Ghost Stories at Canal Exploration Center

Valley View, Ohio

The Cuyahoga Valley National Park’s Canal Exploration Center is located on Canal Road, right at the intersection with Hillside Road. The center is known for several things: having a working lock system set up on the canal in front of the structure, being an excellent place to park when you want to bike or hike the towpath, and well, having some resident ghosts.

The Canal Explanation Center

The Canal Exploration Center has been open for many years and contains a number of exhibits about the canal and the area. If you want maps or booklets about the park and the surrounding area, it’s a good place to go. There are even lock demonstrations on the weekends in the summer, all conducted by either volunteers or NPS employees in costume.

The building itself, referred to as the Lock Keeper’s or Locktender’s House was built in the 1830s. According to its application for the National Register of Historic Places, the building follows Classic Revival style and has a stone foundation and clapboard siding.

According to sources, Edmund Gleeson (yes, of the Gleeson Cemetery on Dunham Road), was behind the construction of the building. This makes sense because its unique design of two houses connected to one another was echoed in World’s End, the building that used to sit right off Dunham Road near Gleeson’s grave.

The Locktender’s house served two purposes. One was to, as the name implies, house the locktender or keeper. The other side of the building became a tavern, hosting canal boat captains, wayward travelers, and anyone else who wanted to stop for a drink and some conversation.

What Was That About Ghosts?

Few things are as creepy as a ghost story. There are plenty in the area, from the tales of a phantom car following you at night down Canal Road only to vanish where there’s no road or turnoff; Terra Vista or Tinker’s Creek Cemetery, with its rumors of witchcraft and other creepy things; and, of course, stories about canal boat captains who never wanted to leave the area.

This true story is a little tame in comparison, but it happened to both me and my father.

It was sometime in the early 2000s and I was on a bike-riding kick. My favorite after-work activity involved riding the towpath. I was so serious about it that I had an odometer on my bike, and somehow my earnestness convinced my dad to join me every so often.

On one typical weekday, my dad and arrived at the Canal Exploration Center for an evening bike ride. We parked in the lot behind the building, removed our bikes from the rack mounted on the back of the car, and took off.

Upon returning to the parking lot after a rather uneventful bike ride, we noticed that the lot was empty. There were no other cars or people around, which makes sense because it was getting dark out. I chose to ride towards the back of the parking lot, to the river, in order to round out the mileage that I was working on. I remember only needing about a tenth of a mile or something to finish it off.

On my way to the back of the lot, I noticed a very distinctive smell – pipe smoke. The smell got stronger the further I went, and once I turned around to bike back to my dad and his car, it traveled with me. I asked my dad if he smelled it too. He did.

We both assumed that it was a ghost (possibly a former boat captain or just someone who frequented the tavern) and spent a few minutes saying “hi” to it/him/them until the smell faded away.

Since we were the only people in the parking lot, our ghost assumption was probably correct. So, pay attention the next time you’re there in the late evening. You might run into the spirit.