Many Ohio University students come to Athens from suburbs of cities such as Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh or Akron. While all those cities have histories of accepting migration from Appalachia, not much Appalachian character can be found in those places. A suburb of Toledo could be dropped into Dayton and nobody could tell they had changed cities.
But driving to Athens from one of those homogenous suburbs is another thing entirely. It’s not just the very hilly, forested geography of southeast Ohio – foreign to young people who grew up in the glaciated northern and western parts of the state. The awareness of a new and different environment also comes from the scarcity of people and development in this part of the state, the neglect of home and property that’s common to poor rural areas, and the general air of poverty that permeates some of the rural communities and enclaves.
the other hand, Appalachian Ohio is full of hard-working and interesting people who grew up here, with many pursuing vocations and hobbies connected to the unique landscape and culture of the region. While many leave for opportunities in the big city, many end up staying and scraping out a life in a perpetually depressed economy.
This Region Has Unique Character
Whatever your view of these things, you’ve got to admit that Appalachian Ohio possesses a special character that no other part of the state can claim. There’s no chance you’ll confuse Nelsonville or Albany, Ohio, with any of the dozens of suburbs and exurbs surrounding the state’s bigger cities, and the amount of undeveloped land – hills, hollows, pastures and ridges – is unrivaled anywhere else in Ohio. For example, southeast Ohio boasts the only national forest (the Wayne) in Ohio.
Now that we’ve established that as an Ohio University student, you now live in a part of Ohio that has its own interesting character and culture, it’s time to talk about how to engage and get the most from this different type of place. Sure, it’s possible to attend four or five years of college in Athens without ever engaging with the people of Appalachian Ohio. That’s probably what a majority of OU students do.
However, if you’re new to Athens or perhaps in your second or third year at OU, consider capitalizing on the opportunity of living in a different type of place, with character and history to spare. How do you do that? We’re glad you asked. Following are some tips on how to really experience this place where you’ve decided to attend college.
How to Experience Appalachian Ohio
• Get out of Athens. If you have access to a car or a bike, travel into the countryside. Athens County has hundreds of miles of rural county and township roads, any of which will help fill in the details of Appalachian Ohio, in its geography, culture, dialect, architecture and people. No cookie-cutter, look-alike tract houses here. You can see a hilltop manse overlooking 20 miles of tree-covered hills, and then around the curve, drop into a hollow containing a small complex of ramshackle trailer homes, surrounded by 100 years’ worth of rust and plastic. That’s a stereotype, yes, but one that will be confirmed multiple times on any drive through rural Athens County.
• Take your bike on a cruise of the Hockhocking Adena Bikeway that runs from Athens’ Far East Side all the way northwest to Nelsonville. The farther away from college-town Athens you get, the nearer you’ll get to the authentic Appalachia for which Athens is mainly an exception. There’s plenty of local history to be found, too, with the bike path paralleling the old Hocking Canal northwest of Athens, and traces of very old farms, railroads and coal mines hidden in plain sight along the path. Southeast of Nelsonville, on the west side of the bikeway, rising from a marshy area is a series of concrete arches that march into the hills, what’s left of an old railroad spur that brought coal into the valley for iron-smelting in the late 1800s.
• Spend an afternoon in one of the former coal-mining towns of northern Athens County (or Perry or Hocking or Morgan counties). Glouster, Millfield, Murray City, New Straitsville, Corning, Shawnee, Nelsonville and many more – these “little cities of black diamonds” as they’re called still exude Appalachian grit and charm.
• Once the pandemic is behind us, start attending festivals that nearly every town or small city in the region holds every year. While this idea probably depends on staying in Athens for the summer, what better excuse to schedule summer classes at OU? Amesville and Laurelville both have Fireman’s Festivals, McArthur holds a Wild Turkey Festival, Albany offers the Ohio Pawpaw Festival… Others include the St. Rose Festival in New Lexington, the Washboard Music Festival, in Logan, a major music festival in Nelsonville, county fairs in Athens County and all the counties surrounding Athens, the Ohio River Revival in Ironton, Sweet Corn Festival in Marietta, Roy Rogers Festival in Portsmouth, and many more. When you attend one of these festivals, you’ll get a few hours’ snapshot of the wide and fascinating variety of people who live in Appalachian Ohio.
• Spend an hour at the local Walmart. Athens serves as a regional commercial hub for a wide swath of southeast Ohio, and its Walmart is a magnet for the many people for whom it’s the closest big-box general-merchandise store.
• Spend an afternoon driving around looking for garage and yard sales in southeast Ohio. You’ll capture a sense of the landscape and geography of the region, while meeting a variety of interesting people (plus you might unearth some great bargains).