129 Fun Facts About Ohio

Which Ohio baseball team takes its name from the 1869 club that was the sport's first all-professional team?

Reds: the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings were the first club to put every player on a salary; in the 1950s the modern team called itself the Redlegs for a few seasons to avoid any hint of communism.

Which city is both Ohio's capital and its most populous?

Columbus became Ohio's capital in 1816, chosen for its central location, and has been the state's most populous city since the 1990 census, well ahead of Cleveland.

Ohio's state flag is unique among the 50 US state flags for what reason?

It is not rectangular: the swallowtail 'burgee' is so awkward to fold that in 2005 Ohio wrote a two-person folding method into law, one worked out by a Boy Scout earning his Eagle rank.

The 17 stars on Ohio's flag mark its place in what order?

Statehood: thirteen stars ring the flag's central 'O' for the original states, and four more at the triangle's tip carry the count on to Ohio, the seventeenth state to join the Union.

Which bird has been Ohio's official state bird since 1933?

Cardinal: when settlers arrived it was an uncommon bird seen mainly along the Ohio River, and it spread across the state only in the late 1800s; six other states have chosen it as their bird too.

What is Ohio's official state flower?

Red carnation: Ohio chose it in memory of President William McKinley, an Ohioan assassinated in 1901, who is said to have worn one on his lapel for luck after an election rival handed him one.

Since 1965, what has been Ohio's official state beverage?

Tomato juice: the 1965 law coincided with the Tomato Festival in Reynoldsburg, where Alexander Livingston introduced the Paragon, his first commercial tomato variety, in 1870.

Which creature is Ohio's official state insect?

It was adopted in 1975; the ladybug is a farmer's friend because it eats aphids.

Ohio's official state fossil, Isotelus maximus, is what kind of ancient animal?

A trilobite: Isotelus was a marine arthropod of the seas that covered Ohio in the Ordovician period, and the state's law singles out a giant specimen dug up at Huffman Dam in Montgomery County.

What is Ohio's official state mammal?

White-tailed deer: hunted out of Ohio altogether by 1904, it came back through restocking in the 1920s and 1930s and now lives in all 88 counties; it was made the state animal in 1988.

Ohio's name comes from a Seneca word meaning what?

Good river: Ohio comes from the Seneca (Iroquoian) word ohi:yo', usually rendered 'good river' or 'great river', the native name of the Ohio River.

Which president signed the 1803 act of Congress recognising Ohio's constitution?

Thomas Jefferson signed the act on 19 February 1803, yet Ohio counts its birthday as 1 March, the day its first General Assembly met.

What did Congress do about Ohio's statehood in 1953?

Backdated its admission to 1803: planning for Ohio's 150th birthday showed that Congress had never passed a formal act of admission, so in 1953 it passed one, dated back to 1 March 1803.

Ohio was the first state carved out of which federal domain, governed under a famous 1787 ordinance?

Northwest Territory: the 1787 ordinance outlawed slavery across the territory, so Ohio, the first state carved from it, came into the Union as a free state on the north bank of the Ohio River.

Ohio shares the nickname 'Mother of Presidents' with which state, the only one where more presidents were born?

Virginia: eight presidents were born there to Ohio's seven, and one of the eight, William Henry Harrison, had long since made his home in Ohio by the time he won the White House.

Which Cincinnati-born president is the only person to have also been chief justice?

William Howard Taft, born in Cincinnati in 1857, never much wanted the presidency his wife pressed him towards; the post he had always hoped for was chief justice, which he held from 1921 to 1930.

Before building airplanes, Orville and Wilbur Wright ran what kind of business in Dayton?

A bicycle shop: the Wright Cycle Company began with sales and repairs in 1892, was building its own bicycles by 1896, and its profits helped pay for the flying experiments.

Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon, grew up in which small Ohio town?

Wapakoneta: Armstrong was born there in 1930 and became a licensed pilot on his 16th birthday, before he had a driver's licence.

Ohio-born astronaut John Glenn became the first American to do what, in 1962?

Orbit the Earth: Glenn circled it three times in Friendship 7, then came down with his retro-rocket pack still strapped on, because a faulty signal suggested the heat shield had come loose.

Which office did John Glenn hold when he flew aboard shuttle Discovery in 1998?

