Page Toppers

• All the Lilacs in Ohio
  (song by John Hiatt)
• Cleveland Rocks
• Down on the Ohio
• Hello Cleveland
  (song by Mono)
• My Ohio Home
• Please Take Me Back to Dear Old Ohio
• Ripples From Silver Lake

Ohio Symbols

• Nicknames: The Buckeye State, Mother of Modern Presidents
• Slogan: The Heart of it All
• Motto: With God all things are possible
• Song: Beautiful Ohio (words by Ballard MacDonald, music by Mary Earl)
• Rock Song: Hang on Sloopy
• Animal: White-tailed Deer
• Reptile: Black Racer Snake
• Bird: Cardinal
• Insect: Ladybug
• Tree: Ohio Buckeye
• Flower: Scarlet Carnation
• Wildflower: Large White Trillium
• Fossil: Isotelus
• Gemstone: Ohio Flint
• Beverage: Tomato Juice
• Pro Sports Teams: Cleveland Cavaliers (men's basketball), Cincinnati Bengals (football), Cleveland Indians (baseball), Cincinnati Reds (baseball), Columbus Quest (women's basketball)

Facts About Ohio

• Capital: Columbus
• Residents: Ohioans, Buckeyes
• State Name Origin: named for an Iroquois word meaning "beautiful river" or "good river"
• Admitted to Statehood: 1 Mar 1803
• Order of Admission: 17th state
• Length: 220 miles
• Width: 220 miles
• Area: 44,824 square miles
• Size Rank: 34
• Number of Counties: 88
• Streams and Rivers: 29,113 miles
• Geographic Center: 25 miles NNE of Columbus in Delaware Co.
• Mean Elevation: 850 feet
• Highest Point: Campbell Hill, 1,550 feet
• Lowest Point: Ohio River, 433 feet
• Agricultural Products: food products, greenhouse and nursery plants, corn, soybeans, livestock, milk
• Commercial Products: plastics and polymers, rubber products, roller bearings, jet engines, fabricated metal products, industrial machinery, electronic equipment, printing and publishing
• Average Annual Rainfall: 37.8 inches
• Average Winter High Temperature: 25 degrees
• Record Low Temperature: -39 degrees (10 Feb 1899 Milligan)
• Average Summer High Temperature: 80 degrees
• Record High Temperature: 113 degrees (21 Jul 1934 Gallipolis)
• More information about Ohio

Quotes

• Cincinnati is a beautiful city; cheerful, thriving, and animated. I have not often seen a place that commends itself so favorably and pleasantly to a stranger at first glance as this does. (Charles Dickens)
• If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later. (Will Rogers)

Items of Interest

• Ohio is the birthplace of 24 astronauts, more than any other state.
• The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is located in Cleveland, OH.
• Clifton Mill, built in 1802, is the nation's largest water-powered grist mill.
• The first ambulance service was established in Cincinnati in 1865.
• Cleveland boasts America's first traffic light. It began on Aug. 5, 1914.
• Ermal Fraze invented the pop-top can in Kettering.
• James J. Ritty, of Dayton, invented the cash register in 1879 to stop his patrons from pilfering house profits.
• Cincinnati Reds were the first professional baseball team.
• The Y Bridge in Zanesville is the only bridge in the world which you can cross and still be on the same side of the river.
• Akron was the first city to use police cars.
• Cincinnati had the first professional city fire department.
• Cleveland is home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
• The first full time automobile service station was opened in 1899 in Ohio.
• In 1852 Ohio was the first state to enact laws protecting working women.
• Ohio gave America its first hot dog in 1900. Harry M. Stevens was the creator.
• East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland was the site of the first pedestrian button for the control of a traffic light in 1948.
• Fostoria is the only city to be situated in three counties (Seneca, Hancock & Wood).
• Oberlin College, founded in 1833, was the first interracial and coeducational college in the US.
• Cleveland became the world's first city to be lighted electrically in 1879.
• John Lambert of Ohio City made America's first automobile in 1891.
• Charles Kettering of Loundonville invented the automobile self-starter in 1911.
• W.F. Semple of Mount Vernon patented chewing gum in 1869.

Notable Natives

Some of these people were born here, others just lived a part of their life in the state.

