80 Fun Facts About Ohio

Ohio's official nickname, taken from a tree, is what?

The nickname doubles as a name for Ohioans themselves, and for Ohio State's teams.

Which city is both Ohio's capital and its most populous?

It became the capital in 1816, chosen for its central location; it is now the second-largest city in the Midwest after Chicago.

Ohio's state flag is unique among the 50 US state flags for what reason?

The swallowtail 'burgee' was designed by John Eisenmann for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition and became law in 1902.

How many stars appear on Ohio's state flag, marking its place in the order of statehood?

Thirteen stars stand for the original colonies and four more at the point of the triangle push the count to Ohio's number.

Which bird has been Ohio's official state bird since 1933?

Six other states also chose the cardinal, making it the most popular state bird in the country.

What is Ohio's official state flower?

It was adopted in 1904 in memory of assassinated president William McKinley, an Ohioan who wore one on his lapel.

Since 1965, what has been Ohio's official state beverage?

The choice honours Reynoldsburg, Ohio, where Alexander Livingston developed the modern commercial tomato in the 1800s.

Which creature is Ohio's official state insect?

It was adopted in 1975; the ladybug is a farmer's friend because it eats aphids.

Ohio's official state fossil, Isotelus maximus, is what kind of ancient animal?

Isotelus was a marine arthropod that lived some 450 million years ago when Ohio lay under a shallow tropical sea.

What is Ohio's official state mammal, adopted in 1987?

The species is also the state animal of ten other states, including neighbouring Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Ohio's name is a Seneca word for the waterway on its southern border. What does it mean?

The Iroquoian word ohiːyo has also been translated as 'great river' or 'large creek'.

Ohio joined the Union as the 17th state in which year?

President Jefferson signed the act approving Ohio's boundaries and constitution on 19 February of that year.

What did Congress do about Ohio's statehood in 1953?

Preparations for the state's 150th birthday revealed Congress had never formally admitted Ohio, so a bill fixed the oversight retroactively.

Ohio was the first state carved out of which federal domain, governed under a famous 1787 ordinance?

The 1787 Northwest Ordinance set the rules for turning the land north of the Ohio River into states; Ohio went first.

Ohio is called the 'Mother of Presidents' because how many US presidents were born there?

Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, McKinley, Taft and Harding were all Ohio-born; only Virginia has produced more.

Which Cincinnati-born president is the only person to have also been chief justice?

He reportedly enjoyed the Supreme Court far more than the White House, and historians rate his judicial career higher too.

Before they built airplanes, Orville and Wilbur Wright ran what kind of business in Dayton?

The Wright Cycle Company opened as a repair shop in 1892 and was making its own bicycles by 1896; the profits funded the flying experiments.

Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon, grew up in which small Ohio town?

He earned his pilot's licence there at 16, before he had a driver's licence.

Ohio-born astronaut John Glenn became the first American to do what, in 1962?

Friendship 7 circled the planet three times; Glenn later served 24 years as a US senator from Ohio.

In 1998 John Glenn became the oldest person to reach orbit, aboard Discovery. How old was he?

That made him the only person to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programmes.

Which Cleveland DJ, credited with popularising the term 'rock and roll', helped the city land the Rock Hall?

Cleveland also hosted the 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball, often called the first major rock concert, and put up $65 million for the museum.

Which architect designed Cleveland's glass-pyramid Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, opened in 1995?

Pei admitted he knew little about rock music when hired, so the museum's founders took him to concerts to educate him.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame stands in which Ohio city, where the NFL was founded in 1920?

The league was born in a Hupmobile car showroom there, and the local Bulldogs won back-to-back titles in 1922 and 1923.

Cedar Point, 'America's Roller Coast', sits on a Lake Erie peninsula in which Ohio city?

Its 18 roller coasters tie for the most of any amusement park in North America.

Cedar Point, the second-oldest operating amusement park in the US, opened in which year?

Only Lake Compounce in Connecticut is older; Cedar Point began as a bathing beach and beer garden.

What is the annual Ohio State vs Michigan football rivalry match known as?

Ohio State plays at Ohio Stadium, nicknamed 'the Horseshoe', which holds more than 100,000 people.

Which Ohio State running back is the only player ever to win the Heisman Trophy twice?

He won it in 1974 and 1975 under coach Woody Hayes, who racked up 205 wins and five national titles in Columbus.

Ohio State's mascot is a walking nut with a big smile. What is he called?

The university opened in 1870 as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College and now enrols more than 60,000 students in Columbus.

Which magazine's story on the burning Cuyahoga River, which 'oozes rather than flows', spurred the green movement?

