We Travel There allows the curious traveler to experience the best a destination has to offer by interviewing local writers who know where to find special attractions and local restaurants that might get overlooked by corporate travel companies. They have worked with authors representing major cities all over the world, but this week they did something a little unusual–they focused on a rural community south of Columbus, Ohio that offers up some unusual experiences that contrast with the hustle and bustle of urban America.

Host Lee Huffman interviewed Bob Hines–the author of the award-winning book Amazing Ashville to get some inside tips for travelers wanting to visit. Hines described various day trip attractions including Mott’s Military Museum, Slate Run Historical Farm, and the darling of Midwest travel writers–Ohio’s Small-town Museum. He explains that small towns like Ashville are incredible repositories of stories that are humorous, insightful, ghoulish, strange, and wonderful. He views rural communities as incubators of creative talent and connected to the nation and world in uncounted ways. It is hard to argue that point when you have a museum filled with proof of that hypothesis.

Huffman’s easy conversational style was both informed and inquisitive. Hines offered up flavor that only a person steeped in local lore could provide. The Ashville podcast is about 26 minutes long and packed with information to help anyone visiting the Columbus area.

Lee Huffman’s WE TRAVEL THERE international podcast recently visited with the author of AMAZING ASHVILLE to discuss what this unusual small rural American community has to offer day trippers and travelers alike. Bob Hines provides an interesting take on the things to see and do as well as the down home places to eat. The international podcast drops on July 12. You can listen to it at WeTravelThere.com/ashville.

Every museum, business venue, or other attractions mentioned in the podcast are recognized with a plaque like the one above.

Amazing Ashville is going to be your best holiday gift idea for any Teays Valley, Ashville, Walnut, or Scioto high school graduate. You can not only get a copy here, you can get it signed by the author and even inscribed with a personal message.

Keeping Small Town History Alive in Ashville

By Dennis Biviano Columbus PUBLISHED 9:45 AM ET Aug. 19, 2020

ASHVILLE, Ohio — While the village of Ashville just 22 miles south of Columbus may only be a small dot on Ohio’s roadmap, it has a rich history. Friends Bob Hines and Charles Morrison will tell you it’s worth the price of admission to the town’s museum. 

What You Need To Know

Ashville is a small town in Pickaway County that has rich history 
Recently two men who have run the town’s museum for nearly 50 years put their knowledge in writing 
Amazing Ashville is available at Ohio’s Small Town Museum as well as retailers like Amazon, Target and Barnes and Noble

They’ve operated Ohio’s Small Town Museum since 1975.

“So Bob lived just a block from where I had the grocery store. He said, ‘Why are you saving all that stuff for?’ I said, ‘Well, I’d like to some day have a museum, be great if we can do that,’” Morrison said. 

Hines, a University of Cincinnati graduate and an urban planner, has worked on displays at the museum for nearly five decades. 

Recently, the two chronicled some of the town’s memories, personalities and oddities in a book, “Amazing Ashville, The Most Colorful Community in America.”

“There are people representing every aspect of science and art, movies, photography, inventions,” Hines said.

It features people like Jim Cook, the man responsible for putting together a team for Parnelli Jones to win the Indy 500—twice, and also William Ashbrook Kellerman, a famous American botanist. 

The book also plays off the town oddities, like a locally-designed traffic light that’s stood the test of time—a replica of a chicken that paid for its own meals and Buster the dog that voted Republican, which dates back to the 1920s. 

“The Republican candidate was Herbert Hoover. He trained this dog so that when he mentioned the name of the Republican candidate, he’d yelp, he’d get up on his hind legs and jump around. When he mentioned the democratic candidate, which at that time was Al Smith, he would growl,” Hines said. 

“And the kids and the town, they like it, they love it. They just simply can’t believe that things existed like they did, things happened in Ashville, about the dogs and the cats. We’ve got it all,” said Morrison. 

The museum also boasts the oldest “transitional flag” representing the state of Ohio, and the 17 states at the time along with thousands of long-lost photos dating back to the late 1800s. 

Then there’s Ashville and South Bloomfield’s early influence on puppetry in the 1950s and 60s. 

“People were learning how to use a puppet in their hand and rods to manipulate the movement of their hands. Well, Jim Henson came across that idea. He turned it into something called the Muppets,” said Hines. 

It’s all in the book Amazing Ashville, which Hines and Morrison said is their legacy. They’re hopeful folks in younger generations will see the value in their work and preserving the town’s history. 

“We want kids to get excited about the opportunities that are there for them. We want them to understand that old buildings aren’t just something to throw rocks at, they mean something,” said Hines. 

The book has been nominated for several awards in Ohio as well as by the National Council on Public History. 

Each year, the Ohio Local History Alliance (OLHA) presents awards honoring outstanding work in local history in our state. History Outreach Awards recognize outstanding local history projects that inspire, connect, and educate local residents. This year a History Outreach Award for Media and Publications is being presented to the Ashville Area Heritage Society for the book Amazing Ashville. The locally popular paperback book was published by Reedy Press in St. Louis, Mo.

Upper Arlington author Bob Hines—a former Ashville area resident—volunteered his time to write and illustrate Amazing Ashville, an entertaining book of short stories and vignettes about people from the rural Teays Valley School District area in Pickaway County. The book has received universal praise from book reviewers for the way it connects local people from the past to a dizzying array of world and national events, movements, and personalities. It has appeared in Amazon’s list of top ten Ohio Fact books and Ohio Travel Guides throughout the summer and is currently nominated for the 2021 National Council on Public History’s best book award and the 2021 American Sociological Association’s best book award on community.

Ashville resident, Charlie Morrison, a co-founder the Ashville Area Heritage Society, worked with Bob Hines over the course of 40 years to uncover many of the stories and photographs that are depicted in the book. Both men will be recognized for their efforts at the annual OLHA meeting on October 3^rd.

The book is available in Ashville at the Apothecary and Baker Realty, in Circleville it can be found at Two Old Broads and a Geezer, the Pickaway County Visitor’s Center, and the Pickaway County Historical and Genealogical Library, in Columbus is available at the Book Loft and in Chillicothe it is at Wheatberry Books.

It is nice to get reviews of your work that are complimentary. Here is one from critic Margaret Quamme for the Columbus Dispatch:

Here is another one from Brooke Preston for the Columbus Monthly:

The trustees at the the Ashville Area Heritage Society have worked to develop a plan that would allow more visitor space, especially for tour groups, enlarge the library–adding access to microfilm viewing of the Pickaway County News, Ashville Enterprise, and the Ashville Home News–highlighting the important artifacts of communal importance, and showing some of the stories that make the area unique. The book Amazing Ashville provides a context for some of the new displays and the profits from local sales of the book go directly to the Ashville Area Heritage Society.