Abstract
This oral history interview with Steven Moss documents his childhood and lifelong experiences in Independence, Ohio, and the surrounding Cuyahoga Valley, with particular attention to environmental change and outdoor recreation. Moss describes growing up in a semi-rural suburban setting in the 1950s–1970s, emphasizing family life, neighborhood activities, and frequent engagement with local woods, streams, and wildlife. He recounts early experiences hunting, fishing, and exploring nearby waterways, which informed his later education and career in fisheries management with the Ohio Division of Wildlife. A significant portion of the interview details observed changes in the Cuyahoga River and its tributaries, including water quality, fish populations, and aquatic ecosystems, tracing a transition from heavily polluted conditions in the mid-twentieth century to gradual ecological recovery by the late twentieth century. Moss also reflects on shifting patterns in local flora and fauna, land use, and recreational practices, providing insight into broader environmental and community transformations in the region.
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Interviewee
Moss, Steven (interviewee)
Interviewer
Rosser, Arrye (interviewer); Farinacci, Ashley (participant)
Project
Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Date
9-18-2017
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
39 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Steven Moss interview, 08 September 2017" (2017). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 343024.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1425
Transcript
Arrye Rosser [00:00:01] Okay, ready? Okay. So I’m the interviewer, Arrye Rosser, work for the National Park Service, and I’m here today on September, this September 8, 2017, talking to Steven Martin Ross, who grew up in Independence. And we’re just going to get started. Steve, could you tell me where and when you were born?
Steven Moss [00:00:29] I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on December 17, 1953.
Arrye Rosser [00:00:36] And where was the house that you grew up in?
Steven Moss [00:00:39] It was on Pleasant Valley Road in Independence.
Arrye Rosser [00:00:43] Do you remember the address?
Steven Moss [00:00:44] It’s 5011 East Pleasant Valley.
Arrye Rosser [00:00:50] And about when did you live there? Like from what time period to when were you born? Were you up in the hospital? Born in Cleveland? Do you remember about the years of it? It doesn’t matter.
Steven Moss [00:01:08] From the mid-’50s until 1999.
Arrye Rosser [00:01:15] And then tell me about your family when you were growing up. Just describe who is in your family.
Steven Moss [00:01:23] Well, I have two sisters that are just a little bit younger than me. And with my mom and dad, typical suburban family enjoying what was the semirural suburb of Independence. And we were always outside, anything from playing hide and seek with the neighbor kids to being in the woods, as much as I could.
Arrye Rosser [00:01:44] Give me the names of all your family members too.
Steven Moss [00:01:48] I have a sister named Leslie and a sister Lisa and my father’s name was Robert and my mom’s Josephine.
Arrye Rosser [00:02:01] And then tell me a little bit about your family’s background. You told me over the phone that you’re a Latino family?
Steven Moss [00:02:09] My mom was born in Mexico and my dad I believe is part German, part English.
Arrye Rosser [00:02:20] What kind of families were in the area when you were growing up? I don’t know that much about Independence.
Steven Moss [00:02:26] A lot of Polish and a lot of Italian families in Independence.
Arrye Rosser [00:02:35] Were there African American families? We’ve asked a little bit about that.
Steven Moss [00:02:39] None that I can remember.
Arrye Rosser [00:02:42] And somebody else, I’ll ask your mom this too, but somebody was telling me about gypsies up in Independence. I don’t know if that rings any bells.
Steven Moss [00:02:50] That was probably before my time.
Arrye Rosser [00:02:55] I thought I’d just ask. And describe Independence on what it was like during your childhood versus kind of how it is now.
Steven Moss [00:03:05] Well, it was a lot less built up than it is now. Even during the time I was growing up, Independence didn’t have a lot of new growth or development at all. Very few new houses were built. A lot of open space. Like I said, we played in the woods a lot. I grew up hunting in the woods in the area. It was that big of an area. It was safe to do that. Now it has changed a bit as new developments come in with some more affluent neighborhoods.
Arrye Rosser [00:03:40] What kind of- What do you remember about like the local businesses around where you were going?
Steven Moss [00:03:46] Oh, I remember everything from Ed Radicek’s gas station on Brecksville Road just south of the center of Independence, Merkle’s little grocery store at the corner of Sunset and Brecksville Road, and across the street was Mr. Eichler’s Sunoco station. Those are all gone now. At the corner of- At the northwest corner of Rockside and Brecksville Road was, I think it was called Dutch Corners. It’s a great big, huge building that was probably anywhere from a bar to a grocery store to an overnight stay from times gone past.
