Features

Brandywine Falls

Imagine, if you will, the 1974 landscape in the valley carved out by the Cuyahoga River between Akron and Cleveland: beautiful waterfalls surrounded by deep woods, interesting and plentiful rock formations, colorful meandering meadows, idyllic small lakes. 

“There’s a lot of hope involved in taking a landscape and turning it into a national park,” says Jennie Vasarhelyi, chief of interpretation, education, and visitor services at Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which marks its anniversaries with a series of events and celebrations over the coming year.

Robert Dafford working on a mural on Portsmouth, Ohio's, iconic floodwalls.

Along the banks at the confluence of the Ohio and Scioto rivers in southern Ohio, murals seamlessly blend into their surroundings, their muted colors echoing the tones of the buildings and landscape 
around them. 

The murals are more than just public art; they’re a symbol of resilience. Once a bustling center for steel and shoe manufacturing, Portsmouth saw its fortunes plummet with the collapse of those industries. The floodwall, built after a 1937 flood that devastated the city, stood for decades as a bleak reminder of what was lost. 

New Year’s Eve Donut Drop, Lakeside

This New Year’s Eve, forget Times Square — New York City’s annual ball drop is too far away, and besides, there are plenty of options here in Ohio, where towns throughout the state proudly ring in the new year with eclectic and imaginative ways to celebrate their customs, culture, and industries.

New Year’s Eve Donut Drop, Lakeside

Anyone who has ever spent a summer day experiencing the Lakeside Chautauqua community on the shores of Lake Erie knows that residents and visitors alike relish the Patio Restaurant’s homemade donuts. Those famous cake donuts inspired a new tradition in 2022: dropping an inflatable plastic donut decorated with multi-colored “sprinkles” from Lakeside’s waterfront Pavilion. A DJ plays dance music during this only-in-Lakeside event, which of course serves Patio donuts plus hot chocolate for toasting the new year.

A statue of Wheeling Gaunt in downtown Yellow Springs, Ohio

During the first holiday season after the death of her husband, the noted local artist Jack Hubbard, in 1987, Pat Hubbard received a curious gift delivered to her Yellow Springs home: two sacks — one filled with flour, the other with sugar.

“Wheeling Gaunt was a person of faith and a very resilient man who did not let adversity beat him down; he used it as a motivation to achieve,” says Brenda Hubbard Ibarra, Jack and Pat’s daughter. Although she had been born and raised in Yellow Springs, Ibarra was unaware of Gaunt’s story until her mother started getting those gifts. Inspired, she immersed herself in researching that history, and in 2021, she self-published Legacy of Grace: Musings on the Life and Times of Wheeling Gaunt.

Mistletoe

It’s the best time of the year — or so sings Burl Ives, over and over leading up to Christmas Day. Of course, cups of cheer (spiced cider, perhaps) will likely make an appearance, and (croons Burl) there may or may not be snow.

Like the Christmas celebration itself, hanging mistletoe in your house is rooted in ancient tradition. But before we get to that, it’s worth noting that mistletoe has no real roots — it’s a parasite, making its way in life by living off of rooted trees. “Mistletoe makes its own sugar, but poaches water from trees,” says Savannah Ballweg, who manages the Miami University botanical conservatory in Oxford.

According to Ballweg, Ohio is home to one species of mistletoe: American mistletoe, also known as oak mistletoe, found mostly in the southern part of the state.

A Christmas spider made from precious stones and pearls

Wrap up your shopping and sleigh the holidays this year with our gift guide’s selection of original, useful, and ingenious made-in-Ohio items, which will make it the most wonderful time of the year for everyone on your list.  

 

Barb Barbee Jewelry, Delaware

At her home studio in Delaware, Worthington Craft Guild member Barb Barbee fashions jewelry using 14-karat gold-filled wire, sterling silver, freshwater pearls, and precious and semi-precious stones. Her holiday line has Christmas tree-shaped green malachite pendants; mother-of-pearl snowman earrings; and stunning Christmas spiders that channel an East European folktale.

A white house flying a Blue Star Flag

Ohio seems to have a bit of a thing with flags. It’s not just that our state flag is the only one out of the 50 that is not a rectangle (an interesting story in its own right).

You might have seen a service flag: a blue star (or stars) on a field of white, surrounded by a red border — hanging in the picture window of a seemingly random home in the neighborhood or in a shop window of a downtown building. But many folks might be unaware, or at least unsure, of its significance.

Kathy and Doug Crow

On just about any night of the week, though certainly on almost every Friday and Saturday, there’s bound to be a square dance happening somewhere in Ohio.

The Crows got into square dancing by chance. They went to dinner late one summer evening to a restaurant where many of the other patrons were wearing what they later learned to be traditional square-dancing attire: the women in ruffled skirts worn over fluffy crinolines, and men in western-style shirts that matched or complemented their partners’ outfits.

The Crosskeys Tavern, Chillicothe

In the 19th century, Ohio held a crucial place in the national transportation system as Americans gradually gained access to wider and wider areas of the country. 

As a result, busy inns and taverns sprouted all over, and quite a few of them are still in business today. These centuries-old establishments are rich in history — and in some cases, ghosts. Below, we have listed some of the more notable haunted watering holes in the state for anyone interested in dinner with the departed, or an overnight stay with the spirits.

The Crosskeys Tavern

19 E. Main St., Chillicothe