This book first appeared in 2003 as a real paper and ink publication. I got a signed copy in 2004, which, because it was small and easy to stuff between seats or in the glovebox, I kept in the car for quite some time. Based on the copyright dates, it was revised several times, but I never got a newer one, and my copy became increasingly out of date. Prior to February of this year, it looks like the most recent revision was 2016, so even the newer editions might not have been all that trustworthy. The print editions sold for next to nothing (I paid 5ドル for mine), and when Priddy updated things in February, she went beyond next and made it available for just plain nothing via Google Docs.

It’s definitely reasonable to ask why someone who is about as far from kidness as it’s possible to get, ever kept this close at hand. I mentioned the size of the hard copy. The size of the entries is another positive, as is their organization. States and the towns within them are listed east to west. The list of attractions associated with each town does not appear to be in any particular sequence. Below each attraction’s identifier is a single paragraph containing a brief description, address, telephone number, and website. The descriptions typically include cost, hours, and any other special considerations. They are not written by AI or someone following a formula who has never been there. Priddy often shares personal insights.

The book is a point of interest guide; not a route guide. It contains no maps or turn-by-turn directions to keep you on the route. However, Priddy offers some suggestions for navigation aids, along with some general road trip advice in a “Planning Your Trip” section at the back of the book. It’s for kids, although kids are not the target readers. Those are adults traveling Historic Route 66 with kids, looking for activities, restaurants, and motels that those kids might enjoy. On the other hand, it’s easy to imagine a pre-teen in the back seat, with a printed copy in hand, telling Mom and Dad exactly what the next stop will be.

Access Route 66 for Kids 2026 through the author’s blog post.

I’ve heard plenty about the latest moving picture version of Homer’s Odyssey since its July 17 release. I probably heard plenty about it before its release but wasn’t paying attention. Information was certainly out there. I’ve learned that 95% of the tickets for pre-release screenings of the movie in select theaters were sold within an hour—one year in advance! The movie made it onto my personal wish list last week when some members of my trivia team said they had seen it and were impressed. They echoed what I’d already heard: You want to see this in the theater no matter how big a screen you have in your living room.

Not to worry. I am not going to attempt to review this movie. There are lots of professionals who have already done that, and many more who will do so far into the future. Although I can’t avoid talking about the movie entirely, I intend just to describe my own experience. Clues in the opening photo suggesting I did not attend a theater showing in my local Ohio neighborhood may not be obvious. Clues in the picture at left are harder to miss.

My trivia teammates had seen the movie at a nearby IMAX theater, and thought that was a pretty good choice. Those select theaters hosting the pre-release showings had all been IMAX theaters. But they weren’t just any IMAX. They were all showing 70mm film. I felt that the 70mm to digital switch at the Cincinnati Museum Center’s OMNIMAX Theater had been a big improvement, if for no other reason than it eliminated floaters caused by dust on the film. Now the experts, including the movie’s director, were telling me that this was the ultimate way to watch Odyssey.

Apparently what they really mean is 70mm film with 15 perforations per frame (a.k.a. 15/70mm IMAX). That produces a 1.43:1 aspect ratio, which gives you a really tall picture. 41 theaters worldwide support this format. There are 25 in the United States; None in Ohio. The closest to me is at the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis.

News articles that discuss the different formats, particularly those that mention the near-instant sellout of pre-release viewings, usually also note difficulty in getting tickets to 70mm showings. Indeed, if you go to the IMAX website and select the Indiana State Museum Theater, it will show as sold out beyond next week. But for some reason, clicking the IMAX link on the museum’s website might reveal some available seats. At least it did on Monday, when it showed a few front-row seats open for most of the week’s showings, despite appearing to access the same page as the IMAX site. Not long ago I accidentally ended up in the front row of a theater where the reclining seats made it tolerable. I hoped for something similar here and purchased the third-to-last seat for Tuesday’s 11:00 showing.

My seat is just beyond the left edge of the picture I snapped when I entered the theater. Not as close as I feared but mighty close. The second picture shows the view from my seat. The projected images in both pictures are just a fraction of the real thing. When the movie starts, it fills that entire wall. Top to bottom; side to side. It was definitely closer than I—and obviously every other ticket purchaser—would prefer, but it was still quite acceptable. The big action that filled the big screen was matched by the big sound that filled the theater. I was more challenged by the seat-shaking rumbling that accompanied most action scenes than by the giant men and beasts projected in front of me. The sudden quiet after a storm or slaughter was always welcome.