Arrye Rosser [00:04:35] The name Merkle I’ve heard before, but I don’t know if- It may have been a big family, but they were big into dairy farming in the area but I don’t know if that was anything. I don’t remember any Merkle’s growing up.
Steven Moss [00:04:47] That I don’t. I just remember them having the store.
Arrye Rosser [00:04:52] Yeah, I think they grazed- They grazed cattle. At least the main stem of the family were grazing cattle. But I think they were from up by the zoo. But I keep hearing them. That name’s popped up in some research. So tell me a little bit more about what you like to do for fun when you were a kid.
Steven Moss [00:05:11] When I was a kid we, like I said, we played baseball across the street. We played hide and seek a lot, especially towards evening, we’d try to get all the neighbor kids together and played in our backyard. Hide and seek, we played. We rode our bikes a lot. We had a little path actually going through the woods. We’d just go around and round and round and I would go to the creek in the back and do things like catch salamanders and catch crayfish.
Arrye Rosser [00:05:40] Do you remember the name of the creek? Did its have a-
Steven Moss [00:05:42] No, it didn’t have a proper name. It was just an outflow of a small pond that my one neighbor had.
Arrye Rosser [00:05:49] Huh, that’s really cool. Do you tell me a little bit about like the hunting and fishing things that you used to do.
Steven Moss [00:05:57] Back then there were no- People didn’t even think of having seen deer or anything around. So it was mostly hunting rabbits and squirrels, small game, stuff like that.
Arrye Rosser [00:06:09] Yeah. Did you guys eat everything you catch?
Steven Moss [00:06:11] Always.
Arrye Rosser [00:06:13] What do you eat on a squirrel?
Steven Moss [00:06:16] You have to get a few squirrels to make like a pot of stew. [laughs]
Arrye Rosser [00:06:22] Did- What about- Where did- Do you remember where were you going when you were hunting? Can you describe some of the land that you were on?
Steven Moss [00:06:34] I hunted mostly behind my house and-
Arrye Rosser [00:06:37] There was enough room?
Steven Moss [00:06:39] Oh yeah.
Arrye Rosser [00:06:39] Were you hunting with like a rifle or were you bow hunting?
Steven Moss [00:06:43] No, I used a shotgun.
Arrye Rosser [00:06:45] It was, I was going to say not bow hunting a squirrel, but it was-
Steven Moss [00:06:49] Rifle would have been unsafe in an area that’s around here.
Arrye Rosser [00:06:54] You can tell my ignorance about being a hunter. Tell me a little bit about like the fishing particularly. Describe your background, first of all, and how you got into studying fish.
Steven Moss [00:07:07] I just was always interested in the outdoors, and streams especially fascinated me. I would go into, like I said, the creek in the back as often as I could or when I was still at my grandparents’ house down there in old Rock side, I would go over to the river and just be fascinated with it. As I grew up, I just spent more and more time at the streams and fish fascinated me and I eventually went to school to work in this field and in fisheries management.
Arrye Rosser [00:07:39] Where did you go to school?
Steven Moss [00:07:40] I went to school at Hocking College and Kent State.
Arrye Rosser [00:07:46] How long have you- Tell me a little bit about your current job, just what your career has been.
Steven Moss [00:07:53] I work for the State of Ohio Division of Wildlife. I’ve been there over 27 years. We manage the fish in the inland lakes in northeast Ohio and we do anything from catching fish to get their eggs that get sent down to the state hatcheries to be restocked in the lake, to do our surveys, to manage the fish populations in the lake and to things like enhance some of the opportunities in the lake for fishermen to catch fish.
Arrye Rosser [00:08:25] What do you think? How do you think, do you have sort of a sense of like when you first got started with the fish, you know what I mean? Like what appealed to you about fish?
Steven Moss [00:08:38] Well, I actually started going to school for wildlife management because I just liked all outdoors. And during the course of me taking my courses, I had took some fish management courses and it just seemed a lot more interesting to me, a lot more hands-on.
Arrye Rosser [00:08:54] Did you- How much time did you spend fishing when you were growing up? Was this something you did a lot of or just every now and then?
Steven Moss [00:09:01] As much as I could. I started out, my dad taking me to one of his friend’s ponds and the first fish I caught was a bullhead. And you know, I would always say, dad, let’s go fishing, let’s go fishing. And him and I would take off on weekends and go fishing at various lakes and all that and just continued on.
