Saturday, October 30, 2021

Little Beaver Creek Greenway Trail & Leetonia Beehive Coke Ovens Park

 We started in Washingtonville at the northern end of this 12.5 mile rail trail and walked/rolled south through the forest along a smooth, wide, paved trail. About a 1.3 miles in we came to another parking lot and a gravel trail with a “Coke Ovens” sign. No other information so of course we had to take the trail. Wow! It led to some cool ruins of 200 coke ovens that were built in the 1860s. At one time there were coal mines, blast furnaces, and a company town but everything closed down during the 1930s and now Leetonia is a quiet rural village.
The greenway is accessible. The gravel trail to the coke ovens is very rough due to large loose gravel. I do not recommend trying it. It’s possible to drive to the coke ovens and park in the lot on Cherry Drive Road. Some of the ovens are visible from the parking lot; others can be seen by taking a short paved path.
    
 
The Washingtonville trailhead lot is small. Large RVs should be parked in the Leetonia lot. The parking lot for the coke ovens is large enough for any RV. Trail  40.89869, -80.76375   Ovens  40.88531, -80.756

1 comment:

  1. So weird seeing stuff like this from over 150 years ago. All but swallowed up by vegetation. Nice you could find the ovens!

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