Botzum
and Star Mound

Riverview and Bath Road
Akron, Ohio

History

As the Ohio & Erie Canal cut through the valley, the town of Yellow Creek Basin was formed. A warehouse and store were built at the site by Nathaniel Hardy in 1826. The town flourished and changed its name to Niles, then Buckeye in 1866; it was renamed Botzum in 1893. It was a very rough place full of brawlers, horse thieves, and other criminals. The boom town became a ghost town in the early 1900s. Few remnants of the old houses and buildings are left in the woods surrounding the site.

Hauntings

The Valley Railway cut through a Native American burial mound not far from town. Two mounds can still be seen south of Bath Road. It is said that the spirits of the ancients who inhabited these hills centuries ago remain tied to the earth, protecting what was theirs. They make themselves known to the living in the form of voices, shadows, and distant drums.

Botzum was the scene of a brutal murder at the old hotel just west of the Cuyahoga River in 1882. The male victim may still linger around the site. He has been seen wandering the woods with a gruesome bloodied face.

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Photographs

Scene outside of Botzum's general store in 1875.

The railroad depot at Botzum in the late 1800s.

Documents