Arrye Rosser [00:09:24] In the Cuyahoga Valley, where were the places that you could go fishing during your childhood?
Steven Moss [00:09:30] When I was really little, there was really nothing to fish for in the Cuyahoga River. I finally saw a fish in the river when I was maybe anywhere from 10 to 12 years old maybe. And then the water quality in this river got better and I would fish. I mostly fished below the roller dam by the Route 82 bridge. But I have fished in other parts of the river anywhere from Peninsula all the way down to Rockside Road.
Arrye Rosser [00:09:57] And what was the first fish that you saw, do you remember?
Steven Moss [00:10:00] That I caught in the river? A carp. [laughs]
Arrye Rosser [00:10:03] A common carp? [laughs]
Steven Moss [00:10:04] Common carp. But I’ve caught many other fish in the stream since then.
Arrye Rosser [00:10:08] Where did you catch it?
Steven Moss [00:10:09] At the 82 dam.
Arrye Rosser [00:10:10] The 82 dam. And do you have a sense of what time period that would have been? About what year that was?
Steven Moss [00:10:16] Oh, jeez.
Arrye Rosser [00:10:17] Based on your age?
Steven Moss [00:10:21] Probably in my later teens.
Arrye Rosser [00:10:23] What year would that have been?
Steven Moss [00:10:24] That would have been ’70, ’72, 1970, 1972 area around there.
Arrye Rosser [00:10:33] So the first- Were you fishing. Were you trying to catch fish in the river a lot before, or did people just not go and try?
Steven Moss [00:10:44] I haven’t heard of people actually trying to fish in the river. Not saying I knew what everybody was doing, but I really didn’t try fishing in the river till about then.
Arrye Rosser [00:10:55] So then I’ll just have you say it again. So it was like around 1972?
Steven Moss [00:11:02] Yes, somewhere around there.
Arrye Rosser [00:11:03] And what did the river look like at that time?
Steven Moss [00:11:08] It looks pretty much like it did now. It smelled a lot worse some of the- At the dam at Route 82 because of the water running over the dam. It stirred up a lot of the detergents or whatever was in the water. And it did have a fair amount of foam that would form on the top of the surface of the water. And I saw the same thing at the lock at the Hillside Road demo lock there that. The little roller dam there. There would be a lot of foam or soap foam, whatever. It was built up because of the water action.
Arrye Rosser [00:11:52] What was the smell like?
Steven Moss [00:11:55] Kind of like raw sewage.
Arrye Rosser [00:11:58] Which probably it was, wasn’t it? When did- When you were fishing in that timeframe, were there other people out there fishing too?
Steven Moss [00:12:07] Once in a while I would see other people, but it would mostly be local kids on bikes down there.
Arrye Rosser [00:12:13] They were just hanging out mostly?
Steven Moss [00:12:15] No, they were fishing, but they were just- It was close for them to ride their bikes down from either Sagamore Hills or Brecksville.
Arrye Rosser [00:12:21] Do you remember them catching stuff or not really?
Steven Moss [00:12:24] Yeah, I saw them catch some of the stuff.
Arrye Rosser [00:12:26] What were they catching?
Steven Moss [00:12:28] I seen anything from carp, the bluegills to white bass the other kids caught.
Arrye Rosser [00:12:34] That would have been in the ’70s?
Steven Moss [00:12:37] Yeah, in the ’70s, probably, maybe more towards the mid to later ’70s, actually, when I saw more people down there fishing.
Arrye Rosser [00:12:47] Since you have a background in fisheries, what’s the significance of catching just a carp?
Steven Moss [00:12:55] Well, the carp can live in a lower-quality water than a lot of other species of fish. And you can tell the quality of the stream by the species of fish that are in the stream.
Arrye Rosser [00:13:06] So when you see a carp is the only fish-
Steven Moss [00:13:10] It’s a pretty low-quality stream.
Arrye Rosser [00:13:14] What about some of the other fish that you were saying that they caught as it got into the later ’70s? What do they represent?
Steven Moss [00:13:23] They represented- What I saw is the water quality of the river getting better.
Arrye Rosser [00:13:29] Remind me what those fish are.
