John Herzig was quite pleased with the latest addition to his ever-so-slightly notorious collection.
Higgins later gained fame as the movie mutt, “Benji,” and to Herzig, Inn’s story of a lifetime of rescuing dogs from euthanasia and boarding them until he could find them homes is one that deserves to be remembered. “He supported at least 2,000 animals,” Herzig says. When Higgins eventually died after a long and fulfilling life, Inn gave her funeral, and Herzig has the program.
Most people who casually drive past the (mostly) nondescript white barn along U.S. 40 in rural Miami County have no idea about the automotive history displayed inside.
In truth, Halderman never envisioned a full-blown museum on the family farm near Tipp City where he grew up, says Karen Koenig, Halderman’s daughter, who is now the curator. After he retired from the Ford Motor Company in 1994, he merely wanted to display some Mustang and other Ford memorabilia in his man cave at one end of the barn. He enjoyed greeting visitors there and sharing stories about his career designing cars until the day he died in 2020.
Vintage aircraft are a common sight in the sky above and along County Road 25A at the south edge of Troy in Miami County — especially during late September, when the WACO Air Museum and Learning Center hosts its annual fly-in.
“The fly-in gives us a chance to show off our facility,” Royer says. “It is here that people can walk through the history of Troy and Miami County, which were at the forefront of the aviation history.”
WACO (Weaver Aircraft Company) in Troy was the largest manufacturer of biplanes in the country during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Buck Weaver, a civilian who instructed military pilots in Texas during World War I, and friends Clayton Brukner, Sam Junkin, and Charlie Meyers founded the company in 1920.
On permanent exhibit at the Greene County Ohio Historical Society in Xenia is a tattered American flag that had been used to mark the slab foundation where a house had stood bef
Sherry Hall never tires of showing visitors the paintings of Warren and Florence Harding that hang side by side near the entrance of the Warren G. Harding Presidential Library and Museum in Marion.
The president has a genial twinkle in his eye and holds a straw hat straight out of the Jazz Age. Laddie Boy, the beloved Airedale who attended cabinet meetings and retrieved the president’s errant golf balls, sits at Harding’s feet, and resting on a table behind them is a copy of The Marion Daily Star, the failing newspaper Harding purchased at age 19. He managed to make it profitable and still owned the Star when elected president in 1920.
What happens when you receive a troll doll at the impressionable young age of 5? If you’re Sherry Grooms, you end up with a museum.
One room has the Troll Bowl, a dollhouse version of a football stadium, where trolls are dressed as football players and fans sport NFL attire. There’s also the Rock ’n’ Troll Hall of Fame featuring troll versions of Rod Stewart, Justin Timberlake, KISS, and more.
Troll collecting has made Grooms an expert on troll doll history. The original is from Denmark, where Thomas Dam carved wooden dolls for his daughter, inspired by trolls of Scandinavian folklore. Dam’s designs became mass-produced in the U.S. in the 1960s.
Born and raised in Columbus, Air Force General Curtis LeMay studied engineering at Ohio State University and launched his military career in his hometown by learning to fly at old Norton Field.
One airlift pilot, Lt. Russ Steber, took along his newly adopted boxer rather than leave the pup alone during the lengthy missions. The dog became such a familiar part of the airlift, Steber even had a parachute made for him. Eventually, LeMay learned of the stowaway, and Steber expected to be in big trouble. Instead, the general told Steber his dog was a great morale booster and promptly named him “Vittles.”
Like many kids, Conrad Brown loved Legos. He knew his dad shared that love, too.
The building’s main hallway features life-sized Larry Byrd and Kobe Bryant figures, among others. A prone man made of red Legos appears contemplative inside a case; nearby, a Lego dragon sits at a Lego campfire, roasting a Lego marshmallow.
Ernest “Mooney” Warther began carving with his first pocketknife at age 5. A dozen years later, in 1902, he crafted his mother a kitchen knife as a gift. Her friends and neighbors liked it, so he made more.
American steel, American hardware, American wood, Ohio labor, and blades with an amazingly attractive (trademarked since 1907) finish pattern create loyal customers who return regularly to add to their collections. If you visit the company’s new 15,000-square-foot showroom, factory, and office, you’ll find plenty of American-made kitchen products, including cookware and a small army of specialty foods, spices, and condiments. But you’ll quickly see that knives made by fourth-generation craftsmen are the star of the show.
Louis Zona breathed a sigh of relief a couple of months ago when Snap the Whip safely returned to the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown.
The Butler was the first museum built solely for works by American artists, and for decades, Butler family members augmented its collection with masterpieces such as Albert Bierstadt’s The Oregon Trail and Edward Hopper’s Pennsylvania Coal Town. After Joseph G. Butler III died in 1981, Zona was appointed director. At the time, he chaired Youngstown State University’s art department, but his association with the museum began in the early 1970s. “My dissertation was about museum operations, and I used the Butler for my lab,” says Zona.