After seeing the newest and probably loudest of the many movie adaptations of the Odyssey, I checked out the oldest and almost certainly quietest. L’Odissea is a 1911 Italian silent film. The music used in the YouTube version linked in the image at right has been identified by SoundHound as Edward Elgar’s Symphony No. 1. Brightly colored talking, clanking, and booming movies are nice and all, but some of these 115-year-old special effects are, in my opinion, pretty darned cool and are certainly impressive for a time when movie cameras were cranked by hand. Neither the oldest nor the newest nor any of those in between are completely true to the original poem. Every one of them leaves out something, although it seems that no one wants to leave out the Cyclops scene.

Everybody knows that it took Odysseus ten years to reach home after the war ended. Not everyone realizes that the majority of that time was a very unstressful seven years with Calypso. Still, three years of actual travel time is certainly considerable. To be fair, that was approximately 3,200 years ago. Things have changed. This trip was made just the other day, in a modern vehicle, on a land route that was not available to Odysseus and his companions, and from which sirens, cyclopes, and most other monsters have been cleared, in about half an hour.

After coming home empty-handed from my recent trip to Greenfield, IN, to hear author Brady J. Crytzer talk about his new book on the National Road, I decided to sample his writing on the cheap by checking out one of his other books from the local library. The Whiskey Rebellion interested me and was available. I had no delusions about knowing the history in detail, but I thought I had a good overview: The government imposed a tax on whiskey; some farmers didn’t want to pay it; George Washington personally led troops to confront the farmers; and the farmers paid up. End of story.

That’s not wrong, but it’s terribly oversimplified. The biggest thing missing from my four-point summary is the extreme risk the uprising posed to a new nation with its first president in his first term. This book also showed me a different, less flattering, view of Alexander Hamilton than I’d previously seen. Hamilton designed the tax and saw its enforcement and the punishment of those who opposed it as something personal.

The first indication of just how little I knew about the book’s subject was when I read that what we now call the Whiskey Rebellion was known in its own time as the Western Insurrection. I don’t believe I’d ever heard that phrase before. I instinctively thought that removing the word “whiskey” from its name made the event seem more sinister and more important. My instincts were validated in the book’s last chapter, where Crytzer writes that when the event was completely over, “Alexander Hamilton and his Federalist allies took to calling it ‘the Whiskey Insurrection’ as a means of trivializing the affair.”

Crytzer does know the details. Like any good historian, he provides dates and names for events before, during, and after the insurrection. More importantly, he places those dates and names in the bigger picture of the times. At its core, the Whiskey Rebellion was a manifestation of the period’s conflict between Federalists (e.g., Hamilton, John Adams) and Anti-Federalists (e.g., Jefferson, George Mason). The most radical of the insurrectionists took steps to establish their own government separate from that of the United States. Had Washington delivered a Gettysburg Address-style speech as he led his troops west, it might have begun “Half a score and eight years ago…”.

Washington personally commanding an army to quell the uprising is part of virtually every description of the Whiskey Rebellion ever made, including my woefully shallow one in the first paragraph. That is deserved. It is the only time that a President of the United States personally led military forces in the field. But Washington returned to Philadelphia after reaching Bedford and turning command over to Henry Lee, the Governor of Virginia. The rebellion was centered in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny, Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland counties plus Ohio County in Virginia. The 13,000 troops headed west came from Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia, and the governor of each state led their own troops.

Accompanied by Hamilton, Lee led the army into the heart of the rebellion, but there was no big confrontation or battle. As the insurrection grew, the rebels had organized militia-like forces, and they were active in attacking and terrorizing individuals and families, but they quickly dissolved as the federal forces approached. The army was put to work apprehending targeted individuals, but the targeting was not very precise and the apprehension heavy-handed more often than not. Hamilton wrote a letter to Washington suggesting the elimination of due process. On November 13, 1794, the Pittsburgh area experienced so many of what Crytzer calls “smash-and-grab-style raids” that it became known as “The Dreadful Night”. “The names provided by Hamilton and Lee,” writes Crytzer, “made no distinction between witnesses, dissidents, and cooperators…” Those grabbed were confined in deplorable conditions.

As is all too often the case, almost all of the insurrection’s ringleaders escaped. In those days, exiting the United States was as simple as floating a sufficient distance down the Ohio River. Hamilton never caught the “big fish” he hoped to make an example of, and many of the little fish and those who should not have been fish at all suffered terribly. It was early enough in our nation’s history that it might have been the first time that we behaved so badly on such a scale, but it would not be the last. It might be that the passage of time and the fact that the insurrection was unsuccessful explain what Crytzer calls “a void in scholarship surrounding the event.” Still, I have to wonder if there has been real purpose in our school books extolling Washington gallantly returning to the field while not once mentioning “The Dreadful Night.”