Senator: Glenn was finishing 24 years in the Senate for Ohio when he joined the crew as a test subject for studies of ageing, at 77 the oldest person who had yet flown in space.

Which Cleveland DJ, credited with popularising the term 'rock and roll', helped the city land the Rock Hall?

Alan Freed, a DJ at Cleveland's WJW from 1951, popularised the term 'rock and roll' and staged the 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball there, often called the first major rock concert, the basis of Cleveland's Rock Hall bid.

Which architect designed Cleveland's glass-pyramid Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, opened in 1995?

I. M. Pei said he wanted the building 'to echo the energy of rock and roll'; its glass pyramid is meant to suggest a guitar neck rising to the sky, and the plaza in front of it a turntable.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame stands in which Ohio city, where the NFL was founded in 1920?

Canton: Ralph Hay, owner of the hometown Bulldogs, hosted the founding meeting on 17 September 1920 in his Hupmobile car showroom, where some of the team owners sat on the cars' running boards.

Cedar Point, 'America's Roller Coast', sits on a Lake Erie peninsula in which Ohio city?

Sandusky: Cedar Point began in 1870 as a beer garden, bathhouse and dance floor reached by steamboat from the city, and waited until 1892 for its first roller coaster.

Which future coach practised forward passes as a Cedar Point lifeguard in 1913?

Knute Rockne and Notre Dame teammate Gus Dorais spent the summer of 1913 as Cedar Point lifeguards drilling pass routes on the sand, then stunned Army with their passing attack that November.

What is the annual Ohio State vs Michigan football rivalry match known as?

The Game: since 1934 every Ohio State player who beats Michigan gets a tiny gold pants charm, after coach Francis Schmidt shrugged that the Wolverines put their pants on one leg at a time like everyone else.

Which Ohio State running back is the only player ever to win the Heisman Trophy twice?

Archie Griffin announced himself in only his second game as a freshman by running for a school-record 239 yards, then won the Heisman in 1974 and 1975.

What is the name of Ohio State University's buckeye-nut mascot?

Brutus Buckeye: two students built the first one out of papier-mâché in 1965, and a campus contest gave the giant nut its name only after its debut at that year's homecoming game.

Which magazine's 1969 story on the burning Cuyahoga River helped spur the environmental movement?

Time launched its new Environment section with the Cuyahoga story; the river had burned many times before, a 1952 fire doing far more damage, but this coverage helped bring about the EPA in 1970.

The Ohio River begins at Pittsburgh where which two rivers meet?

Allegheny and Monongahela: they meet at Pittsburgh's Point to start the Ohio's 981-mile run, a fork so strategic that France built Fort Duquesne there and Britain, once the French had burned it and gone, raised Fort Pitt.

The Ohio River ends by pouring into the Mississippi at which Illinois town?

Cairo sits at Illinois's southern tip, commanding the junction of the two rivers, which is why Ulysses S. Grant made it his headquarters for the Union's western campaigns.

Lake Erie, which forms Ohio's northern shore, is the smallest of the Great Lakes by which measure?

Volume: Lake Erie holds about 116 cubic miles of water, the least of the five, because it is the shallowest (average depth 62 feet); Ontario is the smallest by surface area.

Which US commodore won the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie, fought near Put-in-Bay during the War of 1812?

Oliver Hazard Perry won the Battle of Lake Erie on 10 September 1813 and reported 'We have met the enemy and they are ours'; the victory gave the US control of the lake for the rest of the war.

A 352-foot memorial column to an 1813 naval victory rises over Put-in-Bay on which Lake Erie island?

South Bass Island: the column in the village of Put-in-Bay marks the battle fought nearby and the long peace that followed; three American and three British officers killed that day lie buried together beneath its floor.

Which effigy mound in Adams County, Ohio, stretches about a quarter of a mile?

Serpent Mound: who built it is still argued over, since radiocarbon dates have pointed both to the Adena, more than 2,000 years ago, and to the much later Fort Ancient culture.

In 2023 the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks became Ohio's first what?

UNESCO World Heritage Site: the eight earthworks, built up to 2,000 years ago, include Newark's Octagon, which spent more than a century under a country club's golf course.

Which is Ohio's only national park, a green corridor running south from Cleveland?

