Ohio Trivia & Tidbits
Looking for Ohio trivia? Try our list Ohio little know facts, tidbits and trivia.
—J. Russell Coffey, the oldest known surviving U.S. veteran of World War I, died last December at a nursing home in North Baltimore (pop. 3,361) at age 109. Coffey enlisted in the Army while he was a student at Ohio State University in October 1918. At the time of his death, Coffey was one of three remaining World War I veterans.
first appeared: 5/4/2008
—The world’s smallest drug-sniffing police dog is Midge, an 8-pound Chihuahua-rat terrier mix that assists the Geauga County Sheriff’s Office. The tiny crime fighter is so popular that she has her own e-mail address and trading cards.
first appeared: 3/9/2008
—Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets Jr. flew history’s first atomic bombing mission, dropping the bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, during the final days of World War II. Tibbets died last year at age 92 in Columbus.
first appeared: 2/24/2008
—Honda of America Manufacturing in Marysville (pop. 15,942) produces cars, motorcycles and soybeans. The crop is shipped to Japan in containers that arrive in the United States with vehicle parts.
first appeared: 2/10/2008
—Architect Cass Gilbert, who was born in 1859 in Zanesville (pop. 25,586), designed the Woolworth Building in New York City. The gothic skyscraper, completed in 1913 and the world’s tallest building at that time, was commissioned by Frank W. Woolworth, owner of the five-and-dime chain.
first appeared: 1/27/2008
—The Citizens Motorcar Co., known as America’s Packard Museum, in Dayton is located in the original 1917 Packard Dealership Building with an art deco-style showroom displaying more than 50 of the classic automobiles.
first appeared: 1/13/2008
—The only person elected two times to the Country Music Hall of Fame is Roy Rogers (1911-1998), who was inducted in 1980 as a member of the original Sons of the Pioneers and in 1988 as an individual for his own career achievements. Rogers was born Leonard Franklin Slye in Cincinnati.
first appeared: 12/30/2007
—Jorn Barger, born in 1953 in Yellow Springs (pop. 3,761), is credited with coining the term weblog in 1997 to describe the process of “logging the web.” Barger created his own webpage, Robot Wisdom, which included links to interesting sites that he found on the Internet, plus his own comments.
first appeared: 12/2/2007
—Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Jim Borgman has created cartoons for The Cincinnati Enquirer since 1976. Born in Cincinnati in 1954, he co-created with Jerry Scott the popular daily comic strip Zits.
first appeared: 11/18/2007
—The cornerstone was laid in 1886 for the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield (pop. 49,346), a castle-like structure with the world’s largest free-standing steel cell block. Now a historic site, the prison has been the setting for several movies, including The Shawshank Redemption and Air Force One.
first appeared: 11/4/2007
—Discovered in 1897, Ohio Caverns in West Liberty (pop. 1,813) is the state’s largest cave, with a profusion of crystal-white stalactites and stalagmites.
first appeared: 10/21/2007
—Astronaut Sunita Williams lived in the international space station for 195 days, the longest single spaceflight for a woman. Williams, who was born in 1965 in Euclid (pop. 52,717), returned to Earth in June on space shuttle Atlantis.
first appeared: 10/7/2007
—During 5 p.m. rush-hour traffic on Dec. 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge across the Ohio River collapsed, killing 46 people. The bridge, built in 1928, linked Kanauga with Point Pleasant, W.Va. (pop. 4,637).
first appeared: 9/30/2007
—At Topiary Garden in Columbus’ Old Deaf School Park, about 80 yew trees have been clipped and trained into shapes of people, boats, dogs, a monkey and a cat to re-create the Georges Seurat impressionist painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
first appeared: 9/9/2007
—Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. rose to prominence at age 29 when his book, The Age of Jackson, about President Andrew Jackson won the 1946 Pulitzer Prize for history. The Columbus native won a second Pulitzer 20 years later for A Thousand Days, an account of his role as special assistant to President John F. Kennedy.
first appeared: 8/26/2007
—A 10,000-pound sculpture of a graduation cap is suspended by 13 steel cables and five masts at Franklin University in Columbus. The sculpture, “Commencing,” was commissioned to celebrate the university’s centennial in 2002.
first appeared: 8/19/2007
—The last cow to live at the White House was Pauline, who provided milk for President William Howard Taft, who served from 1909 to 1913. Taft was born in 1857 in Cincinnati.
first appeared: 8/12/2007
—Montpelier (pop. 4,320) has bragging rights to the world’s tastiest tap water. In 2003, 2006 and 2007, the village won top honors at the International Water Tasting in Berkeley Springs, W.Va.
first appeared: 7/15/2007
—In 1962, Lou Groen of Cincinnati invented the Filet-O-Fish sandwich at his floundering McDonald’s restaurant to satisfy his customers, who were mostly Roman Catholic and abstained from eating meat on Friday. The sandwich, with cheese and tartar sauce, now is served at McDonald’s restaurants around the world.
first appeared: 7/1/2007
—Astronaut Sunita Williams, born in 1965 in Euclid (pop. 52,717), has spent more time spacewalking than any other woman. She has logged more than 22 hours since she and a crewmate upgraded the international space station’s cooling system in February.
first appeared: 6/17/2007
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