Chillicothe
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Hopewell Culture National Historic Park
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Cincinnati
Cincinnati Observatory
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John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge
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William Howard Taft National Historic Site
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Columbus
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North High Brewery
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Ohio Statehouse
Chillicothe was Ohio's first state capital, from 1803. Due to political fighting among state leaders, the Ohio General Assembly temporarily moved the capital to Zanesville in 1810. In 1812, the General Assembly restored Chilicothe as the temporary state capital until the new capitol could be built. State leaders faced ongoing pressure to make the capital city more accessible by moving it closer to the center of the state. On February 14, 1812, the General Assembly created a new capital city on the "High Banks opposite Franklinton at the Forks of the Scioto most known as Wolf's Ridge". Approximately a week later, the legislature selected Columbus as the name of the new town. The layout set aside two 10-acre parcels of land, one for a statehouse, at the location of the present day Statehouse, and the other parcel would become the site of the Ohio Penitentiary. Public sale of town lots for the new city began in June 1812. In 1816, the General Assembly met in Columbus for the first time in a brick building on the corner of High and State Streets. Construction of Capitol Square, including its buildings, grounds, and landscaping, was finally completed in 1861. |
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Dayton
Dayton was founded on April 1, 1796, by 12 settlers known as the Thompson Party. They traveled in March from Cincinnati up the Great Miami River by pirogue and landed at what is now St. Clair Street, where they found two small camps of Native Americans. In 1797, Daniel C. Cooper laid out Mad River Road, the first overland connection between Cincinnati and Dayton, opening the "Mad River Country" to settlement. Ohio was admitted into the Union in 1803, and the village of Dayton was incorporated in 1805 and chartered as a city in 1841. The city was named after Jonathan Dayton, a captain in the American Revolutionary War who signed the U.S. Constitution and owned a significant amount of land in the area. In 1827, construction on the Dayton–Cincinnati canal began, which would provide a better way to transport goods from Dayton to Cincinnati and contribute significantly to Dayton's economic growth during the 1800s. Innovation led to business growth in the region. In 1884, John Henry Patterson acquired James Ritty's National Manufacturing Company along with his cash register patents and formed the National Cash Register Company (NCR). The company manufactured the first mechanical cash registers and played a crucial role in the shaping of Dayton's reputation as an epicenter for manufacturing in the early 1900s. In 1906, Charles F. Kettering, a leading engineer at the company, helped develop the first electric cash register, which propelled NCR into the national spotlight. Dayton has been the home for many patents and inventions since the 1870s. According to the National Park Service, Dayton had granted more patents per capita than any other U.S. city in 1890 and ranked fifth in the nation as early as 1870. The Wright brothers, inventors of the airplane, and Charles F. Kettering, world-renowned for his numerous inventions, hailed from Dayton. The city was also home to James Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier, the first mechanical cash register, and Arthur E. Morgan's hydraulic jump, a flood prevention mechanism that helped pioneer hydraulic engineering. Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African-American poet and novelist, penned his most famous works in the late 19th century and became an integral part of the city's history.
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Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park
The idea for the present-day Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park was first conceived by Jerry Sharkey. Much of the Dayton neighborhood where Orville and Wilbur Wright had lived and worked had already been destroyed by the 1970s. Sharkey's quest to preserve the Wright brothers' legacy began when he purchased their last surviving bicycle shop in Dayton for just $10,000, which saved the building from demolition. He also founded the Aviation Trail Inc., a nonprofit group dedicated to the creation of a potential national park or historic district encompassing the Wright brothers' buildings. Sharkey enlisted the help of local political and media figures to lobby for the creation of the park. The U.S. Congress passed legislation to establish the new park. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush signed the bill which created the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park into law. In addition to the Wright brothers' sites, the new park also preserved the home of Paul Laurence Dunbar, an acclaimed African-American poet and friend of the Wright brothers. Jerry Sharkey donated the Wright brothers' bicycle shop, which he had saved from demolition, to the National Park Service as part of the agreement to create the park. |
Huffman Prairie Flying Field
The Wrights began using Huffman Prairie in 1904 with the permission of the field's owner, Dayton banker Torrence Huffman. In April, they started testing their Wright Flyer II. The Wrights made about 150 flights at the field in 1904–1905, leading to development of the 1905 Wright Flyer III, which they considered to be the first practical airplane. In 1910, the Wright Company placed its testing operations at Huffman Prairie Flying Field; the Wright Company also operated its Wright Flying School on the site. Through the Flying School, the Wright Company trained more than a hundred pilots, including the aviators for the Wright Exhibition Team and early military aviators, including Henry H. "Hap" Arnold and Thomas DeWitt Milling. The United States Army Signal Corps purchased the field in 1917 and renamed it, along with 2,000 adjacent acres (8 km2), Wilbur Wright Field. In 1948 the area was merged with nearby Patterson Field to become Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. |
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National Museum of the US Air Force
The museum dates to 1923, when the Engineering Division at Dayton's McCook Field first collected technical artifacts for preservation. In 1927, it moved to then-Wright Field in a laboratory building. In 1932, the collection was named the Army Aeronautical Museum and placed in a WPA building from 1935 until World War II. In 1948, the collection remained private as the Air Force Technical Museum. In 1954, the Air Force Museum became public. Many of its aircraft were parked outside and exposed to the weather. Through the 1960s, Eugene Kettering, son of Charles F. Kettering, led the project to build a permanent structure to house the collections and became the first chairman of the board of the Air Force Museum Foundation. When he died in 1969, his widow Virginia took over the project. Her "determination, logic and meticulous attention" kept it on track, and the current facility opened in 1971. Not including its annex on Wright Field proper, the museum has more than tripled in square footage since 1971, with the addition of a second hangar in 1988, a third in 2003, and a fourth in 2016. |
SunWatch Indian Village
Amateurs had found some prehistoric materials at the site in the 1960s. Professional excavation began in 1971 as a salvage operation when the city planned a sewage treatment plant. With the discovery of significant artifacts and the remains of a stockaded village, the city changed its plans to preserve the site. Excavations continued through 1988 and are generally completed, although additional small studies have been done. The studies have revealed much about the original people's dwellings, social organization, diets, burial practices and other aspects of their lives at the site. The circular village, surrounded by defensive palisades, was occupied for about 20 years, with a total population of about 250. They depended on farming and hunting. Scholars have named it Sun Watch because, since studies of the 1980s, they believe that a complex of posts in the plaza is related to astronomical measurements. The Fort Ancient culture people, whose society was based on agriculture, would have planned rituals around a solar calendar. With reconstructed dwellings, a plaza and gardens, and an interpretive center, the village was opened in 1988 to the public as an open-air museum. |
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Oregonia
Oregonia is an unincorporated community in northwestern Washington Township, Warren County, Ohio, United States, on the east shore of the Little Miami River about five miles northeast of Lebanon and six miles south of Waynesville. The first settlement there was around 1802, where there was a mill operated at various times by Nebo Gaunt, Ignatius Brown, and David Brown. Around 1820, it was known as Freeport. The Little Miami Railroad reached the village c. 1845. A post office called Oregon was established in 1846, and the name was changed to Oregonia in 1882. The post office has since been consolidated with the Lebanon post office.