The Whiskey Rebellion includes several images. Some are from historical sources, but Crytzer uses his own photos when possible. These are locations described in the text, and many still have buildings standing today after playing a role in the rebellion. Somewhat related to the pictures is a nice touch that Crytzer calls “Traveler’s Notes”. These appear at the end of some chapters and include notes, such as directions, about a location mentioned in that chapter. The Jean Bonnet Tavern was among the few of these I was familiar with. It served multiple functions for both sides in the Whiskey Rebellion. Established around 1760 and still operating today, it witnessed many significant events before the rebellion and even more after. The most recent significant event that I am aware of is serving me dinner in June.

I don’t know that this old dog can actually be taught any new tricks, but I’m encouraged knowing that I can learn new facts. In The Whiskey Rebellion, Crytzer does a fine job of shining a light on a subject I knew very little about. I don’t doubt he can do the same for one about which I think I know considerably more. I plan to read his National Road book and may acquire it at a future presentation of his. If so, I’ll make an effort to check inventory before driving too far.

The Whiskey Rebellion: A Distilled History of an American Crisis, Brady J. Crytzer, Westholme Publishing (June 14, 2023), 6 x 9 inches, 224 pages, ISBN 978-1594164002
Available through Amazon .

So, I was relaxing by the bike trail in Loveland, OH, enjoying some fine weather, sipping a beer, and munching on pot stickers when I received a text message, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting in a rush-hour traffic jam on the expressway. The text was from a road-tripping friend in Indiana, and said little more than “[I] decided to make my way to Beavercreek for some snacks.” I immediately knew exactly what he was talking about.

That friend was Pat Bremer (half of the Road Trip Memories team), whose Facebook feed, like mine, had recently been filled with posts about a little store in a suburb of Dayton, OH. I knew enough of the story to understand Pat’s reference, but there was a lot I didn’t know. I’ll start with what I knew before my phone pinged in that trailside bar.

I knew that the travel center Goliath, Buc-ee’s, had sued Davidish Beaver’s Mini Mart for copyright infringement. Note that the Mini Mart doesn’t have a website or even a Facebook page. Nor does it have any gas pumps. Buc-ee’s locations tend to have a hundred or more. Many of the Facebook posts that made me (and presumably Pat) aware of this resembled this one, which identifies several local businesses that have temporarily placed a beaver in their logos in support of their longtime neighbor. The town that is home to the business being sued already had a beaver in its name. Beavercreek, OH, was incorporated as a city in 1980.

In addition to all those companies posting logos featuring beavers, customers have been showing up in droves. Snacks are being purchased, and donations are being made to a legal defense fund. There is a GoFundMe. Reportedly, lines at least as long as the one in the picture are now nearly constant.

When I met Pat in the store parking lot, I knew of but had not seen John Oliver’s July 26 segment on Buc-ee’s, and didn’t know much about their growing reputation for aggressive trademark activity. In particular, I knew nothing about their attack on Mickey’s. Pat clued me in. Mickey’s is a regional chain of convenience stores with headquarters in Milan, OH. Their stores in (削除) northeast (削除ここまで) northcentral Ohio could legitimately be considered Buc-ee’s competitors, but, as Mickey’s attorneys have astutely observed, “a moose is not a beaver.” I personally have to question whether customers who confuse one for the other are worth pursuing. The same thing could be said of folks who cannot distinguish the rodent with the red hat from the bare-headed fellow on the Mini Mart sign.

I have never been a Buc-ee’s customer candidate. This photo of the recently opened location, about 10 miles north of Beaver’s Mini Mart, is as close as I have knowingly been to one. Although they are a rapidly vanishing breed, my favorite gas stations are still those where the actual owner steps out of a tiny office or pauses an oil change to fill your tank. The further a station moves from that image, the more my fondness fades. Buc-ee’s seems to be about as far from that image as possible. The pictured location in Huber Heights is the first in Ohio. Another is planned for Mansfield. It’s pretty obvious that these are the triggers for the attacks on Beaver’s and Mickey’s.

Is the answer to the half-witty question in my title yes or no? Regarding Buc-ee’s vs. Beaver’s Mini Mart, it seems at least possible that the answer is yes. In a statement taped to their door, the little market says it will “fight this lawsuit all the way”. In addition to the surge of flat-tailed and big-toothed logos, donations are being made to support the fight. Ohio’s governor and at least one state senator have made statements condemning the lawsuits. Governor DeWine calls them “ridiculous”. Beavercreek’s city council is about to vote on a resolution “affirming the beaver as a historic symbol of the community”. All that negative publicity can’t be good, and it’s hard for me to see how even the complete disappearance of Beaver’s Mini Mart would benefit the big Texas corporation. It seems reasonable to believe that the big guy just might end the ugly-looking assault on this little guy.

