Featured Stories
Portsmouth's First Presbyterian Church and the Antislavery Movement in Southern Ohio
In the decades leading up to the Civil War, the congregation now known as First Presbyterian of Portsmouth, Ohio, was a nexus of the antislavery movement in southern Ohio and it’s members, elders, and…
Raven Rock Nature Preserve
With its dramatic overlook, Raven Rock has long been an attraction for area residents and visitors. Its history is legendary, with some stories placing, at various moments in time, Daniel Boone and…
The Greenup Slave Revolt and David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the United States of America: Resisting the Slave Trade near the Banks of the Ohio River
On a Friday afternoon, November 20th, 1829, with the Ohio River and the hills of the northern shore as backdrop, four rebel slaves were executed at the mouth of Little Sandy, just outside the town…
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Ohio's Little Smokies
11 Locations ~ Curated by Andrew Feight, Ph.D.With the City of Portsmouth as your gateway, explore two-thousand years of human and natural history in the Shawnee State Forest Region of Scioto and Adams counties. With its misty hollows, forested ridges, and rolling hills and its spring wildflowers and dramatic fall colors, the region has become known as Ohio’s Little Smokies.
Its history stretches from the time of prehistoric Native Americans who built the Portsmouth Earthworks Complex over two-thousand years ago to more recent historical…
Portsmouth, Ohio's Jewish History
4 Locations ~ Curated by Austin ReidExplore the history of the Beneh Abraham Jewish congregation of Portsmouth, Ohio, what is recognized as the third oldest Jewish community in Ohio. Learn how Beneh Abraham was formed in the late 1850s and discover its contributions to the development of the City of Portsmouth.
This tour visits explores the Jewish community's history through visiting the locations of the congregation's historic places of worship, along with the Hebrew Section of Greenlawn Cemetery. Complete the tour in person or…
Labold Park and Portsmouth Sports History
4 Locations ~ Curated by SSU Center for Public History, with funding, in part, from the America250-Ohio CommissionExplore Portsmouth, Ohio's sports history by visiting the birthplace of the NFL Detroit Lions and the baseball diamond where future Major League Baseball Hall of Famers once competed. Learn about Simon Labold, a local businessman and philanthropist, whose 1925 donation of lands in the city's East End paved the way for the development of a youth and professional athletic complex that hosted some of the nation's greatest football and baseball players.
Visit the site where Jim Thorpe led the…
Portsmouth's Boneyfiddle District
14 Locations ~ Curated by Andrew Feight, Ph.D.Explore two-hundred years of history in Portsmouth’s Boneyfiddle District, where the community’s oldest churches, residences, retail stores, and factories were located in the 19th Century. See the results of a fifty-year effort at historic preservation and economic redevelopment and visit sites connected to the beginnings of the city’s iron and steel industry, the Underground Railroad (UGRR), the abolition of slavery, innovative businessmen and women in the Gilded Age, and a successful NAACP…
CCC in Shawnee State Park and Forest
11 Locations ~ Curated by Andrew Feight, Ph.D.The 1930s mark one of the most important decades in Shawnee State Forest’s history. With unemployment rates as high as 25% nationally, and even higher in some cities, the Great Depression provided the impetus for a major expansion of state-owned forest lands, improvement of forest roads, and the development of recreational infrastructure in what would become Shawnee State Park. As part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, Congress passed the Emergency Conservation Work Act of 1933,…
About
Scioto Historical
A project by Andrew Feight, Ph.D.Scioto Historical is an educational mobile app and website that puts the history of southern Ohio at your fingertips. Learn about American and local history through map-based, interactive, multimedia presentations and experience professionally curated virtual historical tours on your laptop, tablet, or on a screen in your classroom. With its mobile app, Scioto Historical can guide you to historical locations and augment any walking or driving tour.
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