AKRON, Ohio - Summit Metro Parks is working to transform the former Valley View Golf Club on Cuyahoga Street in Akron into a wooded area within Cascade Valley Metro Park.

Over the weekend, about 500 volunteers planted roughly half of the nearly 200-acre property with thousands of walnut and oak nuts, collected locally from native trees. The volunteers worked in three shifts on Saturday and Sunday

"Although germination rates for many species are usually very low, we are screening most of ours in advance and tossing most of the bad nuts," said Biologist Rob Curtis in a news release. "I am hoping we will have high germination rates."

You can tell good nuts from bad with a bucket and water: after soaking, the good ones sink.

Summit Metro Parks bought the golf course for $4 million in 2016 to connect Cascade Valley and Gorge Metro Park in Cuyahoga Falls with Sand Run Metro Park in Akron.

The property offers new ways to access the Cuyahoga River and the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail, which are near the former golf course's western boundary.

The property is featured in Akron's history:

From 1887 to 1956, 87 acres of the site operated as the Himelright Farm, Akron's last dairy farm.

The golf course began about 1956, first as nine holes.

In the 1940s, part of the site was marketed as a housing enclave to both black and white families before the Civil Rights Movement. But damaging flooding reported in the 1950s is likely why the neighborhood never flourished.

The golf course eventually swallowed up the homes, as it grew to 18 and then 27 holes.

Summit Metro Parks searches for housing enclave in Valley View golf course

The nut-planting is an inexpensive way to reforest the former fairways and greens, and engage individuals who want to support the park district. The metro parks had removed aggressive species of turf and trees to give the district a blank slate throughout much of the property.

"Now, we're giving people a chance to help us grow a park, literally from the ground up," said Summit Metro Parks spokesman Nathan Eppink.

The first master plan for the property, created by landscape architects the Olmsted Brothers in the 1920s, identified the Valley View property as land worth preserving. Park planners are now finalizing the master plan for the property.

In Phase 2 of the project, Metro Parks will seek $3-4 million in grants to restore 3,000 feet of the Cuyahoga River that cuts through the property, and eventually connect the park to the Towpath Trail.

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