As for the less focused version of that question, the answer is almost certainly no. Buc-ee’s is not at all likely to stop its expansion into Ohio. There is a movement and a petition opposing the planned Mansfield store, but land has been purchased beside I-71, and the Mansfield city council has unanimously approved the plan. The second quarter of 2028 has been floated as a possible opening date. It’s true that the signers of that petition and the people in that line at Beaver’s Mini Mart may never shop at Buc-ee’s, but they are not the company’s target customers. While I don’t doubt that there are Buc-ee’s regulars who live just down the street from one of their stores, I do doubt that they are the chain’s primary patrons. Nor do I believe the chain is depending on folks like me who travel, but do so largely on two-lanes while keeping an eye out for mom-and-pop businesses. No, they are looking for people driving on interstates who might never stop at a particular Buc-ee’s twice but might stop at one down the road and the one after that.

This is a photo I took as I was pulling out of Beaver’s Mini Mart’s parking lot. At the time, my guess was that Buc-ee’s did not sell bait. It turns out they do, but only at some locations, and Huber Heights is not one of them. There is a pretty good overview of the situation in this USA Today article. I considered including links to other bits of news, but items are appearing so frequently that you’re better off searching for the latest yourself. I will mention two things that have appeared since my Tuesday visit. One is that it appears the mini mart’s owner Vikramjit Singh Boparai owns several businesses in Ohio. The other is that Buc-ee’s CEO Arch Aplin called the mayor of Huber Heights (Not Beavercreek!) to tell him that the lawsuit was filed because Boparai filed for a national copyright and failed to respond to their communications. Boparai denies that a national filing exists. This development is summarized in a Cincinnati Enquirer article.

They’re back. My first exposure to David Waller’s collection of circus sideshow banners was when they appeared as set dressing at The Signmaker’s Circus held to celebrate the American Sign Museum‘s tenth year at its Camp Washington location. That was in 2022. The circus occupied the unfinished half of the building and might be considered a step toward the expansion of the museum into that space, which would be revealed just about two years later (New Stuff to Look At). The banners and the multiple tons of signs hung for the circus were always intended to be temporary. However, some of the signs and all of the banners were still there a few months later when the banners’ owner delivered a presentation on them, which I covered as Sideshow Signage.

Although the number of circus acts at Thursday’s opening of the Freaks & Sideshows exhibit was considerably reduced from the over-the-top extravaganza that was The Signmaker’s Circus, their presence was still felt. They definitely enhanced the circusy feel of the event.

That circus tone was also present in the refreshments. I had a nice chat with the Cincinnati Cotton Candy lady and made her aware of my teenage experience making snow cones at the county fair, in case she ever wants to branch out. I don’t know that The 1936 North American Heat Wave’s music was all that circusy, but it certainly matched the time period of the early banners on display. I’d never heard of the band or the weather event it is named after, so I was simultaneously handed two tangents to head off on.

Of course, for the banners, the biggest difference between this exhibit and The Signmaker’s Circus is that they are no longer just decorations hanging in the background. Here they are the stars, with good lighting and informative panels. The Elephant Boy banner in the first picture is the oldest in the exhibit. It is from the 1920s.

Most of the banners on display were also on display in 2022. That includes what might be my favorite single banner, Spider Girl. A nearby panel explains that a woman whose face was the only thing visible operated the not-exactly-alive arachnid body with hidden strings. I think I like the winged creature in the background nearly as much as I like Spider Girl herself.

The last row of the exhibition is tagged “Problematic Alley”. The Garrotte banner is part of a series showing scenes of torture. Some were associated with live actors, but sometimes just the depiction was shocking enough. “Half and half” acts like that shown in the Sex Change banner employed actors displaying both male and female characteristics.

Although not every “half and half” actor was truly gender non-binary, many were, and the circus provided a paycheck that might be difficult to obtain elsewhere. Likewise, many sideshow “freaks” were disabled individuals making a living through their handicap at a time when social services were nearly non-existent. In connection with the Freaks and Sideshows exhibit, on August 27 the museum is hosting a presentation (Beyond the Banners: A look at how the circus impacted the disability community) by Jason Harris that will examine both the exploitation and the opportunity connected with the circus.

An August 20 presentation (Collector Talk: Dave Waller) by the owner of these banners is obviously tightly tied to the exhibit. Full Circle: The Golden Era, Decline and Renaissance of the American Carousel isn’t as tightly tied to the circus, but it clearly shares its spirit. It’s August 3.

Freaks & Sideshows runs through October 4.

A little more than a week ago, I saw an announcement in the Indiana National Road Association’s Facebook group about an upcoming road-related event. The author of a new book on the National Road would be presenting a lecture in Greenfield, IN, on Wednesday, and I thought that sounded pretty interesting. Making it more inviting was a list of activities in Greenfield that attendees might like. Near the top of the list was the James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home, and that was the nudge I needed. I have driven through Greenfield multiple times and told myself more than once that I ought to visit Riley’s home but had yet to do it. Some other things on the list also sounded interesting, so I decided a drive to the middle of Indiana was justified. Had I known just how perfect the weather was going to be, justification would have been even easier.

