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

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, including:

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.