Cuyahoga Valley: Congress protected it as a recreation area in 1974, five years after a fire on the polluted river just downstream became a national symbol, and made it a national park in 2000.

What did Michigan get for giving up the Toledo Strip after the 1835 'Toledo War'?

Most of the Upper Peninsula: to enter the Union in 1837 Michigan accepted the western three-quarters of the Upper Peninsula in place of the strip; the 'worthless' land proved rich in copper and iron.

Thanks to Libbey, Owens-Illinois and Owens Corning, what nickname did Toledo earn?

The Glass City: Edward Libbey moved his glassworks from Massachusetts to Toledo in 1888, and Michael Owens, who came to work for him there, went on to invent machines that mass-produced bottles.

Which vehicle brand traces its roots to the Willys military model built in Toledo during WWII?

Jeep: tiny American Bantam of Pennsylvania designed the Army's first prototype in 1940, but the big orders went to Willys-Overland, whose Toledo plant had the capacity Bantam lacked.

Akron earned which nickname from its biggest 20th-century industry?

Rubber Capital of the World: B.F. Goodrich moved his rubber works from New York in 1870 after Akron's citizens offered him $13,600, and Goodyear, Firestone and General Tire later grew up beside it.

Which self-help fellowship was founded in Akron in 1935, marked yearly on Founders' Day?

Alcoholics Anonymous: Bill Wilson and Akron surgeon Dr. Bob Smith founded AA in the city on 10 June 1935, the date of Dr. Bob's last drink; Akron's Founders' Day gathering marks it each June.

LeBron James was born in 1984 in which Ohio city, home of St. Vincent-St. Mary High School?

Akron: James was born there on 30 December 1984, starred at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School, and opened his I PROMISE School in the city in 2018.

Which team did the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers beat to become the first to win the NBA Finals from 3-1 down?

Beating the Golden State Warriors gave Cleveland its first major sports title since 1964, ending what fans called the Cleveland sports curse.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who met at Cleveland's Glenville High School, created which comic-book hero?

Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1 in 1938, after the two young Clevelanders had sold all rights to the character for little more than a hundred dollars.

Which region of northeastern Ohio, settled largely from New England, became an anti-slavery stronghold on the Underground Railroad?

The Western Reserve was the strip Connecticut held back when it gave up its other western land claims in 1786; a Connecticut survey party founded Cleveland inside it ten years later.

At a Cincinnati chili parlour such as Skyline, a 'three-way' is chili and shredded cheddar served over what?

Spaghetti is the base; add onions or beans for a four-way and both for a five-way, with Skyline and Gold Star the big chains.

Which warm spice, unusual in Texas-style chili, gives Cincinnati chili its Mediterranean flavour?

Cinnamon: the recipe, created by Macedonian immigrants Tom and John Kiradjieff at Empress Chili in 1922, seasons a Greek-style meat sauce with cinnamon, allspice and cloves rather than Texas-style heat.

Ohio's 'buckeye' candy, named for the state tree's nut, is a ball of what dipped in chocolate with one circle left bare?

Peanut butter: the fudge ball is dipped only partway so a tan 'eye' shows, like the nut of the buckeye tree; the candy is the one to eat, because the real nut is poisonous.

Ohio's state tree is said to be named because its nut resembles the eye of which animal?

A deer: the dark nut with its pale spot is said to look like a buck's eye, and the tree, once so common in the state, went on to give Ohioans their own nickname.

Holmes County, Ohio, has the world's highest concentration of which religious community?

Amish: nearly half the county's residents are Amish, so many that in the 2000 census over a third of its people spoke Pennsylvania German or German at home; only the settlement around Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is larger.

Which group recorded the protest song 'Ohio' after the Kent State shootings in May 1970?

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: Neil Young wrote 'Ohio' after seeing Life magazine's photographs of the shootings, and the band recorded it on 21 May 1970, seventeen days after four students were killed.

Unlike most US state capitols, the Greek Revival Ohio Statehouse has no what?

Dome: a low conical roof sits where one was expected. Prisoners from the Ohio Penitentiary worked on the foundations when building began in 1839, and the Statehouse took 22 years to finish.

Dave Thomas founded which restaurant chain in Ohio in 1969?

