Places Archives - The Ohio Project

What’s In A Name: A Highland County Double Feature: Samantha, Boston and Dallas

In today’s “What’s in a name?” we’ve got a special, Highland County double feature. We’re going to look at two towns: Samantha, Boston, and Dallas. You heard me. Two towns. Lemme explain. Samantha Usually, when a town is named after a particular person, it’s someone noteworthy. Many of our earlier settlers named the towns they […]

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Places, What's In A Name

What’s In A Name – Jelloway

Have you ever looked at a map and saw the name of something and thought to yourself, “Gee, they’ll name a town after just about anything, won’t they?” Well, if you look at a map of Ohio, about halfway between Columbus and Akron you just might find such a place: Jelloway. Did we really name

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Places, What's In A Name

What’s In A Name – Center of The World, Ohio

If you have ever wanted to know where The Center of the World is, I have some good news for you. It’s in Ohio … and it’s fairly easy to get to. Surprisingly, it’s large enough for both a Dollar General and a Gas Station, but not big enough for a McDonalds. Go figure. But,

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Places, What's In A Name

The Gist Settlement(s)

If you ever found yourself driving east on New Vienna Road from the town of New Vienna, you would soon come across a road named Gist Settlement Road. It doesn’t look like much – just another country road with a few houses off in the distance, but the unusual name of the road might catch

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Ghost Towns and Lost Places, History, Places

What’s In A Name – Cincinnati

There aren’t many places with the name “Cincinnati” so I have to ask, where did the name come from and what does it mean?

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Places, What's In A Name

What’s The Story With The Ghost Town Rogue’s Hollow

Rogue’s Hollow is, depending upon who you ask, one of the more haunted places in the state. There is no shortage of tales that include words like “murder” or “ghost” or “curse” or “moonshine” or, I kid you not, “headless horse” (not headless horseman, sorry Ichabod Crane fans). Even though the town no longer exists

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Ghost Towns and Lost Places, Myths and Legends, Places

The Ohio State reformatory

Let’s face a harsh reality – prison life is supposed to be tough. Trust me, if it were easy, then all the celebrities would be doing it, like Martha Stewart, Tim Allen, Mark Wahlburg, Felicity Huffman, Robert Downey Jr., Lori Loughlin, Wesley Snipes, Sean Penn, Christian Slater, that kid who played Crabbe in the Harry

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Ghost Towns and Lost Places, History, Myths and Legends, Places

Helltown, Ohio: An Ohio Ghost Town?

There is (or was) a place in Ohio that was so demonstratively evil that the locals stopped referring to it by its name, Boston Mills, and began calling it … “Hell Town” It was the site of a Native American massacre in the early days of the country and now filled with the lost souls

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Ghost Towns and Lost Places, Places

Fallsville, An Ohio Ghost Town

When it was first settled in the mid-1880s, many people had thought or hoped the village would soon prosper. And, for a short time, it did. The town’s first settlers, Simon and Elizabeth Clouser moved in and set up a mill, which was in demand at the time for there weren’t any other mills in

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Ghost Towns and Lost Places, Places

The Crosswick Monster

I know, I know … talking about Cryptids usually causes people to roll their eyes and start thinking about more pleasant topics, like the best ways to watch paint dry. We’ve all had to sit through one too many stories about someone seeing “Bigfoot” but by the time they grabbed their cellphone to take a

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History, Myths and Legends, Places