Steven Moss [00:13:32] Anything from bluegills and crappies, rock bass. And I eventually started seeing largemouth bass and smallmouth bass in the river. And I’ve seen- These are all the areas down below the dam at Route 82. I’ve seen pike in there and I’ve seen gar. And there’s been muskies, muskellunge in the river, and even walleye and steelhead trout. I’ve caught pretty much most of those fish.
Arrye Rosser [00:14:01] When did you start seeing, like, the pike? Seeing like pike muscle? Those are much more-
Steven Moss [00:14:10] Yeah, they like higher-quality water. Then probably in the later ’80s into the ’90s, I started seeing some pike and gar.
Arrye Rosser [00:14:20] Yeah, gar. I hadn’t heard about the gar. Actually, the muskellunge I’d heard about. What would have been like the best fish that you caught? And about when would it have been?
Steven Moss [00:14:34] You mean biggest or most quality?
Arrye Rosser [00:14:36] Could be anything.
Steven Moss [00:14:37] Yeah, to me, you know, catching, catching either steelhead trout or a big smallmouth bass in the Cuyahoga River is probably my best-quality fish. Best time fishing.
Arrye Rosser [00:14:52] When were you starting to get those catches?
Steven Moss [00:14:54] I started catching smallmouth bass in probably the later ’80s and the steelhead probably in the mid-1990s. And I have seen chinook salmon at the mouth of Tinker’s Creek where it dumps into the Cuyahoga River. I’ve seen them there in 1986, I think it was.
Arrye Rosser [00:15:21] Are they nonnative?
Steven Moss [00:15:24] Yeah, they’re nonnative. Same as the steelhead trout. They’re stocked in the lake. The salmon aren’t stocked in Lake Erie anymore. Ohio doesn’t do it.
Arrye Rosser [00:15:34] What does it mean to see those fish kind of upstream like that out of the lake? Does that mean they’re breeding?
Steven Moss [00:15:42] They normally run upstream to spawn at the correct time of year for them, which for a salmon is in the fall.
Arrye Rosser [00:15:52] So it’s kind of good news to see them?
Steven Moss [00:15:54] Yes, because it shows good quality or as water quality improving on Cuyahoga River and even on Tinker’s Creek.
Arrye Rosser [00:16:03] Did you go and do fishing on any of the tributaries like Tinker’s Creek or any of the other-
Steven Moss [00:16:08] Yes, I’ve fished on Tinker’s Creek, mostly at the lower end.
Arrye Rosser [00:16:12] What did you find over the years there and how has that changed?
Steven Moss [00:16:17] I’ve caught a couple small smallmouth bass near the very lower end of Tinker’s Creek. That’s the only part I’ve ever fished. Any other- I don’t have a fish any other tributaries to the Cuyahoga.
Arrye Rosser [00:16:32] What does it mean to have the smallmouth bass there? Is that a pretty decent quality fish?
Steven Moss [00:16:36] Yes. Definitely shows better quality.
Arrye Rosser [00:16:41] So did you used to fish by yourself or did you go with a buddy?
Steven Moss [00:16:46] No, I’m a person that fishes by myself.
Arrye Rosser [00:16:49] But you fished with your dad when you’re little?
Steven Moss [00:16:51] Yes, yes.
Arrye Rosser [00:16:53] Is that who taught you how to fish?
Steven Moss [00:16:55] He did.
Arrye Rosser [00:16:57] How did he learn how to fish? Do you know? Did he tell you?
Steven Moss [00:17:00] No, he never did. He just knew how, and I just was grateful that he showed me.
Arrye Rosser [00:17:05] And you told me a little bit about your dad doing some other things down by the river. Do you remember that? I was just talking about-
Steven Moss [00:17:14] Oh, yeah. When we were younger, a lot younger, he built a sandbox for us. And he just nailed together some like two by eights or two by tens in a big square and went down to the river near the family property and filled the back of the pickup truck with sand from one of the sandbars on the river. And that was the sand for our sandbox.
Arrye Rosser [00:17:38] Was it a nice sandbox or was it kind of mucky?
Steven Moss [00:17:41] Oh, no, it was pure sand. It was great. And sometimes you’d find little tiny shells in it.
Arrye Rosser [00:17:50] Did you guys used to go down and play along the river when you were growing up?
Steven Moss [00:17:55] A little bit, because that part of the river there, the banks were kind of steep, but we were able to get on that little sandbar once in a while. And we just, as little kids, we just throw rocks in the water.
