It was more than 60 years ago, and I was just 6 years old, rubbernecking from the back seat of my parents’ red-and-white 1950s-era Ford Fairlane. As we neared our destination, my father remarked into the rearview mirror, “We should be able to see it soon…”
We crested a hill, and I caught my first glimpse.
What’s in a name? Dalton Union Winery and Brewery’s name is packed with meaning. Owners Dale and Tonya Mabry liked “Dalton” because it’s a portmanteau word, combining three letters from their first names, while “Union” alludes to their relationship and location. “The two of us are a union,” says Tonya, “and we’re in Union County.”
When The Shawshank Redemption was released in 1994, no one predicted the movie would make Mansfield, Ohio, a tourist destination for fans. Filmed almost entirely in and around Mansfield, the prison drama stars Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne, a banker wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, and Morgan Freeman as Ellis “Red” Redding, the resourceful inmate who befriends him.
Only a few years ago, when Buckeye Lake in central Ohio was being drawn down for dam repair, workers made a historic find: Hidden in those murky depths was a sunken canal boat called the Black Diamond.
“It’s the first archaeological-documented canal boat discovery in Ohio,” says Andy Sewell, historian with Columbus-based Lawhon and Associates, an environmental consulting firm associated with the dam project.
The whole world watched on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong planted his left foot in the virgin lunar dust. That “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” rocketed Armstrong to instant immortality. As the first person to stand on a celestial body, Armstrong fulfilled the late President Kennedy’s goal of putting an American on the moon and rendered the United States the winner in its space race with the Soviet Union.
Before there were bridges across the mighty, sometimes swift and muddy Ohio River, there were dozens of ferries that carried people, cargo, and the vehicles of the day from Ohio to Kentucky and West Virginia. Today, there are nearly 50 bridges, but only three ferries remain. Each of those that still ply their trade is cherished.
The Mohicans, located near Glenmont in the remote, rugged, wooded hills of extreme northeastern Knox County, offers no less than six treehouses available for a night’s stay. Ranging from rustic to romantic, even their various names invite a visit: Moonlight, Old Pine, White Oak, Little Red, Tin Shed, and a very unique and cozy one-room honeymoon suite: The Nest.