Wendy's: Thomas named it after his eight-year-old daughter Melinda, nicknamed Wendy, and years later told her he was sorry he had, because of the pressure the name put on her.

How were candlemaker William Procter and soapmaker James Gamble related when they founded P&G in Cincinnati in 1837?

Brothers-in-law: they married sisters Olivia and Elizabeth Norris, and their shared father-in-law nudged them into partnership.

Which inventor was born in Milan, Ohio, in 1847?

Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, on 11 February 1847; his family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, in 1854, when he was seven, so both states claim him.

Jesse Owens, Ohio State's 'Buckeye Bullet', won four gold medals in sprints, relay and long jump at which Olympics?

1936 Berlin came a year after Owens's 'greatest 45 minutes in sport', when he broke or tied a string of world records at a Big Ten meet in Ann Arbor.

Which distinction does Marblehead Light, on Lake Erie's Marblehead Peninsula, hold?

Oldest working beacon on the US Great Lakes: lit in 1822, Marblehead Light passed in 1832 to Rachel Wolcott, who took over the lamps when her husband Benajah, its first keeper, died.

Old Man's Cave, Ash Cave and Cedar Falls are the star attractions of which Ohio state park?

Hocking Hills: Old Man's Cave is said to take its name from Richard Rowe, a hermit who made his home in the gorge's great rock shelter and lived out his days there.

In 1985 the Ohio legislature named which 1965 hit by The McCoys the official state rock song?

Hang On Sloopy: the campaign began as a newspaper columnist's joke after Washington state weighed honouring 'Louie Louie', and Ohio State's marching band had been playing the song at games since 1965.

The 1995 Dayton Agreement, negotiated at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, ended a war in which country?

Bosnia and Herzegovina: US mediators picked the air base outside Dayton to stop the rival Balkan leaders negotiating through the press, and kept the talks going there for three weeks in November 1995.

Which president was sworn in aboard SAM 26000, the jet preserved at Dayton's Air Force museum?

Lyndon B. Johnson took the oath aboard SAM 26000 at Dallas's Love Field hours after Kennedy was shot, and the same jet, with seats pulled out to make room, flew Kennedy's casket home to Washington.

Cincinnati's name honours a society of officers named for a farmer-general of which ancient civilisation?

Rome: the Society of the Cincinnati, founded in 1783 by Continental Army officers, took its name from Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the Roman who gave up dictatorial power to return to his plough; Arthur St. Clair named the city in 1790.

What nickname did Cincinnati's 19th-century meatpacking trade earn it?

Porkopolis: Cincinnati was famous as a hog-butchering and pork-packing centre, and the leftover animal fat became the raw material for its soap and candle makers, Procter & Gamble among them.

Which hippo was born six weeks premature at Cincinnati Zoo in 2017 and kept alive by round-the-clock care?

Fiona weighed only 29 pounds at birth, about half the lightest hippo calf on record, and a team from Cincinnati Children's Hospital came in to fit the IV drip that pulled her through.

Which device, widely regarded as the world's first, was installed at Cleveland's Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street in 1914?

Electric traffic signal: its red and green lights, based on James Hoge's design, were switched by an officer in a booth and wired so that conflicting signals could never show at once.

Cleveland Clinic was ranked America's best hospital for which specialty every year from 1995 to 2024?

Cardiology: U.S. News ranked its heart programme No. 1 every year until the 2025-26 list, when the clinic slipped to third and its 30-year run at the top ended.

Which state lies directly across the Ohio River from downtown Cincinnati?

Kentucky: Covington faces Cincinnati across the river, and the city's main airport sits on the Kentucky side too, which is why its code is CVG, for Covington.

Ohio ranked seventh by population in the 2020 census, directly behind which Midwestern state?

Illinois counted about 12.8 million people to Ohio's 11.8 million, and both states lost a seat in the US House after the count as faster-growing states gained.

What is Ohio's official state motto?

'With God, all things are possible', adopted in 1959, comes from Matthew 19:26; the full Sixth Circuit upheld it against an ACLU challenge in 2001.

Which city was Ohio's first state capital?

Chillicothe was Ohio's first capital, lost the seat to Zanesville for two years from 1810, then won it back and kept it until 1816.

Marietta, founded in 1788, was named to honour which queen of France?

