1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (69 page)

Trails wind all over the place, and the arboretum offers guided hikes through Stebbins Gulch and Little Mountain, two unique natural sites on the arboretum grounds designated as National Natural History Landmarks by the National Park Service. The many classes and tours extend even into the cold days of late winter. Visitors can trudge through the snow in the arboretum’s Bicknell sugarbush (sugar maple forest) to see a local Amish family (eastern Ohio has the country’s largest Amish community; see p. 565), contracted by the arboretum, tapping trees and making maple syrup in a timeless vignette.

W
HERE
: 25 miles east of Cleveland; 9500 Sperry Rd. Tel 440–946-4400;
www.holdenarb.org
.
When:
daily, Apr–Oct; closed Mon, Nov–Mar.
B
EST TIMES
: early Mar for the Sugarbush Trail; Apr–May for blooming magnolias, azaleas, lilacs, and rhododendrons; summer months for the butterfly garden and a cool escape; Oct for spectacular foliage along the Leaf Trail.

A Charming Riverboat Town and a Covered Bridge Byway

Ohio

Settlers made a first foothold at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers in 1788, when “Northwest Territory” meant not the remote Canadian arctic but a vast area west of Pennsylvania stretching to the Mississippi
. In recognition of France’s assistance in the recent Revolutionary War, they called the new town Marietta, after the French queen Marie Antoinette. The town fared better than she did: The introduction of steamboats in 1811, and the local discovery of oil 50 years later, fueled a century-long boom, and today the small and once affluent Marietta is a handsome, leafy riverside town of Victorian homes that wears its history proudly.

Its oldest attractions go back over 2,000 years—earth mounds constructed by a culture known as the Adena that may date to as far back as 800 B.C. The most prominent is the thirty-foot Conus Mound at Mound Cemetery downtown, where many of the city’s founders occupy graves nearby. On the site of the town’s first settlement is the Campus Martius Museum, which incorporates Ohio’s oldest residence, the house of General Rufus Putnam, friend of George Washington and leader of the first group of 48 settlers from New England.

A 3-minute stroll to the Ohio River Museum will enlighten visitors about the Golden Age of Steamboats through models and artifacts and a chance to board the 1918
W. P. Snyder Jr.,
the nation’s only remaining stern-wheeled steam towboat, moored just outside. Much of the downtown is on the National Historic Register, including the distinctive triangular Lafayette Hotel, one of the country’s most atmospheric riverboat-era
hotels still operating. Built in 1918 on the site of a former hotel, the Lafayette offers smallish Victorian-style guest rooms (most with river views), but its atmosphere quotient is high, particularly in the welcoming Riverview Lounge. It also houses the city’s best-known restaurant, the Gun Room, where a collection of 16 antique long rifles adorns the walls.

Marietta is the jumping-off point for the Covered Bridge Scenic Byway, which meanders through 44 miles of pine-and-hardwood-covered hills along the Little Muskingum River in Wayne National Forest. The bridges that provide the main attraction were covered to protect their valuable deck timbers from the elements, and also provided a moment’s relief for horse-and-buggy travelers in foul weather, and for locals to meet and, maybe, court and spark, hence the endearing term “kissing bridges.” Ohio is second in the nation in the number of covered bridges still standing (150); the three along this scenic byway originated between 1878 and 1887. Enjoy the grace and slow pace of this lovely stretch of the Ohio River Valley, dotted with 19th-century barns with Mail Pouch Tobacco ads painted across their sides and old oil rigs that still cough up the odd barrel.

W
HERE
: 240 miles east of Cincinnati.
Visitor info:
Tel 800–288-2577 or 740–373-5178;
www.mariettaohio.org
.
C
AMPUS
M
ARTIUS
M
USEUM
: Tel 800–860-0145 or 740–373-3750;
www.ohiohistory.org/places/campus
.
When:
Wed–Sun, Mar–Oct.
O
HIO
R
IVER
M
USEUM
: Tel 800–860-0145 or 740–373-3750;
www.ohiohistory.org/places/ohriver
.
When:
Sat–Sun, June–Oct.
L
AFAYETTE
H
OTEL
: Tel 740–373-5522;
www.lafayettehotel.com
.
Cost:
from $65; dinner in the Gun Room $30.
C
OVERED
B
RIDGE
S
CENIC
B
YWAY
:
www.byways.org
.
B
EST TIMES
: mid-Mar for the River City Blues Festival; mid-Sept for Ohio River Sternwheel Fest; Oct for foliage.

Ohio Archipelago

Northern Ohio

An archipelago in Ohio? Yes, indeed. The Erie Islands are a little archipelago stretching north from the Marblehead Peninsula across the placid waters of Lake Erie, the warmest and most southern of
the Great Lakes. Each of the four larger islands on the U.S. side of the border entices with its own character and distinctive attractions.

The charming lakeshore town of Port Clinton (known as the Walleye Capital of the World) is a favorite jumping-off point for the islands, and you can also catch ferries from the mainland towns of Catawba Island, Marblehead, and Sandusky. Some ferries will take your car, but bicycles and golf carts are the favored forms of travel once you arrive on these small islands.

South Bass is the island nearest to the mainland, and its village of Put-in-Bay is the islands’ closest thing to a tourist hot spot; a party-hearty culture in the bars around the marina erupts at the height of summer. The town is the home of historic Heineman Winery, a focal point of the area’s recently resurgent wine industry. American varieties such as Catawba have been successful historically, and frozen-harvested ice wines are emerging as Ohio’s viticultural claim to fame. The town also boasts the most massive Doric column in the world, the 352-foot Perry’s
Victory and International Peace Memorial, which commemorates the Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812 and the postwar friendship that endures between America and the British. An observation deck at the top provides a sweeping panorama of the lake and surrounding islands.