The river had burned at least a dozen times before; the 1969 fire helped drive the Clean Water Act and the creation of the EPA.

The Ohio River begins at Pittsburgh where which two rivers meet?

From there it runs 981 miles to the Mississippi and carries more water than any other tributary of that river.

The Ohio River ends by pouring into the Mississippi at which Illinois town?

By discharge it is the third-largest river in the US, and about five million people drink from it.

Lake Erie, which gives Ohio 312 miles of coastline, is the smallest of the Great Lakes by which measure?

It is also the shallowest and southernmost of the five, which is why it warms fastest and freezes most often.

Which US commodore won the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie, fought near Put-in-Bay during the War of 1812?

His victory gave the United States control of the lake for the rest of the war.

The 352-foot Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial towers over Put-in-Bay on which Lake Erie landmass?

Completed in 1915, it is the highest open-air observatory run by the National Park Service; the village on the island is Put-in-Bay.

The Great Serpent Mound, a snake-shaped earthwork about 1,348 feet long, lies in which Ohio county?

Who built it is still argued over: radiocarbon dates point to the Adena around 300 BCE, but some archaeologists credit the Fort Ancient culture around 1070 CE.

In 2023 the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks became Ohio's first what?

The eight sites, built between about 1 and 400 CE, include Newark's Great Circle, 1,200 feet across with walls 16 feet high.

Cuyahoga Valley, Ohio's only national park, was upgraded from a national recreation area in which year?

It is the only national park to have started life as a recreation area, and its Brandywine Falls drops 65 feet.

What did Michigan get for giving up the Toledo Strip after the 1835 'Toledo War'?

The only blood spilled was a deputy sheriff stabbed with a penknife; the 'worthless' peninsula turned out to be full of copper and iron.

Thanks to Libbey, Owens-Illinois and Owens Corning, what nickname did Toledo earn?

The first glassmakers arrived in the 1880s; the Toledo Museum of Art still holds one of the world's great glass collections.

Which vehicle brand, built in Toledo since the Second World War, still has its headquarters there?

The wartime Willys model was Toledo's great contribution to the war effort; two plants still build the brand today.

Home to Goodyear, Firestone, General Tire and B.F. Goodrich, Akron was nicknamed what?

Only Goodyear is still based there; the city's name comes from the Greek word for 'summit'.

Which self-help fellowship was founded in Akron in 1935, marked yearly on Founders' Day?

Akron is also home to the All-American Soap Box Derby, whose world finals are run at Derby Downs.

LeBron James was born in 1984 in which Ohio city, home of St. Vincent-St. Mary High School?

He was born at what is now Summa Health Akron Campus; his I PROMISE School in the city opened in 2018.

Whom did the 2016 Cavaliers beat to become the first team to win the Finals from 3-1 down?

It was Cleveland's first major sports title since 1964, ending what fans called the Cleveland sports curse.

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who met at Cleveland's Glenville High School in 1932, created which character?

Their hero first appeared in Action Comics #1 on 18 April 1938, and the pair famously sold the rights for $130.

The Underground Railroad's main northern route crossed which anti-slavery region of northeastern Ohio?

Cleveland was founded in 1796 inside the same tract, land Connecticut had reserved for itself when it gave up its western claims.

A 'three-way' at a Cincinnati chili parlour is chili and shredded cheddar served over what?

Add onions or beans for a four-way and both for a five-way; Skyline and Gold Star are the big chains.

Which warm spice, unusual in Texas-style chili, gives Cincinnati chili its Mediterranean flavour?

The recipe came from Macedonian and Greek immigrants in the 1920s; despite the rumour, no Cincinnati parlour puts chocolate in it.

Ohio's beloved 'buckeye' candy is a ball of what, dipped in chocolate with a circle left bare?

The exposed circle mimics the nut of the state tree; Ohio's legislature moved in 2025 to make it the official state candy.

The buckeye tree gets its name because its nut looks like the eye of which animal?

The seeds are poisonous to people and cattle, though Native Americans ate them after boiling out the tannin.

Holmes County, Ohio, has the world's highest concentration of which religious community?

Nearly half the county's residents belonged to it by 2020, and the settlement is the second largest of its kind after Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Which group recorded the protest song 'Ohio' after the Kent State shootings in May 1970?

The shootings triggered the largest student strike in US history, with more than four million students walking out.

Unlike most US state capitols, the Greek Revival Ohio Statehouse has no what?

Its low conical cupola was mocked as 'a Chinese hat'; Abraham Lincoln lay in state under it in April 1865.

Dave Thomas founded which restaurant chain in Ohio in 1969, naming it after his daughter?