Marie Antoinette was honoured in thanks for France's help in the American Revolution; the settlers were led by Rufus Putnam, a general who had served in that war.

Morgan's Raid swept across southern Ohio during which war?

Civil War: Confederate general John Hunt Morgan was caught near Salineville in July 1863 and locked in the Ohio Penitentiary, but he and several officers tunnelled out and got away.

Which restaurant chain grew from a Gallipolis truck-stop diner whose owner made his own sausage?

Bob Evans could not buy sausage he liked for his diner, so from 1948 he made it from his own hogs; the first restaurant on his farm was called The Sausage Shop.

The Great Dayton Flood of 1913 led to the creation of what?

The Miami Conservancy District, organised in 1915, built levees and five dry dams, and unusually it was paid for almost entirely by local taxpayers, not the federal government.

Cleveland's 'Polish Boy' sandwich piles fries, coleslaw and barbecue sauce on top of what?

Kielbasa in a bun is the base; the sandwich came out of the city's barbecue joints, and nobody can say for sure who built the first one.

Which Ohio college, open to women since its founding in 1833, is America's oldest coeducational college?

Oberlin admitted Black students from 1835 and its first women degree students in 1837; in 1858 townspeople and students freed a captured fugitive slave, John Price, from federal marshals.

Which pioneering coast-to-coast road, dedicated in 1913, crossed Ohio through Wooster, Mansfield and Bucyrus?

The Lincoln Highway ran from New York's Times Square to San Francisco; promoter Carl Fisher wanted car makers to pay for it, but Henry Ford refused, arguing that government should build roads.

The Heaton brothers' Hopewell Furnace began the Mahoning Valley's iron industry near which city?

Youngstown grew into a steel city from that start on Yellow Creek; Bruce Springsteen's 1995 song named after the city opens with the Heatons and their furnace.

Which children's modelling compound was first made in 1930s Cincinnati as a wallpaper cleaner?

Play-Doh lifted coal soot off wallpaper until a nursery school teacher saw the putty's promise for art projects, and it was reworked for schools in the mid-1950s.

Which 1994 prison drama shot most of its scenes at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield?

The Shawshank Redemption made the old prison famous, and a 7K race called the Shawshank Hustle now passes the film's locations.

Which candy did Ohio chocolate maker Clarence Crane invent in 1912 because his chocolates melted in summer?

Life Savers got their name from the hole punched in the centre, which made each mint look like a ship's life preserver.

Which Ryan Murphy TV series is set at the fictional McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio?

Glee never filmed in Lima: its Ohio high school was recreated at Paramount Studios and at a real school in Hollywood.

Which sandwich chain did the Raffel brothers launch in Boardman, Ohio, in 1964 as an alternative to hamburgers?

Arby's is R and B said aloud, short for Raffel brothers; its founders ran a restaurant equipment business before trying fast food.

Which New York landmark did John A. Roebling design after spanning the Ohio River at Cincinnati in the 1860s?

Brooklyn Bridge had a dress rehearsal in Ohio: Roebling's Cincinnati span was the longest suspension bridge in the world when it opened, at 1,057 feet.

Which classic drawing toy, invented in France, did the Ohio Art Company launch in America in 1960?

Etch A Sketch was turned down by Ohio Art at first sight; the firm took a chance the second time and built the toy in Bryan, Ohio, until 2001.

Which 1983 holiday film was partly shot at a house in Cleveland's Tremont district that is now a museum?

A Christmas Story drew a lifelong fan to buy the house on eBay in 2004 and rebuild its rooms to match the film frame by frame.

Which Cleveland-born astronaut commanded Apollo 13, the Moon mission crippled by a failure en route?

Jim Lovell was the first person to reach the Moon twice, and the only one of those returnees who never walked on its surface.

Which novelist, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, was born and raised in Lorain, Ohio?

Toni Morrison set her first novel, The Bluest Eye, in her hometown, which later named an elementary school after her.

Which supermarket giant grew from a single grocery store opened on Cincinnati's Pearl Street in 1883?

Kroger began when 23-year-old Bernard Kroger, one of ten children of German immigrants, staked his $372 in savings on the shop.

In which sport did Cincinnati field the first all-professional team in 1869, with ten salaried players?

