Ohio has more history than it did in 1974. Ohio Village will, too

Since I was a kid I’ve been fascinated with history, pouring for hours over a collection of front pages of The Columbus Dispatch that my mom bought me at the state fair, or a reprint of a 1903 Sears catalogue she got… somewhere, or yellowing hardbound editions of American Heritage magazine.

But the fascination also goes back to something more tangible — and to a place only yards away from the fairgrounds. To the grounds of the brutalist Ohio History Center that went up in 1970. 

Four years later, Ohio Village opened there — a recreation of an 1890 village. 

For an 11-year-old, it was history made flesh as I walked the grounds and through the buildings and talked with interpreters in period costume doing things like blacksmithing or cooking over an open fire.

It seemed so cool because it was so rustic. My suburban life couldn’t possibly compete.

Of course, I couldn’t know all the things I’d later learn about the sanitation, diseases, and social mores of the time. But it was a powerful connection to my grandparents’ parents — some of whom had lived within a half-mile of that very spot in 1890. 

I’ll never forget it — and I’ll bet the same is true for most kids and adults now. Only now, it will be an outdoor museum that has seen more than $20 million in improvements. 

It also has an expanded mission that seeks to encompass a much longer period. And it not only seeks to teach visitors, but to learn from them as well.

“It’s been open for more than 50 years,” said Neil Thompson, marketing manager for the Ohio History Connection, which operates Ohio Village.

“It’s been a beloved, iconic place for all that time. We want it to be a beloved, iconic place for the next 50 years. So we want to remain relevant. When you think about how you do that, you have to have some flexibility and versatility for different time periods. When it comes to interpretation, you want to tell different stories.”

Closed since 2024, the improved Ohio Village will permanently reopen next spring.

I’m fond of saying that everybody loves history, some people just don’t know it yet. In other words, they need a point of contact — a way in. A way to see themselves or people like them in that distant mirror, as Barbara Tuchman put it.

For many, places like Ohio Village are just that, a place you can go inhabit and get a sense of what it was like back when.

It’s crazy to contemplate (for me, anyway), but the opening of Ohio Village is 52 years from the present day, while in 1974 it was 84 years removed from the period it sought to recreate. So we’re more than half as far away from Ohio Village’s opening as that was from 1890.

Michael Fouts, interpretive supervisor at Ohio Village, said it was important that the museum expand its mission to accommodate all that additional time that has passed.

“There are so many stories we couldn’t touch on because it was 1890 specifically,” he said during a July 20 press preview at the village.

“The turn of the century was such an important time for Ohio history and American history. Now we get to expand out to really important events such as World War I, the passage of the 19th Amendment (acknowledging women’s right to vote), the Great Depression. There’s all this important history packed into the early 1900s, so we get to share that now and hear people’s personal connection to all these stories as well.”

One way the staff intends to do that is by placing period-specific items in buildings along with interpreters who can speak to them.

Instead of role-playing as if they’re from an earlier time, the interpreters will speak as modern people who are knowledgeable about the period they’re interpreting.

“So speaking of that World War I era, we have Taylor House that is in the back of the village,” Fouts said.

“People will come in and they’ll see a German-language Bible, they’ll see German-language newspapers, they’ll later know that it’s the World War I era and they’ll be able to experience what this family experienced in Ohio as this war was going on, to give a very specific example. Cues and clues are going to be throughout the village to give that kind of backstory.”

Such a setting is poignant because it doesn’t just illustrate the official narrative of the era — that the United States was joining the Great War to make the world “safe for democracy.”

Despite the progressive rhetoric, the government also engaged in some harshly repressive measures — including against Ohio’s large German-American population.

Fouts said countless Ohioans undoubtedly have family stories about these and other experiences from the eventful half-century running from the Gilded Age through the Great Depression.

The History Connection wants to gather these on “talkback boards” and during special programming and events.

“We hope that this will be open for folks to come in and have a lot more in-depth conversation about what went on,” Fouts said. “They can come in, share their stories about their family histories, tell us about things they know from their past.”

What exactly will be done with the stories that are gathered is still to be determined. But the idea is to expand the period to look for pieces of history that are more personal to modern Ohioans

Civil War generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, both Ohioans, “are really great histories to learn, but we want to dive into everyday life,” Fouts said. 

And of course, everyday life is what living-history museums specialize in — and that’s what gives the experience its power. 

I still go to them whenever I get a chance and I always remember my visits. Like that day about six years ago that I stopped into The Print Shop in Dayton’s Carillon Historical Park. 

An aging newspaperman in an old, old-time newsroom. It was a total nerd fest, and I learned a lot.

Fouts said his group would try to cultivate that for others, whether it’s through a toy shop for kids or classes and craft demonstrations in Ohio Village’s buildings or events in the new bandstand.

“There’s a human connection when you’re hearing it from another person,” he said. “It makes a deeper impact — and when you’re in the setting too.”

This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.