Its square patties were chosen so more of them fit on a grill; the company is now headquartered in Dublin, Ohio.

William Procter and James Gamble, who founded P&G in Cincinnati in 1837, were related how?

A candlemaker and a soapmaker, they married sisters and were nudged into partnership by their shared father-in-law.

Which inventor was born in Milan, Ohio, in 1847?

His family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, when he was seven, so both states claim him.

Ohio State's 'Buckeye Bullet', Jesse Owens, won four gold medals at which Olympic Games?

A year earlier, at a Big Ten meet in Ann Arbor, he set five world records and tied a sixth in 45 minutes.

Marblehead Light on Lake Erie, first lit in 1822, holds which distinction?

Its 50-foot limestone tower still flashes green every six seconds, visible for 11 nautical miles.

Old Man's Cave, Ash Cave and Cedar Falls are the star attractions of which Ohio state park?

Water carved the recess caves out of Black Hand sandstone; more than two million people visited in 2017.

In 1985 the Ohio legislature named which 1965 hit by The McCoys the official state rock song?

The Ohio State marching band has played it at football games since 1965, traditionally between the third and fourth quarters.

The 1995 Dayton Agreement, negotiated at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, ended a war in which country?

The base is also home to the National Museum of the US Air Force, the world's oldest and largest military aviation museum, with free admission.

Which president took the oath of office aboard SAM 26000 in 1963?

The same aircraft had flown Kennedy to Dallas that morning and carried his body back to Washington that night.

Cincinnati's name honours a society of officers named for a farmer-general of which ancient civilisation?

Cincinnatus gave up absolute power to go back to his plough, the model of a citizen-soldier the officers admired.

What nickname did Cincinnati's 19th-century pork-packing trade earn it?

The city's grander nickname is the Queen City, and its Roebling Suspension Bridge was the prototype for the Brooklyn Bridge.

Fiona, the premature hippo born at Cincinnati Zoo in 2017, is named after a character from which film?

She weighed just 29 pounds at birth, against a normal 55 to 120, and staff from Cincinnati Children's Hospital helped keep her alive.

What world first was installed at Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street in Cleveland in 1914?

The red-and-green signal was built by the American Traffic Signal Company and had a buzzer to warn drivers the light was about to change.

Cleveland Clinic ranked as America's best hospital in which specialty each year 1995-2024?

US News placed it No. 1 in cardiology and heart surgery every year from 1995; it also opened hospitals in Florida, Nevada, Abu Dhabi, Toronto and London.

Which of these states does NOT share a border with Ohio?

Ohio touches five states plus Ontario, Canada, across Lake Erie.

With nearly 11.9 million people, where does Ohio rank among US states by population?

By area it is only 34th, so it packs a lot of people into a mid-sized state.

What is Ohio's official state motto?

The words come from the Gospel of Matthew; an ACLU lawsuit to have them removed failed in 2001.

The Ohio Caverns, the state's largest cave system, lie near which town about 30 miles from Dayton?

About 90 percent of its stalactites and stalagmites are still growing.

Which city was Ohio's first capital, from 1803 to 1810?

Zanesville held the seat for two years as a legislative compromise before it went back, then moved permanently to Columbus in 1816.

Which Revolutionary War veteran, who led the settlement of Marietta, is called the 'father of Ohio'?

He and Cutler helped shape the Northwest Ordinance, and he set aside large tracts of land for schools.

Morgan's Raid of July 1863 ended with which battle in far eastern Ohio?

Almost 35,000 Ohioans died in the war, and the Union's top generals at its end were all from the state.

Ohio's record high of 113 °F was set in 1934 near which town on the Ohio River?

The record low of −39 °F came at Milligan during the Great Blizzard of February 1899.

The 1913 Great Dayton Flood, Ohio's worst weather disaster, led to the creation of what?

It was the first major floodplain engineering project in the United States, covering the whole Great Miami watershed.

What is the 'Polish Boy', described as the signature sandwich of Cleveland?

Columbus claims Johnny Marzetti, a casserole of noodles, ground beef, tomatoes and cheese.

Which Ohio college became the first in the US to admit women, in 1837?

It had already been among the earliest to admit African Americans two years before; Kenyon, founded 1824, is the state's oldest private liberal arts college.

Which pioneering coast-to-coast road, chosen in 1913, passed through Mansfield, Wooster and Lima?

It was the first road across America, linking New York City to San Francisco; the older National Road still runs 228 miles through the state.

One of Ohio's first iron blast furnaces opened in 1804 near which city?

By the mid-19th century 48 furnaces were running, mostly in the south, and coal discoveries fuelled a steel industry.