Baseball's Red Stockings won their first game as paid professionals 45–9, and the sport marked the centenary of the professional game in 1969.

Which Cincinnati-born player, nicknamed Charlie Hustle, retired with a major-league record 4,256 career hits?

Pete Rose got the nickname as a jibe from Yankees pitcher Whitey Ford in spring training, by most accounts after sprinting to first on a walk; he is also the all-time leader in games played and at-bats.

Which custard-textured fruit of a small native tree was named Ohio's official state native fruit in 2009?

Pawpaw is the largest edible fruit native to North America, and southeastern Ohio, where growers harvest it commercially, hosts a yearly pawpaw festival.

Which Kings Island wooden roller coaster opened in 1979 as the tallest, fastest and longest in the world?

The Beast got its name from construction crews who kept calling the job a beast of a project, and at 7,361 feet it is still the longest wooden coaster anywhere.

Which duo behind the 2015 hit Stressed Out call Ohio's capital city their hometown?

Twenty One Pilots had a downtown boulevard temporarily renamed after them in 2019, to mark two hometown arena shows.

Oktoberfest Zinzinnati set a world record in 1994 when over 48,000 revellers joined in which party favourite?

Chicken Dance fever suits the event, which is modelled on Munich's original and billed as the largest Oktoberfest in the United States.

Which director made the zoo in Ohio's capital famous by taking animals onto David Letterman's shows?

Jack Hanna took the job in 1978 partly because the city's children's hospital offered the best treatment for his daughter's leukemia.

Which religious movement dedicated its first temple in 1836 at Kirtland, in northeastern Ohio?

The Mormons, as followers of the Latter Day Saint movement are known, packed about 1,000 people into a seven-hour dedication service, then moved west two years later.

Which unexplained radio emission did Ohio State's Big Ear telescope record in 1977 while hunting for aliens?

The Wow! signal is named for the comment astronomer Jerry Ehman wrote beside the printout days later; it lasted the full 72 seconds the telescope could watch.

Which city, not the larger lakefront city sharing the county's name, is the seat of Lorain County, Ohio?

Elyria holds the courthouse even though Lorain, on the lakefront, is the county's most populous city and was Ohio's ninth largest at the 2020 census.

Which city, home to a former headquarters shaped like a giant basket, is the seat of Licking County, Ohio?

Newark's basket building was opened in 1997 by the Longaberger Company, which modelled it on its best-selling medium market basket.

Which city, torn through by an F5 tornado during the 1974 Super Outbreak, is the seat of Greene County, Ohio?

Xenia's newspaper staff won a Pulitzer Prize for covering the storm, and a Bob Hope benefit led the rebuilt high school to name its auditorium after him.

Which city on the old National Road, the hometown of singer John Legend, is the seat of Clark County, Ohio?

Springfield was the National Road's western end for years after the highway arrived in 1838, earning the nickname the Town at the End of the Pike.

Bowling Green, home to a state university of the same name, is the seat of which northwestern Ohio county?

Wood County's seat owes its name to the Kentucky city: a retired postal worker who had once delivered mail there suggested it.

Which city, overtaken in population by neighbouring Kent by 1930, is the seat of Portage County, Ohio?

Ravenna, founded in 1799 and named after the Italian city, was picked as the county seat in 1808, long before its college-town neighbour outgrew it.

Which city, Ohio's state capital from 1810 to 1812, is the seat of Muskingum County?

Zanesville is also known for its Y-Bridge, a three-way span over the point where the Licking and Muskingum rivers meet.

Which city, nicknamed Flag City, USA, and home to Marathon Petroleum, is the seat of Hancock County, Ohio?

Findlay was the base of Marathon Oil from 1905 until the company left for Houston in 1990; its refining offshoot stayed behind.

Which city, the hometown of Rat Pack entertainer Dean Martin, is the seat of Jefferson County, Ohio?

Steubenville holds a Dean Martin Festival every year, and was also the hometown of Edwin Stanton, secretary of war during the Civil War.

Which birthplace of Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman is the seat of Fairfield County, Ohio?

Lancaster also produced the general's brother, Senator John Sherman, and the 1811 house where both were born is now a museum.

Which city, host of a Pumpkin Show every October, is the seat of Pickaway County, Ohio?

