Deep Lock Quarry

Deep Lock Quarry is a wooded historic park just south of Peninsula, with a moderate Quarry Trail through a Berea sandstone quarry and a connection to Lock 28 and the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath. Come for the woods and the industrial remains together: discarded millstones, building foundations, and quarry walls. The unpaved Quarry Trail is 1.4 miles and has sharp drop-offs. The quarry bowl itself is compact; the trail is the bigger payoff.

Lock 28 is the deepest of the canal's 40 locks between Akron and Cleveland. Its stone chamber gives you a close look at how the canal stepped boats through changes in elevation. The wayside exhibit sits along the Towpath. From beside the lock, frame the stone walls and gate in one view; that shows the shape of the chamber better than a close-up of one wall.

Berea sandstone from this area supplied blocks for canal locks and other buildings. Once the canal opened, stone traveled by boat toward Akron and Cleveland; quarry products eventually reached markets as far away as Japan, Germany, and Russia. The site was part of a much larger building economy than the quiet woods suggest.

Ferdinand Schumacher used local sandstone to make millstones for removing the hulls from oats at his Akron cereal works, the business that later became Quaker Oats. The discarded circular stones along the trail make that connection easy to picture: this rock was cut for practical work, not just walls and foundations.

The park preserves remnants of three Berea sandstone quarries, including the State Quarry wall. Commercial quarrying ended in 1918, but the Civilian Conservation Corps took some of the last stone in the 1930s for local park projects. The Akron park district began acquiring the land in 1931, and the quarry remains were part of the park system by 1937.

Water seeps through the porous sandstone and feeds a shallow swamp on the quarry floor. The park is known for its Ohio buckeyes and is recognized as an Important Bird Area for nesting migratory birds, including hybrid warblers. Frogs, turtles, and salamanders also live in the old canal bed; treat them as a possibility, not a guaranteed sighting.