Blood & Biohazard Cleanup Near Silver Valley Munroe Falls, OH

Munroe Falls is a small city in east-central Summit County, Ohio, built along the Cuyahoga River and part of the Akron metropolitan area.

The first settlers — a group of about 40 people including Francis Kelsey and William Stow — arrived in 1809, and Kelsey built a sawmill on the south bank of the Cuyahoga River.

The settlement was first called Kelsey's Mills, then renamed Florence in 1817 when a wooden dam was built to power its mills.

Around 1836, brothers William and Edmund Munroe arrived from Boston, bought the two mills and about 250 acres, and laid out a new village named Munroe Falls, which was incorporated on October 26, 1838.

The Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal opened through Munroe Falls in 1840, with the first boats landing on August 6 of that year, turning the village into a shipping port.

Munroe Falls' City Hall is a recycled schoolhouse — the building was constructed in 1885 as the Munroe Falls Schoolhouse and served students until 1916.

The dam that created the city's namesake falls dated to 1903; after the Ohio EPA found oxygen levels in the Cuyahoga River too low, the dam was lowered beginning in 2005 and ultimately removed entirely in 2006, revealing a natural rock ledge beneath it.

Munroe Falls had 5,044 residents at the 2020 census, making it the smallest city in Summit County.

Munroe Falls is home to the headquarters of SGS Tool Company, described as the world's largest manufacturer of round solid carbide cutting tools.

Munroe Falls Metro Park grew out of a family swim park: the Renner family dug a small fishing lake in the 1930s and created the current 13-acre lake in 1937, and Summit Metro Parks bought the 222-acre property in 1978, adding 287 more acres in 2007.