Finding utopia : another journey into lost Ohio / Randy McNutt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McNutt, Randy.

Series:

Black Squirrel Books

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

McNutt, Randy--Travel--Ohio.

McNutt, Randy.

Scenic byways--Ohio.

Scenic byways.

Ohio--Biography.

Ohio.

Ohio--Description and travel.

Ohio--History, Local.

Ohio--Social life and customs.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (265 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Kent, OH : Black Squirrel Books, c2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In Finding Utopia, Randy McNutt sets off again to explore Ohio's forgotten nooks and byways. He begins where his last journey ended--on roads less traveled--finding more ghost towns, battlefields-turned-cornfields, and old memories that beckon him like spectral hitchhikers. On the way, he meets another cast of quirky and determined people who struggle to keep their towns on the map. Aided by his aging Jeep and a longing to escape, McNutt discovers a pioneer inn that harbors the ghost of a headless coach- man (and a surprising personal connection); a Victorian town that looks like an empty movie set; the gruesome battlefield on which the U.S. Army suffered its worst defeat ever by Native Americans; and a gunpowder manufacturing town that was blown to atoms on a sizzling summer day in 1890. Often encountering a past that is livelier than the present, he walks through another town where magnetic water once "cured" many ailments, stays the night in a stagecoach inn known for a ghostly cat and its owner who still roam the halls, finds a town built on cranberry bogs, and uncovers what's left of a World War I training camp sitting atop ancient Indian mounds. In tiny Utopia, for which this book is named, he descends into an underground stone chamber to hear tales of the spirits that haunt it. McNutt's first two books--seamlessly combining the genres of travel narrative, history, and memoir--won praise for effectively merging past and present, and giving readers a strong sense of place. As with those, Finding Utopia will appeal to anyone interested in heritage tourism, folklore, Americana, Ohio history and lore, back roads, ghosts of many kinds, and small-town life.

Contents:

""Cover ""; ""Copyright""; ""Contents""; ""Introduction: Moving On""; ""Part One: Big Dreams, Small Places""; ""1. Finding Utopia""; ""2. The Pull of Magnetic Springs""; ""3. In Search of the Believers""; ""4. Autumn at SunWatch""; ""5. Knights of Shawnee""; ""Part Two: Lost Legends""; ""6. Army of the Damned""; ""7. A Village of Bones""; ""8. The Road to Fort Laurens""; ""Part Three: Back Roads""; ""9. Freedom's Towns""; ""10. Colors of Tranquility""; ""11. The Legacy of Edward McClain""; ""12. Ghosts of Rogues' Hollow""; ""13. Confederates on the Island""

""Part Four: Ghosts of the Stage Lines""""14. The Wickerham Secret""; ""15. Riding the Line""; ""16. Major Buxton, I Presume""; ""Part Five: Vanishing Places""; ""17. Ammo Towns""; ""18. Phoneton Calling""; ""19. Freezing on the Underground""; ""20. Above the Fruited Bog""; ""21. Camp Sherman of the Mounds""; ""Ghost Town: The Naming of Ohio""; ""Bibliography""; ""Index""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-61277-729-5