Arrye Rosser [00:18:06] Was this up at Rockside Road, is that the area that you’re talking about? Yeah, kind of at Rockside Road and the Cuyahoga River? At Rockside Road, yes. And then did you do any, like, winter sports or anything like that in the Valley?
Steven Moss [00:18:26] When I was younger? Mm, not really.
Arrye Rosser [00:18:30] [inaudible] -did the toboggan runs and all that stuff?
Steven Moss [00:18:33] We would go to the hills over at Virginia Kendall Park. My dad would take us there, all three of us.
Arrye Rosser [00:18:41] What do you remember about that? I haven’t actually heard people talk about that.
Steven Moss [00:18:45] It was fun. A lot of fun. It was a long ride down, but it was a long trek back up the hill. But we loved going over to Virginia Kendall Park over on Hampton Hills, the Hampton Hills area.
Arrye Rosser [00:18:57] Did you- How did it work with the toboggan one? Did you have to walk all the way up to the top of it?
Steven Moss [00:19:04] We were parked at the top and the hill was down, so eventually ended up back up at the parking lot area.
Arrye Rosser [00:19:13] How many runs did you get to do with time? Did you just go on and on? Was the line, like, huge?
Steven Moss [00:19:19] Well, this was just open hill. So if there was an open space, you just went down. You didn’t have to really wait for it anymore.
Arrye Rosser [00:19:27] Oh, yeah, sorry. I’m thinking about the toboggan chutes that they used to have.
Steven Moss [00:19:30] They used to have- They were actually-
Arrye Rosser [00:19:33] But they would have been removed- [crosstalk]
Steven Moss [00:19:35] Oh, I remember the toboggan suit still in operation when I was little, but I remember them having a requirement of so many inches ice on Kendall Lake before they allowed the chutes to open. And so I never actually went on the toboggan chutes, but they were there, and then they eventually shut them down. The toboggan chutes were there for a while before they were finally torn down.
Arrye Rosser [00:19:56] So you guys were over on the Kendall Hill, the Kendall Hill area?
Steven Moss [00:20:00] Yes. On Quick Road.
Arrye Rosser [00:20:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. My son does that, too. It never gets old. Was it crowded?
Steven Moss [00:20:09] It can be, yes. In the good days, yes, it was crowded. We also took my kids recently, more recently, when they were little, at the bottom of Pleasant Valley Road, where Riverview Road is closed off. Now, the hill on the north side of Pleasant Valley Road that goes, ends up down at Riverview. We used to sled right there.
Arrye Rosser [00:20:31] Was going to Kendall Park like a big thing when you were growing up?
Steven Moss [00:20:35] Yes. Oh, yeah.
Arrye Rosser [00:20:37] Did people mostly go in the winter or did you go, like, swimming there in the summertime?
Steven Moss [00:20:43] Virginia Kendall. I mostly just went there in the wintertime for sled riding.
Arrye Rosser [00:20:50] I think you had- Let’s see, were there other special places that you’d like to go to in the Cuyahoga Valley, like now when you were growing up? I was wondering if you were in Bedford or Brecksville Reservations.
Steven Moss [00:21:05] We would go to Brecksville Reservation a lot. Especially where the - of the Metroparks - where the little ford crosses over Chippewa Creek. I remember my mom taking us down there for picnics a lot. And once again we’d just start playing in the water and throwing rocks like most little kids do.
Arrye Rosser [00:21:25] What was the creek like then? Was it different than it was, than it is now, if you remember it?
Steven Moss [00:21:31] What I remember, it’s- I mean, streams always change, but it in general, it’s pretty much what I remember.
Arrye Rosser [00:21:39] That’s really cool. I’ve seen old pictures of people doing that. I think it was popular all along. Were there any other things that you remember doing in the area or maybe what the other kids did? I was kind of curious where kids hung out in the northern part of the park, if they did at all.
Steven Moss [00:22:03] I don’t remember actually hanging out down in a park area. It was mostly just if I was down in a park area, I was mostly like by myself doing my just being in the woods type deal. It wasn’t like a hangout for kids that I can remember.
Arrye Rosser [00:22:25] You were talking a little bit about your cousins too, when we were talking on the phone. Where were they from? And they liked to go hunting and everything too?
Steven Moss [00:22:33] Yeah, My one cousin that lived up the street from me. He’s five years older than me and I hunted mostly with him as I was younger.
Arrye Rosser [00:22:45] What’s his name?
Steven Moss [00:22:46] His name is Alan Fisher.
