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00000173-90ba-d20e-a9f3-93ba728f0000In 1940, the Federal Writers Project produced a massive book detailing the scenic treasures and everyday life along Ohio’s roads - roads that went through the big cities as well as through farmland and tucked-away places. Seventy years later, the roads have changed and the pulse of the people is different – in some places. Picking up where the Federal Writers Project left off, in 2012, the Ohio Humanities Council launched the Road Trip! radio series and The New Ohio Guide Audio Tours at SeeOhioFirst.org. This new guide takes those older routes and gives them a 21st century twist, recreating them as free downloadable audio tours, and the Road Trip! radio series.

New Ohio Guide: Logan

Sandra Sleight-Brennan
The arch at the Old Town creek

Today we're traveling along Rt 33 and our first stop is in the town of Logan. Logan has a long produced clay products. There were once a number of clay companies here. Those clay products - and others that were locally produced, once left town one way, by the Hocking Valley canal. Built in the 1830s the canal ran from Athens to Carroll. Dr David Mould of Ohio University has studied transportation routes in the Hocking River Valley.

"The canals had been the first major public works project for the state of Ohio, a massive investment to open up the state to commerce," says Mould.

The 56 mile canal cost about a million dollar to build. It had 26 locks, seven culverts, and one aqueduct. A few of these canal remnants still exist along Route 33. Geographer Tom O'Grady has visited most of them. He took me to a piece of the canal that was right on old Route 33 in Logan, at Old Town Creek.

There is a parking lot and a walking trail there now. But the aqueduct is unmarked. The cut stones arch up and over the creek. The canal once did that too - it went over the creek. When you walk to the back side of the structure what you'll see is a cut stone keystone arch that crosses the creek, but from this side you also see that it's been built on a logs that span the creek. Logs that have been there for over 170 years.

"So since they’ve been underwater the whole time they’ve been pretty well preserved. Those are trees that were cut down in Hocking County probably in the 1820s, 1830s. Those are some remnants of the primeval forest of SE Ohio," says O'Grady.

I had always wondered how they cut all those massive stones. I found my answer in Logan. Logan native, Sam Stone, had heard the story.

"And they would drill a hole in the rock and they would take oak pegs and drive down in and they’d pour water on top of it," says Stone. "And the water would go into the pegs and expand and that would break that off. And then they’d come back the next day and they’d all be broke loose."

Simple tools - wood and water to set such dramatic results. Although most of the canal is gone, its presence is still felt along Rt 33. There are canal locks preserved near Haydenville and Nelsonville. And another stone culvert exists near Haydenville. The ballpark at Nelsonville boast bleachers made by WPA workers out of canal block and Rt. 33 in Nelsonville used to be the canal - that's why so many houses have back yards that back onto Rt. 33 or Canal Street.

You can download an audio tour of Rt. 33 and explore it on your own. Just visit SeeOhioFirst.org. The New Ohio Guide is produced by the Ohio Humanities Council, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.