I had plenty of time to make the 6:30 lecture, so I did not push myself to hit the road super early. I did, however, start early enough to feel comfortable trying out a new place for breakfast. That new spot was Nick’s Restaurant in Harrison, OH, and breakfast was goetta and eggs. I do like Glier’s Goetta, which has a near monopoly in the area, but I also like eating at places that go a different way. Nick’s is one of those places. If I recall correctly, their goetta comes from Wassler Meats.

I used US-52 for much of the drive. Besides being extremely pleasant, it helped make sure my arrival was safely beyond the 11:00 opening time for James Whitcomb Riley Boyhood Home and Museum. The white house is the boyhood home. The yellow house is the museum. It contains a gift shop and many Riley-related items, including a couch that James used to nap on. The museum is free. A tour of the boyhood home is 7ドル.00 for adults; less for the old and the young.

James was raised in this house and got the inspiration for many of his poems here. When Little Orphant Annie (real name Mary Alice Smith) had “come to our house to stay”, this is the house. James and an older brother and sister were born in a log cabin. Three younger siblings were born in this house that their father, Reuben, built. Reuben was a lawyer, politician, and—as evidenced by this house—a talented craftsman. The spiral staircase (backside here) is just one of the building’s impressive features. Just out of frame of the staircase photo is the beautiful storage box Reuben made for his wife, Elizabeth Marine Riley.

The wear and tear on the trunks is from James’ extensive touring. I don’t recall that the other two items pictured had any Riley connection, but they fascinated me all by themselves.

I had a most wonderful guide whose name I learned as we moved from the museum to the house but which, as is way too often the case, I failed to record and have forgotten. Apologies. You did an outstanding job. She not only shared information about the things we were looking at but about when we were looking. My visit just happened to coincide with the 110th anniversary of James Whitcomb Riley’s death, July 22, 1916. A bit more than a year later, he moved into his current home, which I visited some time back.

That list of Greenfield attractions in the INRA announcement included a dining suggestion. The menu at Carnegie’s looked pretty good, but to be honest I was more attracted to the building it occupies. The 1909 Carnegie Library has been repurposed with a restaurant downstairs and an event space upstairs. And yes, food and service were excellent.

I had picked the Hancock County Historical Society museum from the announcement list as the place to fill part of the afternoon, but when I reached the published address, I missed the word “museum” on the message board and thought I was in the wrong place. Turns out it was just the wrong time. When I parked and did the research I should have already done, I learned that the museum was indeed housed in the church but was only open on weekends. As I started to ponder what I might replace the museum with, a car pulled over in front of me and its driver entered the church. Perhaps, I thought, the museum was being opened. Maybe for no other reason than it had been identified as a place to visit by the National Road group. I walked to the door, entered, and learned that the museum was not being opened and that the door would have automatically locked itself if I’d been a little slower. I also learned that the fellow whom I’d seen enter was society president Michael Kester. He was there specifically to meet someone else a bit later, but when he discovered I was from some distance away, he graciously offered to show me around the museum. There are a few items displayed on the main floor and a lot more downstairs.

One corner of the main museum area is given to temporary displays and is currently devoted to World War II. An exhibit on a local circus family will replace it sometime this fall. There is a real Riley connection with Little Orphant Annie’s sewing machine. For a time, roosters and donkeys coexisted as Democratic Party symbols, with the use of the rooster originating in Greenfield. Although, as explained here, this particular specimen is from 1876, the rooster-and-Democrat partnership began around 1840. Once Thomas Nast got behind the donkey, the rooster faded and was essentially gone by 1932.

I made it to the Brady J. Crytzer presentation that had been the seed for this trip in plenty of time but was disappointed to learn the author had no copies of the new book with him. The first hardback printing had sold out, and while copies were available from bookstores and other sources that stocked them, the publisher could provide none to the author. That may have been aggravated by the fact that a paperback rollout is approaching. I can’t say for certain that I would have bought a copy, but that was a big part of my reason for attending. The lecture was certainly entertaining, and even though I did not learn anything new of any significance, there were a couple of comments that will influence where I next go digging in National Road information. It turns out that Crytzer made a couple of stops in Ohio recently. In early June, he was at an America 250 event at the Blaine Hill “S” Bridge on the National Road near St. Clairsville, and just a couple of weeks ago he was at the Book Festival in Columbus. St. Clairsville isn’t a whole lot farther away than Greenfield, and Columbus is quite a bit closer. It also seems likely that copies of the new book were available at both events. Of course, if I’d picked one of those over Greenfield, I’d have missed seeing the porch that Little Orphant Annie shooed the chickens off of and the politically inclined rooster that resisted getting shooed for the better part of a century.