Arrye Rosser [00:22:50] That was when you were hunting. Did you say you were hunting for ducks too?
Steven Moss [00:22:55] I have gone down before. It was even the CVNP. I had gone down in a valley and I hunted for ducks and rabbits down there just a couple times.
Arrye Rosser [00:23:04] What kind of ducks did you catch, do you remember?
Steven Moss [00:23:06] Mallards, the most common.
Arrye Rosser [00:23:08] Wasn’t too exciting right now. So we talked about some of the questions I have for you about the river. I wondered if you would. Do you have any other comments or thoughts about. I wonder what the river banks look like, if they look different or if you’ve noticed any changes over the years?
Steven Moss [00:23:30] Not really. I mean, like I said before, rivers always meander. There’s always going to be subtle changes. It never, never stops. But any- I can’t- I don’t recall any major changes of the river’s path or anything like that. I just remember like an example at the Bot at, near where the train station is at Rockside Road. How that’s grown up compared to what it used to be. It used to be just like, just grasses, and now there’s a lot of trees growing. Same thing at the bottom of Pleasant Valley Road. That was all- Well, years ago a local company, we used to take topsoil out of there.
Arrye Rosser [00:24:13] With Kurtz Bros.?
Steven Moss [00:24:14] Kurtz Bros., yeah. And when they quit doing that, they did leave some depressions there. And as the grasses grew up, it was a great place for waterfowl to come in at. And I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of ducks in there at a time during migration. But as succession goes on, things started growing up. And now it’s a lot of trees.
Arrye Rosser [00:24:39] Say that- What about- What timeframe would that have been? I know that they were still doing topsoil removal in the Station Road area when the park-
Steven Moss [00:24:48] Right. Yeah. Way down south of Station Road, probably. Oh, geez. They might have got out of there in the late ’80s, early ’90s. I really can’t remember. I just-
Arrye Rosser [00:25:04] Yeah, our biologist for the park, Meg Plona, she remembers that timeframe, yeah. When were all the waterfowl in there, that you remember?
Steven Moss [00:25:13] In the ’80s, before it started growing up too much. I remember driving down on the old, the Fitzwater Road where the train place is and sitting there and - in the early morning - and watching hundreds of ducks and hundreds of geese fly over me and land in that wetland area between Fitzwater and Pleasant Valley Road.
Arrye Rosser [00:25:38] How good of a birder area? Do you remember what they were?
Steven Moss [00:25:42] Canada geese. And the ducks were mostly mallards. And there were shovelers and some teal in there.
Arrye Rosser [00:25:51] About how many of them do you think there were?
Steven Moss [00:25:55] I saw 500 come in there.
Arrye Rosser [00:25:58] Wow, that’s incredible. Did what about go back to just visible pollution in the river? Was there- Did you see like you talked about, the kind of bubbles and everything? Was there anything else that you were seeing in the river?
Steven Moss [00:26:21] No, I don’t remember anything like oil slicks. I don’t remember any solid pollutants floating down the stream. It was mostly the foam on the river and along the canal. And I remember our dad driving us down along the canal. And we would have to sometimes stop the car on Canal Road because these big clouds of soap were blowing across the road and you couldn’t see what was going on coming the other way, so you had to sit and wait till they blew past before you can keep on going.
Arrye Rosser [00:26:53] Were you nervous about driving through it? [laughs]
Steven Moss [00:26:55] No, no. I trusted my father.
Arrye Rosser [00:26:58] That happened once in the time that I’ve been here. I forget what caused it, but-
Steven Moss [00:27:03] It was- When we were younger, it was a common occurrence.
Arrye Rosser [00:27:05] Wow. Do you know what the cause of it was?
Steven Moss [00:27:09] Obviously a pollutant. Maybe too many soap suds, you know, septic systems dumping into the stream or the inefficiency of the Akron wastewater treatment plant, maybe.
Arrye Rosser [00:27:24] I was going to ask you if you had seen what the most unusual fish that you’d caught in the Cuyahoga Valley was if you have any.
Steven Moss [00:27:37] It was a smallmouth buffalo. It’s kind of like a carpenter.
Arrye Rosser [00:27:45] Where did you catch that?
Steven Moss [00:27:45] At the 82 dam.
Arrye Rosser [00:27:50] About when was that?
Steven Moss [00:27:53] Probably back in the ’80s.
Arrye Rosser [00:27:56] And what do they indicate about the conditions of the river?