With an off-season population below 400, quiet Kelleys Island to the east is the largest of the Lake Erie islands and the only island in the U.S. to be designated as a National Historic District. It offers intriguing views of the distant past at Inscription Rock, a slab featuring Native American pictographs 400 to 800 years old, and at Kelleys Island State Park, where a retreating glacier scoured an awesome 400-foot-long chute in the limestone bedrock, creating one of the world’s deepest and oldest glacial grooves. The pace of daily life is quiet on Middle Bass and North Bass islands; the state of Ohio purchased most of the latter in 2003 and is in the process of restoring its natural habitat for low-impact recreation. Natural features are a strong draw all over the islands, attracting birders and fishermen along with sailors and kayakers.

For less serene pursuits, you needn’t go any farther than Cedar Point, a sprawling lake-front amusement park renowned as the Roller-Coaster Capital of the World. Located on the mainland on a peninsula north of Sandusky, it thrills riders on 16 coasters, including the wooden 1964 Blue Streak. The Top Thrill Dragster, built in 2003, is surpassed only by New Jersey’s Kingda Ka (and only by a hairbreadth) as the tallest and fastest in the world.

W
HERE
: in Lake Erie, 55 miles west of Cleveland.
H
EINEMAN
W
INERY
: Put-inBay, South Bass. Tel 419–285-2811;
www.ohiowine.com
.
When:
mid-April–mid-Nov.
P
ERRY’S
V
ICTORY AND
I
NTERNATIONAL
P
EACE
M
EMORIAL
: Put-in-Bay, South Bass. Tel 419–285-2184;
www.nps.gov/pevi
.
When:
daily, late Apr–mid-Oct; by appointment, late Oct–mid-Apr.
K
ELLEYS
I
SLAND
S
TATE
P
ARK
: Tel 419–797-4530;
www.ohiodnr.com/parks/parks/lakeerie.htm
.
When:
May–Oct.
C
EDAR
P
OINT
A
MUSEMENT
P
ARK
: Sandusky. Tel 419–627-2350;
www.cedarpoint.com
.
When:
daily, May–Sept; Fri–Sun, Sept–Oct.
B
EST TIMES
: spring and fall for birding and fishing; last weekend in July for Kelleys Island Islandfest.

Enigmatic Snake in the Grass

Peebles, Ohio

The Ohio River Valley was a focal point of the mound-building cultures of prehistoric North America, and even though untold numbers of the area’s earthworks were lost to the plow or to development, many impressive
examples remain across central and southern Ohio. The best-known and most intriguing of all is Serpent Mound, the largest effigy earthwork in the world, believed to have been constructed around 1070 and preserved today above Brush Creek near the small farm town of Peebles.

Like its bearish counterparts at Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa (see p. 517), Serpent Mound is a representation of an animal significant to the ancient people who made it, in this case a stylized snake 20 feet wide and 2 to 6 feet high, writhing sinuously a quarter-mile long. At its front is a mysterious large oval, perhaps the eye or head itself, or possibly something—an egg? the sun?—that the snake is about to devour with open jaws. The mound’s meaning and origins remain a mystery, though unlike many earthworks of the Midwest, it is not believed to be a burial mound, and it almost certainly had an astronomical purpose: The eastward curves of the body point to sunrise locations at solstices and equinoxes, and the head to sunset on the summer solstice. It is impossible to say whether it was also meant as a work of art, but it is as elegant and striking as Robert Smithson’s far more contemporary
Spiral Jetty
in Great Salt Lake, Utah (see p. 798).

The Serpent Mound is believed by some to link back to the Cherokee legend of the
Uktena,
a large supernatural serpent.

The nearby Serpent Mound Museum features exhibits on the various mysteries of the earthwork, the process of its construction (the form laid out in rocks and clay, then dirt piled on top basketful by basketful), and the geology of the area. There’s also a pathway around the mound, and a three-story observation tower gives visitors the best view as well as a moment for solitary contemplation.

W
HERE
: 75 miles south of Columbus; 3850 State Rte. 73. Tel 800–752-2757 or 937–587-2796;
www.ohiohistory.org/places/serpent
.
W
HEN
: park, closed Mon; check website for museum schedule.

From Dayton to the Wild Blue Yonder

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio

Working in their bicycle shop in Dayton, Wilbur and Orville Wright astonished—and changed—the world with the invention of a powered, heavier-than-air machine capable of controlled, sustained flight
. It’s safe to say the Wright brothers would themselves be astonished if they could travel a century forward to the military facility that bears their name, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, to see what became of their plane.

Housed in a vast complex of connected hangars, the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force is the world’s oldest and largest military aviation museum. It is also one of Ohio’s top tourist attractions, welcoming millions of wide-eyed children and their parents in tow. The awe-inspiring display of aerial technology and might includes more than 300 aircraft and missiles. Visitors wander past graceful early fliers such as a 1911 Bleriot monoplane; chunky Boeing fighters from the 1930s; “Bockscar,” the B-29 that bombed Nagasaki; and a breathtaking array of Cold War and contemporary
designs. Thousands of other artifacts—squadron patches; a trombone owned by Maj. Glenn Miller, leader of the American Band of the Allied Expeditionary Force; a chunk of the Pentagon from the 9/11 attack—sit alongside, illuminating the long and fascinating history of the USAF.