1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (68 page)

Cleveland is hardly the hub of the music industry, and indeed the hall’s highest-profile event, the annual induction ceremony, usually takes place in New York. But it’s rich in rock history: It was in Cleveland that radio disc jockey Alan Freed, who is credited with coining the term “rock and roll,” broke racial boundaries with his broadcasts and put on the country’s first
rock concert, the original Moondog Coronation Ball in 1952. By the time the Hall of Fame opened in 1995, it had become a catalyst for the renewal of a downtown that had been a famous example of urban decline. It symbolizes not just the energy of rock and roll, but the energy of the new Cleveland as well. Ohio claims a “Hall of Fame Corridor,” and this is its northern cap: The National Inventors’ Hall of Fame can be found in Akron and the hugely popular Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton (see p. 558).

The museum’s drum-shaped spire houses an exhibit showcasing the Hall of Fame’s inductees.

W
HERE
: One Key Plaza, 751 Erieside Ave. Tel 800–764-ROCK or 216–781-7625;
www.rockhall.com
.

Geologic Drama in the Wild Midwest

Ohio

Between Columbus and the Ohio River to the southeast lies a set of scenic wonders little known outside this part of the Midwest. Hocking Hills comprises several state parks and reserves where spectacular rock
formations are cloaked in dense forest that goes Technicolor in autumn. Cliffs, gorges, and caves were created here as glaciers and running water scoured sandstone laid down in an ancient river delta over 300 million years ago, creating a natural magnet for those today in search of a chance to hike, canoe, rock-climb, and rappel, even catch a ride on the Hocking Valley Scenic Railroad.

Several of the area’s most dramatic formations are gathered in the Hocking Hills State Park, at the center of the region. At the southern end of the park is the horseshoe-shaped Ash Cave, a huge rock shelter 700 feet long and 100 feet deep that is Ohio’s largest recess cave, with evidence of prehistoric inhabitants; a tributary of Queer Creek pours over the cave rim 90 feet from the floor. Old Man’s Cave to the north, named after a hermit who lived in it two centuries ago (and is buried on the site), is a smaller version but perhaps the park’s most frequented site, with seven different hiking routes from easy to difficult leading to it through undisturbed woods and ravines. At the northern end of the park is Rock House, a 200-foot tunnel along a sandstone cliff face with enormous windowlike openings carved out over time by water erosion. Among the highlights outside the park is the 100-foot natural bridge at Rockbridge State Nature Reserve, a stunning span 50 feet above the bottom of a gorge. Everywhere, hiking and horse trails meander through the hills, including a stretch of the Buckeye Trail, a 1,435-mile circuit trail that loops all around the state.

Located on the Buckeye Trail, Cedar Falls is one of the largest waterfalls in the Hocking Hills.

For a window into the life of the pioneers who settled here in the foothills of the Appalachians, Robbins Crossing, a village of early 19th-century log cabins complete with antique tools and furnishings, features interpreters in period garb who demonstrate such activities as blacksmithing, cooking, herb gardening, and lace making. For your own 1840s cabin, stay at the Inn at Cedar Falls, romantically nestled into a forest setting surrounded on three sides by the state park. In addition to
the five historic renovated cabins, there are also newer cottages, a nine-room B&B inn, a spa, and an atmospheric restaurant.

W
HERE
: Park headquarters are in Logan, 55 miles southeast of Columbus. Tel 740–385-6842;
www.ohiodnr.com/parks/parks/hocking.htm
.
H
OCKING
V
ALLEY
S
CENIC
R
AILROAD
: Nelsonville. Tel 800–967-7834 or 740–753-9531;
www.hvsry.org
.
When:
Sat–Sun, May–early Nov.
R
OBBINS
C
ROSSING
: Nelsonville. Tel 877–462-5464 or 740–753-3591.
When:
Sat–Sun, Jun–Oct.
I
NN AT
C
EDAR
F
ALLS
: Logan. Tel 800–653-2557 or 740–385-7489;
www.innatcedarfalls.com
.
Cost:
from $89 (off peak), from $119 (peak).
B
EST TIMES
: fall for foliage; mid-Jan for Winter Hike.

Out of Place, Out of Time

Holmes County, Ohio

Ohio’s rural eastern region around Holmes County is home to the country’s greatest concentration of Amish settlements. Often misunderstood and romanticized for their culture of peace and simplicity, the Amish are
the most conservative of the Anabaptists who fled persecution in Europe and established flourishing farm communities in North America, beginning in the early 18th century. Following the biblical admonition to “Come out from among them and be ye separate,” they avoid the ways of outsiders—whom they call the “English”—including, in varying degrees from group to group, modern technology (although the odd cell phone is not a complete rarity). Ohio’s Amish country is a rolling pastoral landscape of thriving family farms, one-room schoolhouses (each never more than a 3-mile walk for any student), plain dress, and black horse-drawn buggies.

