As Cleveland emerged as a major manufacturing center, the river became heavily affected by industrial pollution, so much so that it caught fire at least 14 times.

[10][11] Since then, the river has been extensively cleaned up through the efforts of Cleveland's city government and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA).

A close match in the Seneca language is Gayó'ha'geh, meaning "on your chin"; the river's crooked form does vaguely resemble an animal's jawbone.

On July 22, 1796, Moses Cleaveland, a surveyor charged with exploring the Connecticut Western Reserve, arrived at the mouth of the Cuyahoga and subsequently located a settlement there, which became the city of Cleveland.

The entire Cuyahoga River Valley and last west of it actually belonged to a presumably Algonquian people never encountered by whites which we call the Whittlesey culture.

The Ottawa, who lived clear at the western end of Lake Erie and who, themselves, had formed out of a similar circumstance to the Wyandot- captured Anishinaabeg stationed in the vicinity of what is now Detroit by the Iroquois- were apparently allowed to establish communities in the area, given the tribe's distance from it, with one noted in what is now Conneaut and several others noted along the Cuyahoga.

But, it is historically established that not all the villages along the Cuyahoga at this time were Ottawa, with a Seneca community noted around Streetsboro under a chief named Big John and possibly some Wyandots nearby.

While there is a chance some may have gone to southern Ohio and joined Tecumseh's brother's pan-Indian cult at his Prophetstown compound, as the New Madrid Earthquake of 1811 was interpreted as a sign in his favor by many tribes across the eastern US, it appears the last of them in 1813 were leaving to migrate west, into the Great Black Swamp region- the last of Ohio's guaranteed Indian Territory- to live amongst the bulk of the Ottawa and Wyandot who were settled there.

[26] Things began to change in the late 1960s, when new mayor Carl Stokes and his utilities director rallied voters to approve a $100 million bond to rehabilitate Cleveland's rivers.

[27] The 1969 fire caused approximately $50,000 in damage, mostly to an adjacent railroad bridge,[25] but despite Mayor Stokes' efforts, very little attention was initially given to the incident, and it was not considered a major news story in the Cleveland media.

[25] However, the incident did soon garner the attention of Time magazine, which used a dramatic photo of the even larger 1952 blaze[27] in an article on the pollution of America's waterways.

[25]) The article launched Time's new "Environment" section, and gained wide readership not only on its own merit, but because the same issue featured coverage of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landing on the Moon the previous week in the Apollo 11 mission, and had Senator Ted Kennedy on the cover for a story on the Chappaquiddick incident in which Kennedy's automobile passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, had drowned.

Mayor Stokes gave Congressional testimony on his and other major big cities' struggles with polluting industries to restore the environmental health of their communities.

[27] As a result, large point sources of pollution on the Cuyahoga have received significant attention from the OEPA in subsequent decades.

[29] The Attorney General of the United States, John N. Mitchell, gave a Press Conference December 18, 1970 referencing new pollution control litigation, with particular reference to work with the new Environmental Protection Agency, and announcing the filing of a lawsuit that morning against the Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation for discharging substantial quantities of cyanide into the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland.

For this reason, the Environmental Protection Agency classified portions of the Cuyahoga River watershed as one of 43 Great Lakes Areas of Concern.

Recreation water quality standards (using bacteria as indicators) are generally met during dry weather conditions, but are often exceeded during significant rains due to nonpoint sources and combined sewer overflows.

Originally, the Cuyahoga river met Lake Erie approximately 4,000 feet (1.2 km) west of its current mouth, forming a shallow marsh.

Additionally, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers periodically dredges the navigation channel of the otherwise shallow river to a depth of 27 feet (8.2 m), along the river's lower 5 miles (8.0 km), from its mouth up to the Mittal Steel Cleveland Works steel mills, to accommodate Great Lakes freighter traffic which serves the bulk (asphalt, gravel, petroleum, salt, steel, and other) industries located along the lower Cuyahoga River banks in Cleveland's Flats district.

As a result of speculative land development, buildings have been erected on many flat areas that are only a few feet above normal river levels.

[45][46] The FirstEnergy Dam was built by the Northern Ohio Traction and Light Co. in 1912 to serve the dual functions of generating hydropower for its local streetcar system and providing cooling-water storage for a coal-burning power plant; however, the hydropower operation was discontinued in 1958, and the coal-burning plant was decommissioned in 1991.

[53] This brought about a mile of the river back to its natural state, removed 35 feet (11 m) of structures, and exposed an equivalent quantity of whitewater for recreation.

[54] Two other dams, in Kent and in Munroe Falls, though smaller, have had an even greater impact on water quality due to the lower gradient in their respective reaches.