Ohio Oddities 2nd Edition by Neil Zurcher | Cleveland Books | Gray & Company, Publishers | Guide and Gift Books about Cleveland, Northeast Ohio, and Ohio.

Description

An updated and revised edition of the very popular guide to Ohio's strangest roadside attractions by Neil Zurcher--the veteran TV newsman who has driven more than a million miles in Ohio covering local travel.

Find out where you can visit the world's largest cuckoo clock, Clark Gable's birthplace, Napoleon's horse, a vacuum cleaner museum, and more. Zurcher's eye for unique and fun attractions can turn any road trip into a car ride through the Twilight Zone.

Book Excerpt:

Central Ohio

Ashville

The next time you zip through a red light, you might remember a couple of Ohioans who were responsible for that signal.

Garrett A. Morgan, of Cleveland, was the first person to apply to the U.S. Patent Office for a patent on such a device. Morgan's worked this way. It was a T-shaped pole unit that featured three positions: stop, go, and an all-directional stop position. The third position was used to allow pedestrians to cross safely. While technically not a light, this traffic signal led to further inventions.

Teddy Boor, of Ashville, invented and built the nation's oldest working traffic light. It was installed in downtown Ashville, south of Columbus. This odd-looking unit offered red and green lights with a slowly rotating hand that would sweep across each bulb, letting drivers know how much time was left before the light would change. The bullet-shaped light hung at the corner of Main Street and Long Street for more than 50 years, until finally the state transportation department made the community take it down and replace it with a more modern signal.

The village obeyed, but saved their piece of history in the Ashville Museum (34 Long St., Ashville; 740-983-9864), where it still stops and starts visitors.

The Chicken Who Bought His Own Lunch

Ashville

In Ashville, they still talk about the chicken who bought his own lunch. His name was Chic-Chic, and as chickens go he was pretty small. Actually, he was a bantam rooster, which means that even full grown he barely topped six inches from his feet to the top of his rooster comb. But Chic-Chic was a giant in his own mind.

He belonged to a local widow . . . [ Read More Free Samples ]

Reviews

Oddly delightful. Those leaning over my shoulder on the airplane felt the same. From the Blue Hole to the headless chicken, it's a wonderfully wacky page turner. As a fellow Buckeye, it made me proud to see Ohio put the "O" in odd! — CNN

The oddest thing about Neil Zurcher's new book isn't the contents. It's what it says about human nature. The book is weird, make no mistake. It . . . runs down some of the strangest sites that Zurcher has encountered in his never-ending One Tank Trips around the Buckeye State. From a 50-foot Madonna in Windsor to a perambulator museum in Jefferson, the book exposes Ohio in all its offbeat glory. — Akron Beacon Journal

Drawn like a magnet to the quirky and the offbeat, Zurcher has heard many doozies of stories over the years, and his folksy style of relating them makes for some delightful reading. — Country Living Magazine

With attractions like these, who says Ohio is just 'fly-over country'? . . . Neil Zurcher, a Cleveland TV personality, made a living out of ferreting out Ohio's biggest, smallest, tallest, fattest, or just really have to dig too deep to find Ohio's wide, wild streak of weirdness. — The Blade

In his usual down-to-earth style, Zurcher introduces the world's fastest pumpkin carver, zips off to the Ohio Tobacco Festival and pays a visit to the world's largest wooden longhorn cow . . . Zurcher is like a favorite, joke-telling, fun-loving uncle . . . No matter what your opinion is of any roadside attraction, there is no doubt that the odd and unusual can give you a good story to tell, or at least make for a more interesting trip . . . It may be bizarre, but it's true American culture that is also uniquely Ohio. — Ohio Magazine

One fun little book. These little essays are absolutely fascinating. — WELW AM Radio

About Neil Zurcher

As a professional journalist, Neil Zurcher has worked in television, newspapers, magazines, and radio for over a half-century. He has logged more than a million miles on Ohio's roads over 25 years as a TV travel reporter. He was the original host of the "One Tank Trips" travel report, which aired on Fox8 Television in Cleveland and has since been imitated in other television markets throughout the United States. Zurcher received the Distinguished Service award from the Society of Professional Journalism and the Silver Circle award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He also received an Emmy, the Award for Excellence in Broadcasting from the Cleveland Association of Broadcasters, and has been inducted into the Cleveland Press Club Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the Ohio Broadcasters Hall of Fame and received their "Living Legacy" award in 2007. For many years, Zurcher wrote a column for AAA Ohio Motorist magazine and now writes regularly for the Plain Dealer. He has written five books about Ohio, including Ohio Oddities and Strange Tales from Ohio. More About Neil Zurcher

Contains References to:

Balto, Beer Barrel Saloon, Big Mousetrap, Bigfoot, Buckeye Chuck, Claus Oldenburg, Covered Bridges, Electric Chair, Eliot Ness, Hang on Sloopy, Headless Chicken, Lawnmower Racing, Lehman's Hardware, Moonshine Capital, Motorcycle Demolition Derby, Ohio Castle, Ohio Road Trips, One Tank Trips, Quaker Square, Raymond Chapman, USS Cod