How did Yellow Creek get its name? It’s a little muddy | Mark J. Price

“I’m afraid to ask: How did Yellow Creek get its name?”

I wasn’t expecting an answer when I posed that silly question in a recent column. The fifth grader in me pictured an Ohio pioneer heeding the call of nature.

Fortunately, Jeff Knopp took me seriously.

“The obvious answer to the above question is it got its name from the yellow color of sediment that erodes from its banks as it drops 400 feet in elevation from its headwaters to its outfall into the Cuyahoga River,” Knopp replied.

As evidence, the Akron landscape architect called my attention to a 2021 Beacon Journal photograph that clearly shows yellowish mud as the stream flows beneath a bridge on Yellow Creek Road in Bath.

However, there’s another theory that Knopp finds much more interesting. In an 1881 history of Summit County, William Henry Perrin claims that the local waterway was named as a memorial to a massacre that occurred at another Yellow Creek in April 1774.

Virginia settlers killed a group of Mingo Indians, including several relatives of Chief Logan, near a creek about 4 miles south of present-day East Liverpool on the Ohio River.

In a blog on the Library of Congress website, curator Julie Miller explains: “In the spring of 1774 approximately eight people from the Native American village of Yellow Creek were murdered by white settlers, an event known to historians as the Yellow Creek Massacre. Among the group was the sister and other family members of the Mingo leader Soyechtowa, or Tocaniadorogon, who had taken the name James Logan. Logan belonged to a Haudenosaunee people, then known as the Mingo (a term no longer in use), who had moved from New York to the Ohio River valley.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote an account of the massacre in his 1784 book “Notes on the State of Virginia.”

In his history of Summit County, Perrin notes that Mingo Indians moved to our region after the massacre, and Logan “undoubtedly visited the Mingo village in Bath.” While acknowledging that there was no way to verify the claim, Perrin cites “numerous evidences to indicate its truth” and concludes “it seems highly probable that the stream received its name as stated.”

Or as Knopp summed it up, that’s a much better story than “the creek looks like yellow mud.”

A mystery noise in Ellet

Not another one.

We still haven’t solved the mystery of the strange noise that was heard around 2 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 21.

Residents of Green, New Franklin, Springfield Township and Jackson Township described it as a “whooshing” or a “rumbling,” and said it lasted a couple of hours.

Officials from Akron-Canton Airport, Dominion East Ohio and Enbridge said the sound didn’t originate from any of their facilities.

Our article prompted an Akron woman to write about a different noise that she’s heard intermittently for decades.

“OK, for over 40 years now, I and anyone living in Ellet or near the airport on Triplett Boulevard, has heard this loud noise, like a huge jet taking off!” Jennifer Starnes wrote. “I know private, smaller jets use that airport, but it can’t be them making the noise! Is it coming from Goodyear? Like some of their facilities on Archwood?”

We contacted Julianne Roberts, director of global external communications for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

“I’ve asked around among our airships team, and we don’t believe any such noise would be originating from our facility,” she replied. “They suggested checking with the Fulton airport to see if they may know of the source?”

So we contacted Tony Plucinski, airport manager for Summit Airport Services. He thinks he knows the cause.

“I am sure that what they are hearing are the sounds of larger jet aircraft arriving or departing,” Plucinski noted in an email message.

“Most people are unaware of the amount of large corporate traffic that uses our airport. That, coupled with the unique geography, the runway basically sits at the bottom of a ‘bowl,’ would lead some to believe that they are hearing something other than aircraft landing or taking off.”

A horse is a horse

Here’s another unusual question.

“What happened to the two giant horse statues in front of the former Chinese restaurant building on Route 8 and Highland Drive in Northfield?” Beacon Journal reader Bob Daily asked. “The restaurant was torn down and replaced by a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.”

He’s referring to the former Long-Yun Mongolian BBQ Buffet & Grill, later the Pacific Buffet, at 307 E. Highland Road in Macedonia.

Two granite horses, weighing 3,000 pounds apiece, flanked the entrance.

Before serving Chinese food, the distinctive, round building had served as the home of Ray Kearns’ Restaurant, The Mark, The Golden Ox, Arizona Steakhouse, The Garden in The Dome and Country Heart Restaurant.

The 1959 building was demolished in 2017 to make way for KFC.

To answer your question, Bob: The horses didn’t move too far away.

Property owner Cedarwood Development of Akron donated the statues to Macedonia, which gave them to Nordonia Hills City School District. The gift, valued at $50,000, seemed appropriate since Nordonia High School’s team name is the Knights.

Relocated about 1,000 feet to the northeast, the granite horses now greet fans at the gates of Boliantz Stadium.

Go Knights.

Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com

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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: How did Yellow Creek get its name? It’s a little muddy | Mark J. Price