Tucked into the heart of the Cuyahoga Valley, near the only remaining covered bridge in Summit County, is Everett Field. At first glance, the 32-acre swath of land looks like any other field. Right now, green shoots of oats and radish cover the land. They serve as cover crops until it’s time to plant sweet corn next year.
But underneath the soil is a different story. The area is one of the largest sites in Summit County related to the Hopewell culture, if not the largest, said Megan Shaeffer, Summit Metro Parks supervisor of cultural resources
“This one is very special,” Shaeffer said of the site. “This one has a lot of intact features in it. There’s a lot to learn from this area.”
Everett Field is part of the Everett Knoll Complex. The prehistoric site spans more than 67 acres in the Cuyahoga Valley. It includes land owned by Summit Metro Parks, Cuyahoga Valley National Park and private property owners. The complex dates to the Middle Woodland Period, about 100 B.C. to 450 A.D., Shaeffer said. But the area was occupied long before and after that period.
“There are artifacts which date to the Early Archaic Period (which begins around 8,000 B.C.) up through the Late Woodland Period (which ends around 1350 A.D.),” Shaeffer said in a follow-up email. “Indigenous communities came to this place for thousands of years, for many generations. During that Middle Woodland Period it reached a point of cultural and ceremonial significance.”
Summit Metro Parks, Szalay’s negotiating new lease terms
From 2021 through 2025, Summit Metro Parks archaeologists and University of Akron students excavated sections of Everett Field. They found intact and partial artifacts including arrowheads, beads and pottery. The most significant discoveries were two earth ovens.
“We started to see [the ovens], to actually see that dark earth and the stones from them coming up, less than a foot into that plow zone, that top layer of soil,” Shaeffer said.
We can’t be sure what the earth ovens looked like, Shaeffer said. One possibility is a large hole, 6 to 8 feet in diameter, dug in the ground that was then filled with wood and rocks that were heated to cook food.
Finding the intact earth ovens was a surprise, because the field has been farmed for decades. Beginning in the 1930s, Summit Metro Parks leased Everett Field to area farms. For much of its history, the Szalay family has farmed the field for corn production. Szalay’s Farm & Market is a Northeast Ohio staple known far and wide for its sweet corn.
Now, Summit Metro Parks and the Szalays are in the middle of negotiations over the future use of Everett Field. Earlier this month, Summit Metro Parks finalized a new lease proposal for the Szalays. Because of the historical and archaeological significance of Everett Field, Summit Metro Parks proposed conserving 12 acres of Everett Field for use by the park system. The Szalays would still be able to farm the remaining 22.5 acres.
Everett Field site of prehistoric burial mound
According to an Akron Beacon Journal article, Everett Field is the largest property that the Szalays farm and the only one on higher ground. The new lease would take effect at the end of the 2027 growing season in the fall. Lindsay Smith, Summit Metro Parks’ chief of marketing and communications, said there is no deadline that the Szalays must respond by.
“This was something that the Szalays and their attorney were very keen to discuss early. We have been discussing [it] with them over the past two years,” Smith said. “We gave them what we felt was a great compromise, and now we have time until the end of the lease.”
As of publication, the Szalay family has yet to respond to Summit Metro Parks’ proposal. When Signal Akron visited Szalay’s Farm & Market on Tuesday, John Szalay Jr. said they are no longer commenting on the situation to the media.
The Szalays farm several fields throughout the Cuyahoga Valley. A social media post from Summit Metro Parks said the family farms 141 acres in the valley. The 12 acres the park system wants to set aside represent about 8 percent of the total area that the Szalays farm.
The historical significance of the Everett Knoll Complex is not a recent discovery. Residents in the village of Everett discovered artifacts in the late 1800s while building a school on the knoll, Shaeffer said.
The knoll, a mound of earth, “was a natural feature that had a burial chamber built on it, and then that was covered over with earth,” Shaeffer said.
In the 1970s, an archeologist from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History identified artifacts and ancestral remains within the knoll and surrounding field. Today, trees and grass cover the knoll. It was not part of Summit Metro Parks’ excavations, nor is it part of the area that the Szalays farm.
In 1977, the Everett Knoll Complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Summit Metro Parks, tribal nations collaborating on return of artifacts
Summit Metro Parks is working with representatives from tribal nations to return the artifacts the park system found to the tribal nations.
“There’s a lot of potential here, and we’ve just scratched the surface,” said Heather Miller. She is a member of the Wyandotte Nation and a coordinator for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
“Wyandotte Nation is just one of multiple tribes that would have considered this area their homeland,” she continued. “This was shared territory, and we are related to several different nations that would also call this area home. They also have a voice in what is going to happen to the artifacts and to the ancestors who’ve been found.”
The repatriation process can take anywhere from months to years, Miller said. More research on Everett Field and discussions with tribal partners will need to happen before a decision regarding the artifacts and ancestral remains can be made. Once the tribal nations come to an agreement, they will designate a “lead tribe.”
“Transfer of control, transfer of possession, all then goes to that tribe,” Miller said. “From there, once transfer of possession and transfer of control has happened, they get the ultimate say in how the ancestors and those artifacts are cared for at that point.”
Much more to learn about Everett Field
Any future excavations of Everett Field would be done in conjunction with tribal nations, Shaeffer said. Based on the geophysical work that was done in the area by Summit Metro Parks, she said there could potentially be as many as 11 earth ovens.
There is still much to learn about the area and how it was used by Indigenous people.
“If you think about the location, we’re right off of a waterway that would have connected to a lot of different village sites and a lot of different locations that we would have been using and other people would have been traveling to,” Miller said.
There are no federally recognized tribes in Ohio due to the forced removal of Native Americans in the 19th century. But more than 45 federally recognized tribes have ancestral ties to the state dating back thousands of years. The Wyandotte (also spelled Wyandot) were the last tribe to leave Ohio in July of 1843.
“We have this major connection here, but because we were a removed tribe, people also then have removed us from their brain,” Miller said. “We are living people. We’re very much in tune with where we come from and how we’re connected to this place.”
The opportunity to learn more about her ancestors and to educate the public about this part of Ohio’s history excites Miller.
“Getting folks to know that we’ve never left, that we didn’t disappear, that we’re still very interested in making sure that these places are protected, studied in the right way, talked about in the right way, is equally of importance to us as it is to the parks, to the national parks, to local community members, to everybody,” Miller said. “We see the value in all of this, and we want to be a partner to share those stories and to help provide a much broader understanding of these places.”