The heart of eastern Ohio’s 40,000-strong Amish community is the town of Berlin (accent on the first syllable), where the Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center introduces visitors to the sect’s religious and historical background. The main attraction is
Behalt
(“To Remember”), a 10-by-265-foot cyclorama that depicts the course of Amish and Mennonite history, from grisly scenes of martyrdom to bucolic barn-raisings. Not far from town is Yoder’s Amish Home, which offers buggy rides and guided tours of two 19th-century farmhouses, an Amish one-room schoolhouse, and a huge barn rivaling Noah’s Ark in its animal variety. A few miles north, in Kidron, the weekly livestock auction has been drawing English and Amish alike since 1923. After the excitement, drop by Lehman’s, the famous general store that is a sort of Amish one-stop-shopping with a buggies-only section in the parking lot, and shelves inside stocked with high-quality, old-fashioned tools, toys, and nonelectric appliances (think butter churns, gas refrigerators, and oil lamps).

A typical scene in Ohio’s Amish country: A man drives his horse and buggy in Holmes County.

Travelers can follow the 76-mile Amish Country Scenic Byway, a generally east-west route through the center of the mostly
agricultural county, or just head out on their own. In small towns with names like Charm and Mt. Hope, crafts stores, antiques shops, and flea markets abound and plenty of restaurants beckon with hearty, often German-influenced fare.

On the eastern edge of Amish country, and on one of the obscure back roads of American history, is another picturesque village founded by religious separatists: Germans escaping Lutheran persecution founded Zoar in 1817, taking the name from the place where Lot took refuge after fleeing Sodom. After a period of prosperity, the commune disbanded in 1898, and today Zoar’s population is barely 200, most of the residents direct descendants of those first settlers. Many of the fine historic buildings have been preserved as Zoar Village State Memorial, where visitors can take guided tours and costumed interpreters give crafts and cooking demonstrations.

W
HERE
: Berlin is 90 miles south of Cleveland.
Visitor info:
Tel 330–674-3975;
www.visitamishcountry.com
.
A
MISH
& M
ENNONITE
H
ERITAGE
C
ENTER
: Berlin. Tel 877–858-4634 or 330–893-3192;
www.behalt.com
.
When:
closed Sun.
Y
ODER’S
A
MISH
H
OME
: Millersburg. Tel 330–893-2541;
www.yodersamishhome.com
.
When:
closed Sun, mid-Apr–Oct.
L
EHMAN’S
: Kidron. Tel 888–438-5346 or 330–857-5757;
www.lehmans.com
.
When:
closed Sun.
W
HERE TO STAY
: The Inn at Honey Run, Millersburg. Tel 800–468-6639 or 330–674-0011;
www.innathoneyrun.com
.
Cost:
from $104 (off-peak); from $139 (peak).
A
MISH
C
OUNTRY
S
CENIC
B
YWAY
:
www.byways.org
.
Z
OAR
V
ILLAGE
S
TATE
M
EMORIAL
: Tel 800–874-4336 or 330–874-4336;
www.ohiohistory.org/places/zoar
.
When:
Wed–Sun, late May–early Sept; weekends, Apr–Oct.
B
EST TIMES
: spring for baby animals at Yoder’s; fall for harvest; weekly livestock auction Thurs in Kidron.

The Hardy Eden of the Western Reserve

Kirtland, Ohio

In 1912, mining executive Albert Fairchild Holden, a scion of Cleveland society, had intended to bestow some of his vast fortune on Harvard University’s esteemed Arnold Arboretum, but his sister, Roberta Holden Bole, argued that
the Cleveland area should have an arboretum of its own. Holden agreed, and when he died in 1913, he left a trust to provide for the establishment of an arboretum in memory of his daughter Elizabeth, who had died at age 12. From its original site—100 acres in Kirtland Township donated by Bole and her husband in 1931—Holden Arboretum has grown to 3,500 acres in the stretch of northeastern Ohio known as the Western Reserve. As the arboretum celebrated its 75th birthday in 2006, it was lushly evident that this massive Eden had taken root and is flourishing in its prime.

The arboretum specializes in woody plants hardy enough to thrive in the climatic extremes of northern Ohio, not far from the Lake Erie shore, interestingly mixed with an abundance of specimens from similar climes in China, Korea, and other far-flung places—a vast collection of nearly 19,000 plants. Among Holden’s trees are magnolias, conifers, maples, and nut trees, and yes, there are even a few Ohio buckeyes (a cousin of the horse chestnut) scattered about. The arboretum is not made up of trees alone: A blanket of blooms, season by season, includes more than
200 lilac bushes and an equal number of showy viburnum shrubs, 280 crabapple trees, 800 perennials, 10,000 spring bulbs, and the famed rhododendron garden: 1,200 specimens spread beneath a canopy of mature maple, oak, and beech trees, with azaleas, witch hazels, mountain laurels, heaths, and heathers thrown in for good measure. There are wild-flower meadows; a garden created to attract butterflies and hummingbirds; and even a hedge collection, with over 25 specimens that may awaken your inner Edward Scissorhands.