Today, Oregonia is a stop on the Little Miami Bike Trail which follows the former train route along the Little Miami River. Bikers, hikers, and canoers often stop at the market or a restaurant along the trail which follows the river on the former train route. In October of each year, the "Devils Staircase" motorcycle hill climb is held on a hill just south of the main settlement.
Today, Oregonia is a stop on the Little Miami Bike Trail which follows the former train route along the Little Miami River. Bikers, hikers, and canoers often stop at the market or a restaurant along the trail which follows the river on the former train route. In October of each year, the "Devils Staircase" motorcycle hill climb is held on a hill just south of the main settlement.
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Fort Ancient
Fort Ancient is a name for a Native American culture that flourished from Ca. 1000-1750 CE and predominantly inhabited land near the Ohio River valley in the areas of modern-day southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, southeastern Indiana and western West Virginia. Although a contemporary of the Mississippian culture, they are often considered a "sister culture" and distinguished from the Mississippian culture. Although far from agreed upon, there is evidence to suggest that the Fort Ancient Culture were not the direct descendants of the Hopewellian Culture. It is suspected that the Fort Ancient Culture introduced maize agriculture to Ohio. The Fort Ancient Culture were most likely the builders of the Great Serpent Mound. |
Peebles
Peebles was founded in 1881 with the building of the railroad through that territory. It was named for John G. Peebles, who was instrumental in bringing the railroad to the settlement. That railroad was the Cincinnati & Eastern Railroad, today the Cincinnati Eastern Railroad (CCET).
Serpent Mound Historic Site
Serpent Mound is an effigy mound (a mound in the shape of an animal) representing a snake with a curled tail. Nearby are three burial mounds—two created by the Adena culture (800 B.C.–A.D. 100), and one by the Fort Ancient culture (A.D. 1000–1650). Thousands of years ago, Native Ohioans populated the landscape with mounds and massive earthworks. In the late 19th century, archaeologist Frederic Ward Putnam excavated Serpent Mound, but he found no artifacts in the Serpent that might allow archaeologists to assign it to a particular culture. Based largely on the nearby presence of Adena burial mounds, later archaeologists attributed the effigy to the Adena culture that flourished from 800 B.C. to A.D. 100. This theory on the site’s origin was accepted until a 1991 site excavation used radiocarbon dating to determine that the mound was approximately 900 years old. This would suggest that the builders of the Serpent belonged to the Fort Ancient culture (A.D. 1000–1500). In 2014, another team of archaeologists presented new radiocarbon dates for the Serpent suggesting that it was built by the Adena culture at around 300 B.C. More work is needed to clarify the age of Serpent Mound. |
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Wilberforce
After Wilberforce College was established in 1856, the community was also named for the English statesman William Wilberforce, who worked for the abolition of slavery and achieved the end of the slave trade in the United Kingdom and its empire. The small community served as an important stop for refugee slaves on the Underground Railroad before the American Civil War, as it had seven stations.
Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument
Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Wilberforce, Ohio, honors the accomplishments of Colonel Charles Young (1864-1922) and the illustrious service of the “Buffalo Soldiers.” The large two story brick house was built in 1856, and once served as a stop on the Underground Railroad to help runaway slaves escape to freedom. In 1899, Colonel Charles Young bought the home and named it “Youngsholm.” Here, Young lived with his wife, Ada, and raised a family. Born to enslaved parents, and faced with the obstacles of overt racism and stifling inequality, Colonel Charles Young became the highest ranking African American officer serving in the regular Army of his time. Charles was accepted to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1884. Young was the ninth African American accepted into the prestigious military institute, and the third to graduate. Young was only permitted to lead African American regiments, nicknamed “Buffalo Soldiers.” American Plains Indians who fought against these soldiers, specifically the 10th Cavalry, referred to the black cavalry troops as "buffalo soldiers" because of their dark, curly hair, which resembled a buffalo's coat, and because of their fierce nature of fighting. Soon after, the nickname became synonymous with all African American regiments. As the leader of some of these men, Young was the first African American superintendent of a national park when his troops were tasked to manage and maintain Sequoia National Park in northern California. The Buffalo Soldier regiments went on to serve the U.S. Army with distinction and honor for nearly the next five decades. Before his death, Young had risen to the rank of Colonel, making him the highest ranking African American officer at the time. |