I was aware of this book when it was published, and I was interested in reading it. But not so interested, it seems, to actually order it. My interest in the book came from a general interest in early aviation history that anyone growing up in the land of Wilbur and Orville, as I did, should come by naturally. The lack of urgency came from the fact that its proclaimed subject was an airport in another state. It was a nearby state, but it wasn’t my state. It took a visit by the authors to a nearer and more familiar airport to finally put a copy in my hands.

That nearer airport was WACO Field in Troy, OH. WACO airplanes were once manufactured in Troy, and I have attended a few of the annual fly-ins that take place there. The most recent for me was the 100th anniversary of the company’s 1923 move from Lorain, OH, to Troy. Morris and Butko were, as you can see, dressed appropriately. Brian is a friend. This was my first time meeting Sue. Both are from Pittsburgh and passionate about their city. When I first heard of the WACO event, I assumed it was simply to take advantage of a semi-close historic airfield. But even before the presentation began, I learned that there was a much more meaningful connection. More on that in a bit, but I will note that there is a hint in the photo on the left.

I really was not surprised that Morris and Butkos begin their story long before there were any such things as airports or even airplanes. They do it with a Pittsburgh twist, of course, and tell about early inventors and adventurers connected to the city. I got a chuckle from a quote they share about a 1897 flight by Professor Carl E. Myers and his skycycle. The skycycle appears to be a balloon with a seat and pedals suspended below it. As reported by The Pittsburgh Press, it did fly and eventually floated out of sight while “The professor, if he had any control over the skycycle, did not exercise it.”

Of course, skycycles and other “Fanciful Fliers” fell out of favor once airplanes came along, and particularly after they were proven practical in World War I. Morris and Butko share the stories of several Pittsburghers involved in wartime aviation and the barnstorming that war-surplus aircraft gave rise to after the hostilities ended. It was a group of Pittsburgh barnstormers that gave birth to the airport that would be named Bettis Field in 1926. One of them, Clifford Ball, provided a slogan that would eventually be modified for a different field and some different dreams: “Build the nests and the birds will come.”

Also in 1926, Ball sold his interest in the airport to form Skyline Transportation to pursue a government airmail contract. He did get the contract and purchased three airplanes to service it. Here’s where that WACO connection mentioned earlier comes in. The three planes were WACOs named Miss Pittsburgh, Miss McKeesport, and Miss Youngstown. Miss Youngstown was destroyed in a wreck; Miss Pittsburgh hangs at the Pittsburgh Airport; and Miss McKeesport is in the WACO Museum, parked behind Sue and Brian in the photograph above. There is another view, sans authors, here.

Morris and Butko have uncovered and included an impressive number of stories about people and events connected with Bettis Airfield. It was one of the stops on Charles Lindbergh’s tour following his cross-Atlantic flight, but the Spirit of Saint Louis had to be slid sideways into a hangar because its wings were wider than the door. Quite a few black pilots trained at Bettis, but for a period, had to go to another state to be licensed because the designated federal inspector simply refused to pass them. A fairly large number of female pilots, some of whom were rather famous, were associated with Bettis. Passengers were sometimes flown on airmail flights, sitting on bags of mail; then, in 1929, real passenger service — with seats — was added.

As you can probably tell, all of these stories are well illustrated with period photos and other images. Chapters are short, with an even number of pages (2 or 4), so that each one begins on a left-hand page. That’s something I’ve noted in other Butko books, although I don’t doubt that others do it too. The book is clearly focused on Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh residents might get a little extra kick from some of the local references, but everyone can enjoy its entertaining look at early aviation. I’m sure glad I went to that Ohio airport to learn about one in Pennsylvania.

Bettis: Where Pittsburgh Aviation Took Off, Brian Butko and Sue Morris, Heinz History Center (December 1, 2024), 8.5 x 8.5 inches, 124 pages, ISBN 978-0936340326
Available through Amazon .

On Tuesday, as part of its tour of the eastern United States, Union Pacific’s Big Boy No. 4014 was on display in Fostoria, OH. I drove up to see it, but the picture at right is as close as I got. The entrance to the train yard where the locomotive was parked is about 2.5 miles farther on. Note that cars are converging onto the road I’d just left from both the left and the right. As might be expected, other roads leading to the yard from other directions were just as packed.

