park creations and expansions across the country in modern times: Indiana Dunes, Cuyahoga, Minute Man, Cape Code, Acadia and many others. This pattern of cultural genocide trampling the owners of property coveted by the politically influential should not be ignored by anyone concerned for the rights of the individual.

As I said.....tell em we said " THANKS "....think i'll go for a run now......One of the best marathon locations in the State.....

ewv,
"brutally removed from their homes"? Who is being "misleading...for a political cause" now?

ewv,

Not worse than Kelo because the land was taken for public good, not given to a private entity as in Kelo. And the government had every right to do it.

ewv,

So basically you remember all of this from some TV shows and stories in the paper. And we're just supposed to believe you or go do a ton of research to find the facts.

Well you have presented nothing but your opinion, and you sound rather politically motivated, so I doubt you are impartial on this topic.

I did not live in NE Ohio during the 60s & 70s, I moved hear in the early 80s. Coming from LA I loved the Cleveland Metroparks when I settled in Cleveland. I'd bicycle down there, hike, cross country ski, or sometimes just drive through to enjoy the natural beauty.

When I moved to Akron I really enjoyed the Cuyahoga Valley area. The Summit County Metroparks are also very nice.

We need parks and green space. If it wasn't for government bodies taking over in places we'd have all of the most beautiful places built up and monopolized by the most wealthy. I've seen it in Malibu CA and other places. On trips I've made into the Smokies and other areas of the south I am glad that somebody preserved some of the natural landscape for all generations to enjoy.

@EWV - get off your soapbox. Eminent Domain is used to create a greater good for the majority of people.

The PBS documentary "For the Good of All" (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/info/119.html), one of the three films on the viro-government abuse at Cuyahoga, documents a four-year struggle for survival by a community facing land acquisition and condemnation from the government. Real people are interviewed and followed in their struggle to keep their homes, businesses and land for several years until they were finally crushed by the National Park Service. The full transcript is published in the Congressional Record. There are still people in the area who describe what happened to them. There is no excuse to pretend that this did not happen at Cuyahoga and many other Federal takeovers. And there is no excuse for the Burns-Duncan and Western Reserve Public Media films to suppress how government land agencies and their boosters get the land they want.

The reactions by the apologists for this travesty fall into two categories: the attempts to whitewash it with smears and denials, and the brazen demands that innocent victims be sacrificed to the so-called "public good" with no opposition tolerated. In both cases, those who dare to speak up against it in justifiable moral outrage are told to shut up and get out of their way. It is clear why: the upcoming "documentaries" on the National Park System will again dishonestly exploit emotional imagery of scenery and smiling tourists to promote and propagandize for more government takeovers on behalf of anti-people nature worship while ignoring how the wealthy preservationist pressure groups steamroll and ruin the lives of people in their way. If they get away this again a lot of innocent people are going to be ruined and the anti-private property advocates of government aquisition and control don't want that publicly known.

@ewv: These seem to be open opportunities for oral histories. So if there are/were that many "brutally removed" (I'm assuming they were beaten and spit upon), they will be at these events telling their story. If not, then deal with the fact that northeast Ohio loves the Cuy. Valley and its economic impact on the region (read not just a few but many).

The Burns/Duncan film should have been an opportunity for such oral histories but they were not interested. Duncan is a National Park System lobbyist and promoter and is part of the national political establishment. According to Duncan they only acknolwedge the takings at Cades Cove in the Smokys, which took place in the 1930s and is too well known to ignore, but far enough from the present to be a political threat to the promoters.

These films are intended to propagandize and promote government land as "America's best idea", not reveal how innocent people have been sacrificed to them. So far there has no mention in the Western Reserve Public Media PR of any concern for the victims.

The people who lived in the valley loved it more than the park visitors. It was their property and there was no excuse to steamroll them and throw them out because a more powerful group wanted what they had and took it. Normal people are appalled when they find out the abuse that happened there. No one's picnics, hiking or "nature church" excuses it.

@EWV - put a sock in it already. You are clearly not convincing anybody here. Now run along and find another 'cause' to spout about.

ewv, thank you for your wakeup call. Our government must not think that it can so easily trample the private property rights of individuals. Individuals who value their lives and property must learn to assert themselves. This sickly glowing feeling of environmentalists for all things green---especially when gotten at the unjust expense of property owners---must be known for what it is: the resentment of individual rights and the resentment of any individual who would stand in the way of immoral action.

What happened to the comment I just posted? It disappeared after I hit Submit, yet at the top of the page it said my comment was posted. ??

My other comments disappeared. I'll just say now that i think there should be a monument erected in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in honor of those people whose properties were used to create it.