Steven Moss [00:28:04] Not either high quality or low quality. They’re just one of the middle of the road type fish, I guess.
Arrye Rosser [00:28:10] What was unusual about catching it there?
Steven Moss [00:28:12] Because they’re not real common.
Arrye Rosser [00:28:15] Where would you expect to find them?
Steven Moss [00:28:18] They’re up in Lake Erie. It could have migrated up the stream. There were a number of fish that would migrate upstream during certain times of the year, like white bass and actually yellow perch. And the walleye and the steelhead trout are normally not resident fish. They migrate up and then they might go back on the lake.
Arrye Rosser [00:28:36] Yeah. Did you catch any exotics? I mean, other than the ones that are stocked?
Steven Moss [00:28:41] No, just the normal.
Arrye Rosser [00:28:44] People sometimes ask us about lamprey and everything. It’s not really lamprey.
Steven Moss [00:28:49] Lampreys have a specific habitat for their spawning. And there’s possibilities that sea lampreys are spawning in a river. But through my work we haven’t had any indication of that. We have other streams we have to go investigate for sea lampreys, but not the Cuyahoga.
Arrye Rosser [00:29:07] Yeah, that’s my understanding of it as well. What are some of the- Did you ever see, like, signs of illness in fish?
Steven Moss [00:29:15] Yes. Some of the bowheads. I had some tumors on them when I started fishing there earlier on, probably back in the ’80s. They had some kind of, some interesting growths on them.
Arrye Rosser [00:29:29] Describe them to me.
Steven Moss [00:29:31] Like open, open sores and like bumps on their mouths, things like that.
Arrye Rosser [00:29:35] Yeah, bullheads. They’re one of the species that has to get monitored for tumors.
Steven Moss [00:29:42] Am I saying that right?
Arrye Rosser [00:29:44] Yeah, I think that- Are they just prone to tumors?
Steven Moss [00:29:48] They are more of a bottomfeeder fish. So a lot of contaminants tend to settle out at the bottom of the streams.
Arrye Rosser [00:30:02] Are they- What kind of habitat- Do they normally grow up in the tributaries or-
Steven Moss [00:30:08] They pretty much hang out in the main stem.
Arrye Rosser [00:30:16] What are some of the biggest changes you’ve noticed in the Cuyahoga River?
Steven Moss [00:30:25] Seeing the comeback of fish like walleyes and steelhead trout moving upstream. And that’s indicated by the number of people fishing in the fall and winter for steelhead. It used to be where it was I’d have the river pretty much to myself. And now you have to be at the 82 dam early in the day to get a spot. Also where Sagamore Creek runs into the Cuyahoga River up just south of Pleasant Valley Road. I was just messing around in the river there while I was fishing and flipping over rocks. And I was happily surprised to see the number of aquatic invertebrates’ larvae in there. Like a lot of mayfly nymphs. There’s stoneflies nymphs under the rocks, too. But mayflies show a little bit better water quality. And I did not see any stonefly nymphs in the river itself. But in Sagamore Creek, I found stonefly nymphs, which- Stoneflies have a- They need high quality streams to live in.
Arrye Rosser [00:31:34] Yeah, that’s, that’s pretty remarkable. Think about that. What about- Do you have any other memories, kind of, of the tributaries? Just to add, did you spend time in Chippewa other than just playing around as a little kid?
Steven Moss [00:31:52] I’ve walked up and down the creek, just flipped over rocks and just looked in the pools to see what was there. Same thing at Tinker’s Creek. We would go to Tinker’s Creek sometimes and just play around in the water. I would flip over rocks. But Tinker’s Creek was- The pollution was a little bit higher in Tinker’s Creek. And you could tell by the small, the stuff that was in the streams. Like, there was bloodworms and not too many caddisflies and Diptera larvae - fly larvae - which indicates a lower-quality stream.
Arrye Rosser [00:32:37] Did you- Did you see- Did you spend time in the canal? Did you ever fish the canal?
Steven Moss [00:32:43] No, I never fished. I have seen people fish the canal, but I’ve never fished the canal. I didn’t expect much in there.
Arrye Rosser [00:32:48] Yeah. What are they fishing for?
Steven Moss [00:32:51] Probably bluegills and maybe bass.
Arrye Rosser [00:32:54] And is that like. What time frame is that? Have people fished the canal for a long time or just only more recently? I mean, I’m sure they did back in the day.