The announced opening time had been 9:00, and it was now about 9:45. Even though I knew better, I told myself that maybe this was just the buildup of people who had been waiting there since well before 9:00, and that it might thin out later. I turned back into town and treated myself to a 6ドル.99 breakfast special at The American Table. After a leisurely meal, I tried again. This time, I followed a route through downtown, and although I got no closer to Big Boy than I had earlier, I did get the day’s only glimpse of a train. When I turned around this time, I spoke with a policeman directing traffic, who gave me directions to bypass most of the Fostoria traffic and reach Findlay. I asked if he thought things would settle down before day’s end. “Oh, hell no,” was his answer.

Findlay was my destination because that’s where I had reserved a motel room. I was way too early to check in, but finally had some luck and found the Findlay Brewing Company open. I claimed a bar stool and very slowly nursed a nice Irish Red Ale. After checking in and spending a little time at the motel, I returned to the brewery for a salad and a stout.

I had booked the room partly to postpone the nearly three-hour drive home, but also because I hoped to catch the train in motion. Seeing it head west on Wednesday would have been a goal even if I had been successful on Tuesday, but now it was even more important. Honey Joe’s Cafe in Arcadia looked like a good place to start the day. It was, and I had another fine breakfast.

There was a crossing just east of town that I thought might be a good viewing spot, and the fact that several cars were already there when I arrived reinforced that idea. The picture shows just a fraction of the cars that were there when the train came through. We had a couple of hours to wait, but things moved rather quickly after the online tracker indicated that it had left Fostoria. The first local indication that it was near was the passing of several small planes that seemed to be tracking the train and probably filming it. Then smoke from the locomotive could be seen approaching from beyond the trees.

I really don’t know what its speed was, but Big Boy moved to and through the crossing at a pretty good clip.

More than twenty cars made up the train, which meant that the locomotive was well beyond the crossing when the last car rolled out from behind the trees. I was happy to get a look at the Pullman bringing up the rear. Built in 1927, it served Franklin Roosevelt as Governor of New York and then as the President.

Most of the crowd was gone rather quickly. I know that some of those leading the exodus were off to catch the train again at one or more crossings farther west. I waited until all that scrambling was over, then drove into Findlay to take a look at Iron Triangle Park. The park was essentially unreachable yesterday, and my guess is that was probably true for this morning when Big Boy passed through. As I looked around, I heard someone announce that a train was coming, and I spotted its headlight through the group clustered at the fence. Three active rail lines border the park. I’ve read one report claiming that at least 60 trains pass this park every day, and another that claims an average of 100. I know of two that did it on Wednesday.

When I told a friend of my failure to see the parked Big Boy, I noted that the town of Struthers, OH, had around 20,000 people show up to see Big Boy on Sunday when they had expected 5,000. I’d seen a projection of 20,000 at Fostoria, and offered that maybe 100,000 had actually appeared. Turns out that wasn’t far off. It has been reported that 46,000 made their way into the rail yard, and an estimated 46,000 were turned away. Lots of people were disappointed, and I really sympathize with families who drove for hours then waited in line for several more without seeing what they came for. There has been some finger-pointing and attempts to place blame, and I do not doubt that there were things that could have been done better and instances where people could have behaved better. But the majority of what I’ve read indicates that most of the people involved were really doing the best they could. No one should be surprised that dealing with 90,000 people in 90-degree temperatures in a city with a population under 13,000 had a few bumps.

ADDENDUM 19-Jul-2026: Although I didn’t get to see Big Boy 4014 up close while it was on display in Fostoria, I have seen a sibling, Big Boy 4004, on permanent display in Cheyenne, WY.

Yesterday was Cincinnati’s first official Brewing Heritage Day. Although beer from several area breweries was available for tasting, official programs were essentially limited to two breweries near the city’s downtown. Actually, to be entirely honest, almost all special Brewing Heritage Day activities and displays were confined to the larger of the two.

I went first to the other one. Northern Row Brewery & Distillery had the day’s special flights available, and I believe some tours originated there, but the bulk of the attractions were around the corner. I enjoyed a Redlegger Amber Ale, then moved on.

There is obviously some pretty major work in progress on the exterior of Rhinegeist Brewery. The building was once the Christian Moerlein Brewing Company bottling plant. Inside, Brett Stakelin provided entertainment. In preparation for today, a single keg of Moerlein Lager had been aged in the lagering tunnels of the former Jackson Brewery and I was there in time to get a pint.

The Cincinnati Museum Center had a table filled with brewing memorabilia, and beside it was a virtual reality demonstration with visuals of the tunnels where the beer I’d just drunk was aged. Adjacent to the taproom, lots of informative panels from the American Museum of Brewing, a project of the Brewing Heritage Trail that is currently looking for a home. A conference room held hourly presentations. I was there as John Piening shared family and personal history from the Burger, Shoenling, Hudepohl, and other breweries. During Piening’s talk, very heavy rain broke loose and after a while the old roof began to leak. I took a picture of where it was dripping on the table but was so close that it looks more like a shiny surface than a wet surface.