• Sherwood Anderson - author
• Neil Alden Armstrong (1930- ) - astronaut, first man to walk on the moon (Wapakoneta)
• Halle Berry (1966- ) - actress (Cleveland)
• Daniel Beard (1850-1941) - founded the Boy Scouts of America (Cincinnati)
• Willard H. Bennett - inventor (Findlay)
• Ambrose Bierce - journalist (Meigs County)
• Bill Boyd - actor, played Hopalong Cassidy (Cambridge)
• Erma Bombeck - columnist
• William Jennings Bryan - presidential candidate (Salem)
• William Meriam Burton - inventor (Cleveland)
• Drew Carey (1958- ) - actor, writer, comedian (Cleveland)
• Milton Caniff - cartoonist (Hillsboro)
• Hart Crane - poet (Garrettsville)
• George Armstrong Custer - army officer (New Rumley)
• Dorothy Dandridge - actress (Cleveland)
• Clarence Seward Darrow - attorney (Kingsman)
• Ruby Dee - actress (Cleveland)
• Doris Day (1924- ) - actress, singer (Cincinnati)
• Hugh Downs - television broadcaster (Akron)
• Paul Laurence Dunbar - poet (known as the poet laureate of African Americans)
• Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) - inventor with more than 1,000 patents; developed the incandescent light bulb, phonograph, and early motion picture camera (Milan)
• Daniel D. Emmett - entertainer
• Clark Gable (1901-1960) - actor (Cadiz)
• James Abram Garfield (1831-1881) - 20th U.S. president (Cuyahoga County)
• Cass Gilbert - architect (Zanesville)
• Lillian Gish - actress (Springfield)
• John Herschel Glenn (1921- ) - astronaut, U.S. senator; 1962 - first American to orbit the earth; 1998 - oldest man to go into space (Cambridge)
• Charles Goodyear - developed the process of vulcanizing rubber in 1839.
• Ulysses Simpson Grant (1822-1885) - 18th president (Point Pleasant)
• Zane Grey (1875-1939) - author of western novels (Zanesville)
• Arsenio Hall (1958- ) - actor, talk show host (Cleveland)
• Charles Martin Hall - inventor (Thompson)
• Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865-1923) - 29th president (Morrow County)
• Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) - 23rd president (North Bend)
• William Henry Harrison (1773-1841) - U.S. president
• Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822-1893) - 19th president (Delaware, OH)
• Robert Henri - painter (Cincinnati)
• Bob Hope (1903-2003) - entertainer, comedian (grew up in Cleveland)
• William Dean Howells - author, critic (Martins Ferry)
• DeHart Hubbard - first African American to earn an Olympic Gold Medal (set the record for long-jumping in 1924)
• Charles F. Kettering - inventor (Loudonville)
• Kenisaw Mountain Landis - first baseball commissioner (Millville)
• John Mercer Langston - first African American elected to public office, elected clerk of Brownhelm in 1854
• Maya Lin - artist, sculptor (Athens)
• Dean Martin - entertainer (Steubenville)
• Toni Morrison - author (Lorain)
• William McKinley (1843-1901) - 25th president (Niles)
• Paul Newman - actor
• Jack Nicklaus - golfer
• George W. Norris - U.S. Senator (Sandusky)
• Annie Oakley (1860-1926) - sharpshooter, entertainer, performed in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (Darke County)
• Jesse Owens (1913-1980) - won four gold medals in the 1936 Summer Olympics (grew up in Cleveland)
• Norman Vincent Peale - clergyman (Bowerville)
• Roy J. Plunkett - chemist, invented Teflon in 1938 (New Carlisle)
• Tyrone Power - actor (Cincinnati)
• Judith Resnik (1949-1986) - astronaut, second American woman to go into space (Akron)
• Edward V. Rickenbacker - aviator (Columbus)
• Pete Rose (1941- ) - baseball player (Cincinnati)
• Philip Henry Sheridan - soldier
• William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) - army general (Lancaster)
• Steven Spielberg (1941- ) - director, screenwriter (Cincinnati)
• Gloria Steinem - feminist (Toledo)
• R. L. Stine (1943- ) - author of children's books
• Robert A. Taft - public official
• William Howard Taft (1857-1930) - 27th president (Cincinnati)
• Tecumseh - Shawnee chief (Oldtown)
• Lowell Thomas - explorer, radio commentator, author (Woodington)
• James Grover Thurber - humorist (Columbus)
• Ted Turner - businessman (Cincinnati)
• Orville (1871-1948) and Wilbur (1867-1912) Wright - inventors of the airplane (Dayton)
• Cy Young - baseball player (Gilmore)

You know you are from Ohio if...

• "Toward the lake" means "north" and "toward the river" means "south."
• "Vacation" means spending a day at Cedar Point or King's Island.
• All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, or grain.
• Down south to you means Kentucky.
• Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.
• Schools close for the state basketball tournament. Deer season, too.
• Stores don't have bags; they have sacks.
• The local paper covers national and international headlines on one page but requires 6 pages for sports.
• You always visit more than two amusement parks in one summer.
• You can spell words like Cuyahoga and Olentangy and you know which letter is doubled in "Cincinnati."
• You carry jumper cables in your car.
• You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
• You don't think of Florida first when someone mentions Miami.
• You end your sentences with an unnecessary preposition. Example: "Where's my coat at?"
• You find -20 degrees F "a little chilly".
• You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.
• You know all 4 seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter, and Construction.
• You know if other Ohioians are from southern or northern Ohio as soon as they open their mouths.
• You know several people who have hit a deer.
• You know that Serpent Mound was not made by snakes.
• You know what "cow tipping" or "Possum Kicking" is.
• You know what a real buckeye is, and have a recipe for candy ones.
• You know what game they're playing when the Mud Hens take on the Clippers.
• You know what pop is.
• You know what's knee-high by the Fourth of July.
• You know which leaves make good toilet paper.
• You live less than 30 miles from some college or university.
• You measure distance in minutes.
• You only own 3 spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup.
• You root for a college team though you've never taken a class there.
• You see a car running in the parking lot at the store with no one in it no matter what time of the year.
• You see people wear bib overalls at funerals.
• You snicker when someone's from Tiffin, because you think of the State Hospital.
• You think ethanol makes your truck "run a lot better."
• You think everyone from a bigger city has an accent.
• You think of the major four food groups as beef, pork, beer, and Jell-O salad with marshmallows.
• You think Pro football teams are supposed to wear orange!
• You think sexy lingerie is tube socks and a flannel nightie.
• You think that deer season is a national holiday.
• You thought that the Michael Stanley Band was the most popular band in the country.
• Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway.
• Your school classes were canceled because of cold.
• Your school classes were canceled because of heat.
• You're proud of your state fair, but would rather go to Cedar Point.
• You've ever had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day.
• You've heard of 3.2% beer.
• You've heard of the Great Nickel Beer Night Riot.
• You've never met any celebrities.
• You've ridden the school bus for an hour each way.
• You've seen all the biggest bands ten years after they were popular.
• You actually get these jokes and forward them to all your Ohio friends.