Ohio Oddities: A Guide to the Curious Attractions of the Buckeye State

by Neil Zurcher

Ohio—a bland and ordinary Midwestern state, right? Ha! You must never get off the highway. The Buckeye State has no shortage of strange, silly, goofy, quirky, eccentric, and just plain weird people, places, and things—if you know where to look. And no one has looked in more places for Ohio’s oddities than Neil Zurcher, the popular Fox8 TV travel reporter who makes his living on the road seeking out unusual destinations. This book collects the most remarkable things he’s found in and about the Buckeye State, Mysteries. Like the “bottomless” Blue Hole of Castalia and Ashtabula’s famed Headless Chicken—who lived without a noggin for 38 days. Big things. Like the World’s Largest . . . Crystal Ball . . . Gathering of Twins . . . Easter Basket . . . Cuckoo Clock . . . Peculiar claims to fame. Like the “Oldest concrete road in America,” the “World’s fastest pumpkin carver.” Strange collections. Like the Objects Swallowed by Citizens of Lima; the nation’s only vacuum cleaner museum; and the world’s largest collection of popcorn poppers and peanut roasters. Notable citizens. Like Balto the Wonder dog, cheesemaking firewalker Komar the Magnificent, and Buckeye Chuck, the weather rodent. And the just-hard-to-explain. Like the Wellington ATM shaped like a Victorian horse and buggy or Ohio’s strange attachment to the bathtub from the U.S.S. Maine.

Genres: Travel, History, Nonfiction, Reference

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2001

About the author

Neil Zurcher was an American television reporter for Fox-TV affiliate WJW-TV Channel 8 in Cleveland, Ohio. He was best known for his travel segment One Tank Trips.

Reviews

[Jodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was on the shelf in my classroom, and so I decided to pick it up to read. It's always fun to read about strange places around the state where I live. My two favorite stories were about the chicken who was given a nickel every day to walk down the street to get it's cornmeal, and another about a chicken who had it's head cut off and managed to live for 6 weeks (the story goes that the man cut it way up high on it's neck so maybe that's why it didn't die and a vet performed surgery so that food and water could be given to it after the man realized it was still alive).

I also learned stories that I never knew about places where I've lived or have been. I grew up in the Toledo area and when I was a baby, my older siblings used to joke that they were going to Michigan to play since it was just one street over from the house. I never knew that this part of Ohio was actually at first considered to be a part of Michigan in the 1830s and there was a dispute between the two states. Michigan was only allowed to become a state because it finally agreed to give the land to Ohio. There were still arguments going on in 1972 about it. Wow!

Another fun fact I learned is that there is some "controversy" over when Ohio became a state. I've always heard that Ohio became a state in 1803. However, there was some other issues happening and Congress forgot to formally vote on it. It was another 150 years before the vote became official for Ohio to become a state in 1953. There have been some complaints over elections because of Ohio being able to vote when it wasn't officially a state. Too funny!

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you plan to visit the places Zurcher writes about, check first to see if they still are there, as it was originally written a few years ago. If you are just reading, there's a lot of fun information here, as is usual with a Zurcher book.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these are places you can visit. Others are just weird stories from the past made more interesting because they happened in my state. Fun read.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book a lot. Interesting stories about some of the weird attractions or stories that Ohio seems to have an abnormal abundance of. Like the Y-Bridge, a basket, the three crosses that are all over the place it seems like,etc. It adds the backstory as to a lot of the attractions or stories. The weirdest story I read in this one is the headless chicken that survived for a good period of time.

[Bfg1971 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a cute book about odd Ohio attractions. It reads like a Ripley's Believe it or Not book about famous (or infamous) locations in Ohio. I probably won't use it to plan any trips; however, its a fun read for a lazy rainy afternoon when you're looking to kill some time.

[JP · Rating 2 out of 5]

Zurcher was a TV reporter who ran a "One Tank Trips" segment and writes for AAA's Ohio Motorist magazine. I now want to visit the slanted farm at Marblehead and still need to make it to Tony Packos. I'm skeptical about the headless chicken.

[Rob Dhillon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this whenever I walk by the bookshelf I have it on or the kids go visit their friends in other parts of the state.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, fasenating reading.Learning in a fun way, the history of Ohio.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amusing at the very least...added only a couple things to our list of "things to see" when we move.