Everett Village: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Regions 3, 4, & 5 Park Cultural Landscapes Program

The Everett Village Historic District is a rural hamlet located in Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The District, as outlined in the National Register Nomination, is approximately 17 acres; the cultural landscape boundary is slightly larger and includes features not listed on the nomination. The adjacent landscapes that add to the character of the Everett community include the Everett Road Covered Bridge, cemetery, agricultural and open fields, and other properties. Although many of the sites in the valley were influenced by more than one historic context, Everett is unique in that the landscape and its features serve as a discernible link between the transportation and agricultural themes that characterize the park. Using the Cultural Landscape Inventory hierarchy model, Everett Village serves as the parent landscape for individual sites and associated features located within the Village. Many contributing and non-contributing features identified in the 1993 National Register Nomination continue to exist on the landscape. Each component landscape may warrant individual study, yet each also contributes to the historic importance and identity of Everett Village as a whole, allowing for a more coordinated management approach. Features of the Everett Village include natural systems, spatial organization and cluster arrangement, land use, cultural traditions, topography, vegetation, circulation, buildings and structures, views and vistas, small scale features, and archeological sites. The period of significance for the Everett Village landscape begins with settlement in 1830 and continues through the 1935 closing of the Everett train station. For the purposes of the CLI, this period has been extended to 1950 to encompass the hamlet’s final “sleepy” years. According to historical literature, the community’s population ranged from 100-200, reaching a peak around 1888. Its significance during this period is associated with regional themes of agriculture, settlement, transportation, and pre-historic archeology. As an agricultural resource, the Everett Village landscape is representative of 19th-century developments in agriculture occurring in the Cuyahoga River Valley, shaped by the rise of industry, the transition from subsistence to market farming, and shifting population. Everett displayed settlement characteristics common to unincorporated hamlets from that time period. Economically dependent on traffic, the communities were oriented to the roadway, yet patterns of circulation and function were generally random. Social aspects of the settlement, such as number of residents and functions of businesses, distinguish it from more complex and larger types of communities. Of all the functions identified in hamlets prior to 1900, postal service was the most common and most centralizing. The arrival of the railroad supported this purpose. The rural nature of these settlements is also defining; although services such as a school, a tavern, and a general store were common, the majority of residences were farmsteads. These communities changed around 1920-1930 with the arrival of the automobile, as roads were paved and the need for local services diminished. Filling stations and garages emerged to support this development. The associations with settlement, agriculture, and transportation all continue to be evident in the Everett Village, illustrating the progression of industry and commerce in the region. Many of the properties in Everett were acquired by the National Park Service with the 1975 creation of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Overall, the area continue to convey its rural, agricultural feeling and associations due to the structures and features of the surrounding landscape, most of which retain a moderate level of integrity.

Everett Village: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Cuyahoga Valley National Park

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