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Logan's Elm & Commemorating Dunmore's War
At the Logan Elm State Memorial, near Circleville, in Pickaway County, Ohio, visitors can read the frontier history of the Scioto Valley written in bronze and stone. First conceived in the fall of…
Nathaniel Massie and Indentured Servitude at Buckeye Station, Adams County, Ohio
Buckeye Station, the one-time home of Nathaniel Massie and his brother-in-law, Charles Willing Byrd, lays in ruins, marked now by a cell phone tower on what was once known as Hurricane Hill. An…
Roosevelt Game Preserve Headquarters and "the Zoo": Ohio's First Nature Center in Hobey Hollow
The headquarters for Roosevelt Game Preserve and "Zoo," established in 1922, ought to be considered Ohio's first state-operated "nature center" in what is now Shawnee State Forest.
Located up…
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…
Rev. William Williamson & Abolitionism at "the Beeches"
While the Underground Railroad in Ohio is often associated with members of the Quaker faith, in Adams County, the Presbyterians stood at the forefront. Among the earliest and most influential of…
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…
Gharky & Waller at Carey's Run Cemetery
The lives of David Gharky and Dr. Thomas Waller are forever intertwined. These two pioneer settlers first made their home at Alexandria, on the West Side of the Scioto's Old Mouth, but when that…
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…
Rev. James Gilliland & Red Oak Presbyterian Church
Coming soon! The story of Red Oak Presbyterian Church and the Rev. James Gilliland, who helped establish the Underground Railroad in southern Ohio. Gilliland moved to southern Ohio when church…
The Greenup Slave Revolt and David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the United States of America: Resisting the Slave Trade near the Banks of the Ohio River
On a Friday afternoon, November 20th, 1829, with the Ohio River and the hills of the northern shore as backdrop, four rebel slaves were executed at the mouth of Little Sandy, just outside the town…
Harry Wagner & the Origins of Boy Scout Camp Oyo
"HOW!" rang the greeting.
"It is indeed a pleasure for me, as a representative of the people who once inhabited this very spot, to come before you, our White Brothers, who are now sitting about our…
Rev. Samuel Crothers & the Abolition Society of Paint Valley
Coming soon! Learn about the founding of the Abolition Society of Paint Valley, one of Ohio's and the nations earliest abolition societies. In 1833, Rev. Samuel Crothers and the Greenfield…
Harry Knighton Trail & the Shawnee Nature Club
Coming soon! The story of the Shawnee Nature Club and the Harry Knighton Trail in the Shawnee State Park.
Harry Knighton, internationally known for his study of fungi, helped found the North…
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…
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…
Southern Ohio Museum & Cultural Center
“The Kricker family’s long-term faith in the economic strength of Scioto County is a matter of historical record,” noted the Portsmouth Daily Times in May of 1978. Edmund J. Kricker, the seventy-nine…
"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…
James M. Ashley and the Thirteenth Amendment: Author of Thirteenth Amendment Abolishing Slavery Edited Newspaper on Portsmouth's Market Street
Before there was the Washington Hotel at Second and Market Streets, the residents of Portsmouth knew this as Micklethwaite Corner. It was on this block that James Ashley, the author of the Thirteenth…
Tracy Shoe Company Building
Built in 1891 for the Tracy Shoe Company, this structure has recently been restored and repurposed by the YEI Corporation, a locally owned firm specializing in software solutions and other digital…
Grand Opera House at Fourth & Chillicothe Streets (c. 1910)
In 1895, Lodge No. 154 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks laid the cornerstone of Portsmouth’s Grand Opera House in the name of “Charity, Justice, and Brotherly Love.” Before the rise of…
Selby Shoes & WPAY on Gallia Street (circa 1952)
WPAY pioneered Portsmouth radio, beginning its broadcasts on April 15th, 1933. By the early 1950s the station’s offices and studios were to be found on the north side of Gallia Street, next door to…
Masonic Temple at Sixth & Chillicothe Streets
Taken from atop the Martings Building on Chillicothe Street, this photo captures the majesty of the Masonic Temple, which is offset by the plain red brick facade of the then new Montgomery Ward…
Glick’s Furniture and the Damarin Block (c. 1965)
“Buy your furniture at Glick’s on Second Street,” so sang Zeke Mullins on WPAY. Glick’s Furniture opened its doors in 1936 and closed in 1976, having made the Damarin Block at Court and Second…
The White Front Restaurant on Chillicothe Street (c. 1965)
In 1936, Nicholas Sainopulos purchased the “White Lunch Car,” a diner that was housed in an old Portsmouth street car. Sainopulos “walled in the structure" and rechristened it the “White Front…
Portsmouth's First Presbyterian Church and the Antislavery Movement in Southern Ohio
In the decades leading up to the Civil War, the congregation now known as First Presbyterian of Portsmouth, Ohio, was a nexus of the antislavery movement in southern Ohio and it’s members, elders, and…
Ohio Stove Company Workers (30 January 1942)
The foundry workers pictured here in January of 1942 worked for the Ohio Stove Company, which was first organized in 1872. Perhaps the oldest manufacturer still operating in Portsmouth, they…
Nurses at Portsmouth General Hospital (December 1937)
Portsmouth has long been a center for medical care, beginning with the city’s first professionally trained physician, Dr. Thomas Waller, who also served as President of the first City Council in 1815.…
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…
Horsehead Bottom & the Origins of Dunmore's War: Major Frontier War Triggered by Looting of “Thirty Horse Loads of Skins" and Killing of Shawnee Indians
Explore the obscure and forgotten origins of Dunmore's War of 1774, which began with an attack on a long-forgotten Shawnee Indian Village known as Horsehead Bottom, located just north of modern-day…
How Pee Pee Creek Got Its Name: Peter Patrick, Squatter Rights, & the First Attempted American Settlement in the Scioto Valley
Modern-day Lake White is located near the old confluence of Pee Pee Creek and the Scioto River. In the 1930s when the waters of Pee Pee were dammed by the state of Ohio and the WPA, its flow was…