I was working my way toward the exit when I encountered a Sausage Princess. I greeted her as Sausage Queen but was quickly corrected. I believe Sausage Princesses are those selected to represent various establishments in the annual competition for the Queen who reigns over Bockfest. Before I could verify that or ask her name, she turned the conversation to the Wooly Pig Brewery whose T-shirt I was wearing. She had only recently learned of the brewery and considered it a place she definitely needs to visit.

The rain had let up considerably by the time I stepped outside, but it had not stopped. However, the construction scaffolding kept me dry for the start of my walk to the car. Before I exited the dry tunnel, I snapped a picture of one of the tour groups braving the elements in search of knowledge.

Yesterday was the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. Around 2010, the Cincinnati History Museum rediscovered a copy of the second printing of the Declaration and put it on display for the Fourth of July in 2015. Like this year, the Fourth of July fell on Saturday. Part of my blog post for Sunday, July 5, 2015, concerned the opening of the display on July 2. The 1776 document is again on display this year in an exhibit that opened on July 3. I took the opening picture from I-71 as I headed toward the museum for the opening of that exhibit.

Declarative Acts and Revolutionary Actors is paired with another temporary exhibit "Equal to Any in the City:" Ball & Thomas Photographs 1840s – 1870s. Both opened on the 3rd and are included with museum admission. Declarative Acts and Revolutionary Actors runs through August 23. "Equal to Any in the City:" Ball & Thomas Photographs 1840s – 1870s runs through October 14.

This year the museum’s copy of the Declaration of Independence is displayed in front of the 1st Pennsylvania Battalion flag. Josiah Harmar was a member of the 1st Pennsylvania Battalion and probably brought the flag with him to Ohio. His great-grandson donated the flag to the City of Cincinnati in 1926.

The Declaration of Independence was not signed on July 4, but was approved by representative from twelve colonies. Approximately 200 copies were printed that night in Philadelphia. Without instructions from their legislature, delegates from the thirteenth colony, New York, did not approve of the declaration on the fourth but did so on the ninth after which about 500 copies with the New York resolution were printed. The copy on display is one of four known survivors from the second printing. Twenty-six copies of the first printing are known to exist.

Additional informative displays and artifacts from Cincinnati’s earliest history, such as wood from the original Fort Washington, fill out the Declarative Acts and Revolutionary Actors exhibit.


James Presley Ball was a free Black man who, along with his brother-in-law Alexander Thomas, operated a very successful photography studio in Cincinnati from the late 1840s into the 1870s. The museum’s exhibit contains many of their original photos.

It’s perhaps not surprising that Ball was an active abolitionist. He frequently worked with the Underground Railroad, but his biggest contribution to the ant-slavery movement was probably a 600 yard long panorama he created in collaboration with other artists in 1855. It toured part of the country providing a visual depiction of the horrors of slavery. The panorama has been lost, but an accompanying pamphlet survives. A short video describes it in the exhibit.

The exhibit uses the Ball and Thomas story to share some details of early photography aside from the specifics of their activities. The film camera had just been invented and Photoshop was more than a century away but people were already busy improving on what the lens saw. Studio employees called retouchers might enhance black and white images with a little color or maybe even add something entirely new to the scene. Examples are turning a gray watchchain gold and placing a shiny gold ring on what was actually an empty finger.

It was still morning when I finished viewing the exhibits. It had already been uncomfortably hot when I arrived, and I knew the temperature was still rising. I opted to pause on a bench in the lobby for a bit before venturing out. What you see at left is the natural result of anyone spending more than a second or two in that wonderful half-dome with a camera in hand.

Because all of my previous 4th of July blog posts have included fireworks, I’m including this pair of worse than usual shots. In the past, I’ve photographed the shows at Kings Island, Loveland, and maybe a couple of other places. I can always hear, but not see, the Kings Island show, and that might be true of some other nearby events as well. However, I am surrounded by multiple neighbors who really like to celebrate on the 4th (and the 3rd, and the 5th, and more), so this year I just stepped outside my front door and grabbed a few snapshots with my phone. Then I stepped back inside and went to bed.

The 1955 Mountain View diner occupied by Sugar n’ Spice is a good place for breakfast when heading to the Museum Center. However, since it is in the downtown area, parking is a consideration, and for me, it often loses out to other places also within range of the museum with free parking. I’d already decided I was just going to deal with the parking, then learned that I didn’t have to. I had also more or less decided that I would have a very Cincinnati goetta-and-cheese omelet when I spotted something else on the menu. I believe this was my first-ever goetta Benedict. It is also very Cincinnati and also very good. Happy hollandaise.