Pine Siskin

Before Metro Parks purchased 222 acres from the Renner family in 1978, John Renner owned and operated a swimming park here. In the 1930s, the family built a two-room summer cabin and dug a small fishing lake near the present park entrance. By 1935 they constructed a house and lived here year-round, and they soon realized their lake was popular with swimmers. To discourage visitors, they started charging 10 cents per visit, but this only attracted more people. To accommodate the new business, they created the current 13-acre lake in 1937 and named the place Renner Park.

John Renner, an engineer who built many homes in Akron’s Goodyear Heights area, also tried raising pigs on the southeast side of the lake. Price restrictions enacted during World War II made his farming venture unprofitable.

In 2007, Metro Parks acquired the adjacent 287-acre former County Home property, bringing this park to its current 509 acres. Today, the sandy, acidic soils of Munroe Falls Metro Park permit the growth of flora that is typically uncommon in Summit County. Blueberries, shiny club moss, ground pine, and a colony of Ohio hair cap moss flourish here. Trees include black gum, sassafras, and tulip. Beavers, frogs, turtles, salamanders, and crayfish are seen in both Beaver and Heron Ponds.

Munroe Falls Tallmadge Meadow Trail
The Meadow Trail in the Tallmadge Meadows section of Munroe Falls Metro Park is a 2-mile hike. From the parking lot of the Tallmadge Meadows Area, Meadow Trail passes by the County Home cemetery before traveling through woods, a shrub thicket, wetland woods, and its namesake meadow. Signs of coyotes can often be seen while hiking through the meadow.

There is also a short Meadow Loop, a flat, easy trail in the Tallmadge Meadows Area that can be enjoyed by users with wheelchairs, walkers, canes, and strollers.