Since the 1800s, the Cuyahoga Valley has drawn people from nearby cities to relax in nature, and local efforts to preserve that tradition led to the creation of Cuyahoga Valley National Park in 1974. The park protects open countryside, a canal that helped build the nation, and the river that sparked the Clean Water Act. Boston was once a busy canal town with a lumberyard, brickyard, boatyards, and mills, and later became a company town for a paper bag factory. Today Boston is the heart of Cuyahoga Valley National Park.