Steven Moss [00:33:05] Maybe over the last, what I’ve seen, maybe over the last 30 years. I don’t know if they did any good. I would rather fish the river than the canal.
Arrye Rosser [00:33:18] Do you remember the canal being polluted according to your memories of just the condition of what the canal is like?
Steven Moss [00:33:24] Yes, because the water in the canal was diverted from the Cuyahoga River just up above the 82 dam, so what was in the Cuyahoga ended up in the canal.
Arrye Rosser [00:33:34] Yeah, so he saw it all there. [laughs] Did you see other wildlife when you were out along the river? Do you have any memories of birds or the reptiles?
Steven Moss [00:33:46] From early on, the typical birds you would see along the river were herons and crows and things like that. But more recently, ospreys, eagles, turkeys, the wildlife goes, as you know, the number of deer has increased dramatically in the Cuyahoga Valley, and it’s not unusual to see deer along the stream while I’m fishing.
Arrye Rosser [00:34:16] What are your memories of seeing deer when you were young?
Steven Moss [00:34:22] It was a big thing to see a deer, period. When I was young, up until probably the later ’70s, I started seeing them a little bit more often.
Arrye Rosser [00:34:33] So when did it seem to- Just now we just have deer coming out of our ears, correct? Yeah. I think you told me on the phone that you hadn’t seen a deer until you were in elementary school.
Steven Moss [00:34:49] Yeah, we were in the school on Hillside Road, and there was a deer actually seen in the field right at the edge of the grass. And everybody, all the classes went into this one room, just look out the window to see a deer. So this was in the early to mid-’60s.
Arrye Rosser [00:35:10] Wow. [laughs] Do you have memory of any of the kind of like mink, bobcat, beaver?
Steven Moss [00:35:20] There used to be a lot of muskrats in the canal. I haven’t seen that many anymore, but muskrats are really common. I have seen mink along the river a few times and just kind of a little bit more recently, as you know, beavers have been back.
Arrye Rosser [00:35:39] When do you remember first seeing the beavers?
Steven Moss [00:35:42] Oh, geez, I can’t remember. Probably in the ’90s maybe. I’m just guessing.
Arrye Rosser [00:35:49] I know they started coming back probably late ’70s to ’80s, but I don’t know how much people were seeing them, sometime in the ’80s. Do you have memories of plant life in the Cuyahoga Valley or just how it’s changed.
Steven Moss [00:36:13] As plants go, I do remember seeing hillsides that were full of trilliums and Virginia bluebells that aren’t there anymore, thanks to the deer.
Arrye Rosser [00:36:23] Where do you remember seeing those? I’m curious.
Steven Moss [00:36:27] Mostly in the areas south of Peninsula.
Arrye Rosser [00:36:33] Yeah. Describe them to me if you can. If you can kind of geographically describe where there used to be.
Steven Moss [00:36:43] Oh, boy.
Arrye Rosser [00:36:44] That’s okay if you don’t remember. I can remember. I’ve been here 25 years. I can remember the trillium more like down by the Everett Covered Bridge area, I think is my memory.
Steven Moss [00:36:57] Yeah, by Everett, Virginia bluebell.
Arrye Rosser [00:36:59] Down in that area.
Steven Moss [00:37:00] There’s some, like behind Szalay’s Farm still. Yeah, but yeah, the area, yeah, that’s south of Peninsula.
Arrye Rosser [00:37:09] Do you think of the Valley as having more trees now or is there- Is there more open fields?
Steven Moss [00:37:16] I think there’s more trees because, you know, over time, some of the houses were taken out and the land was allowed to succeed in its normal path. So a lot of areas that were fields or farmed have grown up and pretty soon those trees that are pole size are going to be mature size.
Arrye Rosser [00:37:38] Do you have any other. I was going to sort of double back a little bit to your probably early memories. Do you remember much about the railroad when you were little?
Steven Moss [00:37:50] I remember it going past my grandparents house and like my sister was saying we, you know we would put pennies or nickels on the tracks and to you know to have them squash them and. Yeah, just, just you know just a going past. Nothing. Nothing significant other than you know regular traffic.
Arrye Rosser [00:38:16] Yeah. Do you have any other stories that you wanted to.
Steven Moss [00:38:24] I can’t think of anything. You’ve pretty much covered everything pretty well.
Arrye Rosser [00:38:27] Well thank you very much for your time. It’s a pleasure to talk to you.
Steven Moss [00:38:31] Thank you very much.
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