Circleville takes its name from its original 1810 street plan, laid out inside a circular Hopewell earthwork 1,100 feet across.

Which city, near Honda's first American car plant, opened in 1982, is the seat of Union County, Ohio?

Marysville's plant built the first car a Japanese maker produced in the United States, an Accord, and the company's motorcycle factory there came three years earlier.

Which city, the main mainland dock for the fast ferry to Put-in-Bay, is the seat of Ottawa County, Ohio?

Port Clinton rings in each New Year with a Walleye Drop downtown, a nod to the rich fishing grounds just offshore.

Cincinnati is the seat of which Ohio county, the third most populous in the state at the 2020 census?

Hamilton County honours Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury and a founder of the Federalist Party.

Dayton, home of the Wright brothers, is the seat of which county in southwestern Ohio?

Montgomery County is named for Richard Montgomery, a Revolutionary War general killed in 1775 while trying to capture Quebec City.

Toledo is the seat of which Ohio county, named in 1835 for the state's governor during the Toledo War?

Lucas County was carved out of the disputed Toledo Strip in 1835 and named for Governor Robert Lucas in defiance of Michigan, which claimed the same land.

Ohio's state capital is the seat of which county, the most populous in the state at the 2020 census?

Franklin County is named after Benjamin Franklin, and the capital city only officially became its seat in 1824.

Which Ohio county, the oldest in the state, was founded in July 1788 and has Marietta as its seat?

Washington County was named for George Washington the year before he became president, when its seat was a frontier settlement only a few months old.

Which county in Ohio's northeastern corner is the state's largest by area and famed for its covered bridges?

Ashtabula County has both the longest and the shortest covered bridges in the United States, and its seat is the village of Jefferson rather than the city of Ashtabula.

Sharpshooter Annie Oakley was born in a log cabin in which Ohio county, whose seat is Greenville?

Darke County still honours her with a yearly Annie Oakley Festival; she went on to out-earn everyone in Buffalo Bill's troupe except Bill himself.

Which word do most Ohioans, like much of the Midwest, use for a sweet fizzy soft drink?

Pop is first recorded in 1812, when the poet Robert Southey wrote in a letter that the drink was named for the noise the cork made when drawn.

Which Northeast Ohio name for the grass between sidewalk and street once meant the gap between streetcar tracks?

Devil strip first described the space between two streetcar lines, too narrow to stand in as the cars passed; in one corner of Ohio it moved to the kerbside grass.

In Cincinnati slang, which term for a beer container is also the word for a convenience store that sells beer?

Pony keg elsewhere means only a quarter barrel, about 7.75 US gallons of beer; Cincinnatians also use it for the corner store itself.

Which college football venue is nicknamed the Shoe, for the open-ended shape its architect drew up in 1918?

Ohio Stadium is the Horseshoe in full, and later expansion left its south end partly open so the famous outline survives.

Which NFL team's fans have roared the Who Dey chant since the 1980s and cheer a mascot of the same name?

Bengals fans took up the chant in the 1980s, and a local beer nicknamed Hudy, a big seller through that decade, sounds strikingly similar.

What name do Cleveland Browns fans give the bleacher section behind the east end zone at home games?

Dawg Pound dates from 1985, when cornerback Hanford Dixon began calling his fellow defenders the Dawgs and cast the quarterback as the cat.

Ohio's Hell Is Real derby, named after a religious billboard on Interstate 71, is a rivalry in which sport?

Soccer's two Ohio MLS clubs contest it, 110 miles apart along that interstate, and their second teams parody the name as Heck is Plausible.

In Gen Z and Gen Alpha internet slang, spread by Only in Ohio videos, what does calling something Ohio mean?

Bizarre is the gist: the term covers surreal and random things that supposedly happen in the state, and it took off with viral videos from 2022.

The Ohio meme began with a 2016 photo of a transit notice about a bus stop on Ohio Street in which city?

Chicago's transit authority was only removing a stop at Ohio Street and Michigan Avenue, but readers took the notice as a threat to wipe out the whole state.

In Ohio State's Script Ohio formation, a veteran player of which instrument struts out to dot the i?

Sousaphone players get the honour, yet a cursive Ohio was first formed on the field by a rival: Michigan's band spelled it out at a 1932 game, four years before Ohio State.