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"Art of the Ancients" Exhibition at the Southern Ohio Museum
Upon entering the "Art of the Ancients" exhibition an etched glass panel orients visitors to the prehistory of the Adena and Hopewell peoples who built the mounds, rock cairns, parallel embankments,…
"Where Southern Hospitality Begins" by Carl Ackerman (5 September 1964).
In the early 1960s, City Manager Frank Gerlach and others championed a new slogan for the City of Portsmouth — “Where Southern Hospitality Begins.” In the summer of 1964, a welcome sign with the…
“Black Friday”: Enforcing Ohio’s “Black Laws” in Portsmouth, Ohio
On Friday, January 21st, 1831, the following notice appeared in the city’s paper: “The citizens of Portsmouth are adopting measures to free the town of its colored population. We saw a paper,…
“The Crossing”: Robert Dafford's Underground Railroad Mural in Portsmouth, Ohio
Hidden away in plain sight, like the operations of the Underground Railroad itself, one finds Robert Dafford's mural honoring the heroic men and women who fled their enslavement in the southern…
Abandoned Alexandria, Ohio
The confluence of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers has long been the site of human habitation, from the ancient Adena and Hopewell to the Shawnee and, lastly, to the Americans of today. The mouth of the…
B. Glockner on Market Street: The Hardware Store Origins of an Automobile Empire
The B. Glockner Building at 206 Market Street illustrates the contribution of German immigrants to the nineteenth century development of Portsmouth, Ohio. And the building's restoration -- following a…
Bear Lake & Horse Camp
Bear Lake is situated deep in the heart of Shawnee State Forest and only adds to the scenic beauty of what is now known as the Horse Camp. Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees from Camp Bear Creek…
Bessie Tomlin and the Ohio River Flood of 1937
When the Flood of 1937 hit Portsmouth, Bessie Tomlin, like others in the city's African-American neighborhood, first found safety on the second floor of the Booker T. Washington School. But soon she…
Booker T. Washington School on Eleventh Street: Public Education and Racial Segregation in Portsmouth, Ohio
Portsmouth City Schools opened their first segregated facility for African American students in 1859, marking the first time that black residents were able to receive a public education. The school…
Buckhorn Ridge & William Flagg
Hike or ride along historic Buckhorn Ridge Bridle Trail, which runs through the heart of the Shawnee Wilderness Area, dividing the waters of Upper and Lower Twin Creeks.
In the 1850s, William…
Buena Vista Freestone Company Store
Coming Soon!
The story of the Buena Vista Freestone Company and John M. Mueller, its sole proprietor.
Learn about Mueller's operation, which included quarries up nearby Vastine Hollow, a saw…
Burning of CCC Camp Adams: Segregation & Sabotage in Ohio's Shawnee State Forest
In June of 1936, Robert Fechner, the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps addressed a letter to two Ohio senators, Robert J. Bulkley and Vic Donahey, regarding complaints he had received from…
Capt. William McClain's Underground Steamboat: McClain v. Esham (1856) and the Escape of Joshua onboard the Steamer Bostona
A long-overlooked Kentucky lawsuit, known as McClain v. Esham, dating to 1856, provides important insight into the Ohio River operations of what might best be described as an Underground Steamboat. In…
CCC Cabin Museum and the Shawnee State Park Nature Center
The Shawnee State Park Nature Center, which is located just below the Turkey Creek Lake Dam, carries on the traditions of the original Roosevelt Game Preserve, from which the Park was first carved in…
CCC Camp Bear Creek
Camp Bear Creek was one of the seven Civilian Conservation Corps camps located in the Shawnee State Forest, beginning in 1933. The camp, with its barracks, officers quarters, and out buildings is now…
CCC Camp Scioto & McBride Lake
In the mid-1930s, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollees from nearby Camp Scioto built McBride Lake in the headwaters of Pond Run, a small tributary of the Ohio River.
One of six lakes…
CCC Co. 1520 & Camp Shawnee No. 2
CCC Camp Shawnee No. 2 was home to one of the four segregated, all black companies of Civilian Conservation Corps units, which helped to construct the infrastructure of the modern-day Shawnee State…
CCC Co. 1545 & Camp Roosevelt
On May 20th, 1935, T. J. McVey walked the grounds of CCC Camp Roosevelt on the banks of Turkey Creek in Ohio's Shawnee State Forest. McVey worked for the Inspections Division of the CCC and his "Camp…
Columbus & the Santa Maria Ship/Museum
Billed as "the world's most authentic, museum-quality representation of Christopher Columbus' flagship," the Santa Maria Ship/Museum has been anchored to the banks of the Scioto River in the heart of…
Concord Presbyterian Church & the Rev. James H. Dickey
Ross County's Concord Presbyterian Church was home to a number of influential abolitionist activists and conductors on the Underground Railroad. Concord's congregation has its roots in nearby South…
Copperhead Fire Tower
In 1924, after purchasing the first lands for the creation of the Shawnee State Forest, the Division of Forestry constructed three fire towers in the region to help protect the state's newly acquired…
Dr. Chaboudy and the Origins of the Portsmouth Flood Wall Murals
Visit the Scioto County Welcome Center and view Robert Dafford's large canvas portrait of Ava and Louis Chaboudy. Dr. Louis Chaboudy is remembered as "the person who originated the idea of having…
Dr. James F. Scott, the First Elected Black County Coroner in the United States
James Forrest Scott was born in Porter, Ohio located in Gallia County, on 29 July 1903. He graduated from Bidwell Porter High School in 1921. Despite being the only black member of his class, he was…
Eugene McKinley Memorial Pool: "A Place in the Sun for Everyone”
Portsmouth, Ohio’s only city-owned, public pool was built to memorialize the drowning death of fourteen-year-old resident Eugene McKinley, the son of George and Ruth McKinley, who lived at 1212-E…
Excavation and Destruction of the Waller-Heinisch Mound
Portsmouth High School (PHS) is built upon the location of what was first known as Waller Mound, and later became known as the Heinisch Mound, the earthen structure taking its name from the land's…
Fifteenth Amendment Ratification Celebration in Portsmouth, Ohio: Allen Chapel of the AME Church Hosts Integrated Celebration in 1870
The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 marked the culmination of a decades long struggle to end slavery and establish a new national republic that guaranteed equal rights to all its…
Floyd Chapman & the American Black Bear
Floyd Chapman was a Field Ecologist with the Ohio Division of Conservation and spent much of the later part of the 1930s researching his dissertation on the “Development and Utilization of Wildlife…
Fourteenth Street Community Center: "The Heart of the North End"
Today’s Fourteenth Street Community Center has its origins in a vibrant black civic movement of the 1920s during the Era of Jim Crow, when Portsmouth, Ohio, like much of the United States was…
General Jacob H. Smith & the Philippine War’s Samar Campaign: American Imperialism at the Washington Hotel
“A monster public reception followed by a complimentary banquet was last night tendered to Gen. Jacob H. Smith, by local Grand Army men and citizens. The reception was from 8 to 9 o’clock, held in the…
George Remus - 'King of the Bootleggers' - in the Boneyfiddle
In 1927, George Remus, known as the "King of the Bootleggers," spent the last month of his three-year prison term, in the newly built Scioto County Courthouse Jail, which at the time was located on…