Welcome to Berea

Of course, our trip to Ohio has to include a visit to my old hometown of Berea, a suburb just to the southwest of Cleveland.

The city's emblem is a grindstone, a reminder of its history as an important center for the quarrying of sandstone.  In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Berea was the "Sandstone Capital of the World", and the stone quarried here was used not only to make grindstones, but as building material too.  Structures throughout the world, including the Canadian parliament building and supposedly a portion of the Kremlin in Moscow were built with Berea's high quality sandstone.

We parked the car, and took a short walk around one of Berea's most picturesque spots... Coe Lake Park.

This lake was the site of one of the city's several stone quarries.  This one was known as the "Big Quarry".  After the industry closed down in the 1930s due to the Great Depression and decreasing demand, the big hole just to the south of Berea's downtown, was filled in with water.  Since 2014 the area around the lake has been developed into a park that includes a  gazebo, an amphitheater, a nature trail, and a fountain in the middle of the lake.

My great-great grandfather immigrated from Switzerland to Berea in the late 1800s to work in the quarries.  It might have been here, at this lake, where he worked.

 The lake attracts waterfowl.  This pair of Canadian geese, and their three goslings were at the water's edge.