There is wonder, greatness, and weirdness in the past, present, or future of just about everywhere you go in this country — and usually all three.
I t is unclear whether Tennessee Williams actually believed that “America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans” and that “everywhere else is Cleveland.” It seems unlikely. For one thing, the man born Thomas Lanier Williams made “Tennessee” his pen name to acknowledge his Southern origins.
But the idea that the immense non-coastal portion of the country is uninteresting is commonplace nonetheless. For a more verifiable expression of it, refer to cartoonist Saul Steinberg’s 1976 New Yorker cover “View of the World from 9th Avenue.” It’s a humorous caricature of how New York City residents view the rest of the country, yet one that urban elites often live down to. Two years after her election loss, Hillary Clinton bragged that she “won the places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product . . . the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward.”
Residents of the locales that do not always command national attention should not credit such callous assessments. And those who issue them should get out more. They would discover that America is a vast nation, spanning oceans and containing multitudes. There is wonder, greatness, and weirdness in the past, present, or future of just about everywhere you go in this country — and usually all three.
As a native of Cincinnati, I’m more familiar with its contributions to America’s patchwork greatness and eccentricity than I am with Cleveland’s. As part of National Review magazine’s Our Spacious Skies feature, which is dedicated to elaborating upon this aspect of our national character, I have already had the chance to relate local wonders to readers. One, a Medieval-style castle built over decades mostly by a solitary eccentric, was already known to me. It is practically in my backyard. Another, the Hollow Earth–shaped grave of a man whose surname is all over Southwest Ohio, though not far away, was new to me.
Other aspects of Cincinnati are now lost to history. But what a history. And it’s one that the present sometimes echoes. When, in May 2016, employees at the Cincinnati Zoo were forced to kill a gorilla named Harambe that was roughly handling a child who had fallen into its enclosure, it would have been hard to imagine a comparable incident. Little did I know that Harambe’s death was far from the most gruesome animal culling to have taken place at the Cincinnati Zoo. In 1889, the zoo unwisely took in Chief, a rowdy elephant that had killed a previous keeper, routinely escaped his confines, and habitually pelted debris at nearby humans. His behavior in Cincinnati proved consistent with his record; he was marked for euthanizing. A small firing squad assembled for the occasion. But it did not go as planned. As Greg Hand recounts in Cincinnati Curiosities:
The three riflemen lined up, took aim and fired one volley, to no effect. They fired again and then a third time. A fourth volley sent only two bullets into Chief’s body because one of the rifles misfired. At this point, [Al] Bandle [a member of the squad] stepped closer and aimed a shot behind Chief’s ear. He fired, and Chief “uttered a terrible screech.” It was, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported, “his death yell. Those who heard it will never forget it. This shot settled him and the vicious beast fell on his left side, almost rolling onto his back, shaking the wooden building. There was a yell of triumph from the crowd.”
(I must add that the Cincinnati Zoo is a world-class institution that should not be defined by these incidents.)
Indulge my provinciality as I enumerate other roadside rarities, easily accessible by car from my hometown. If you head up I-71 to Columbus, you’ll see the Ten Commandments on two large billboards. Head back down, and you’ll be reminded on the back of the same billboards that “Hell Is Real” and asked, “If you died today where would you spend eternity?” Going up I-75 instead? Then you’ll pass a large statue of Jesus in front of Solid Rock Baptist Church. Its predecessor was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Closer to Cleveland, you can drive by the nation’s (and possibly the world’s) largest statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Ohio’s casual charms are not limited to the religious. Those with a hankering for the huge can be dwarfed by Cleveland’s giant stamp. They can also drop down to Sugarcreek to visit what its residents claim is the world’s largest cuckoo clock. Those of the opposite persuasion can drive along McKinley Street, which residents of Bellefontaine hold to be the nation’s shortest. Superlatives elude the various roads around Circleville with the word “Hitler” in them, but rest assured: There is no relation. The Longaberger Basket Company may no longer occupy its giant, basket-shaped building, but curious curiosity-seekers can still behold it. And those who want to ensure that a part of them stays in Ohio forever can put a stick of gum on the wall of Maid-Rite Sandwich Shoppe in Greenville. (All of these curios, and more, are collected in the invaluable anthology Weird Ohio.)
This catalogue has barely done my home state justice. (Atlas Obscura gets a little closer to doing that.) But if my little hometown, the greater region that contains it, and the state has passed into the Zoomer imagination as so oppressively mundane that Gen Zers make memes about it contain such attractions . . . how much other astounding variety must this country contain?
New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans (and even Cleveland) contribute to this variety, to be sure. But just because it is not always conveniently contained in glittering towers, or within walking or subway distance of wherever political and cultural elites congregate, does not mean it doesn’t exist. In fact, the very obscurity of such nuggets deepens their charm. Their local appreciators attest to this charm with an affectionate attachment that, in itself, signifies the intense localism that also sets America apart. Your town has such things, too. If you don’t know where they are already, then what’s stopping you from looking for them?