Vol. 1 • No. 1 Free (like Ohio's best museums) Forecast: All 4 seasons today

Only in Ohio

The weird, the wonderful, and the genuinely surprising.

BREAKING
Ohio has produced 25+ astronauts — what are they running from? • Cincinnati put chili on spaghetti. The nation remains divided. • A 4-foot frog man was spotted by police officers. Twice. • Ohio secretly helped build the atomic bomb inside a tennis court. • There's a 7-story building shaped like a basket. It cost $30 million. • Cleveland once released 1.5 million balloons. It went very, very badly. • Ohio has 33+ crybaby bridges. More than any other state. • A man in Ohio built his own roller coaster. By himself. Over 3 years. • The state nut is poisonous. They made it the state candy anyway. • Ohio has produced 25+ astronauts — what are they running from? • Cincinnati put chili on spaghetti. The nation remains divided. • A 4-foot frog man was spotted by police officers. Twice. • Ohio secretly helped build the atomic bomb inside a tennis court. • There's a 7-story building shaped like a basket. It cost $30 million. • Cleveland once released 1.5 million balloons. It went very, very badly. •
Ohio skyline DECLASSIFIED
Special Investigation

The Greatest Secret Ohio Ever Kept

How Dayton built the trigger for the atomic bomb inside a tennis court — and a Soviet spy stole the recipe

In 1943, the U.S. government turned an elegant indoor tennis court in affluent Oakwood, Ohio into a polonium processing plant. The Runnymede Playhouse became the heart of the Dayton Project, a covert operation so secret that its own workers didn't fully understand what they were building. They were building the trigger for the atomic bomb.

The polonium initiators developed in this suburb were used in both Little Boy and Fat Man. A Soviet spy named George Koval penetrated the project and passed secrets to the GRU. The tennis court became so radioactive it had to be dismantled and buried in Tennessee.

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Serpent Mound aerial view Geological Anomaly

Ohio Sits on a 300-Million-Year-Old Meteor Crater That Scrambles Compasses

Beneath Serpent Mound lies an impact crater up to nine miles wide. Batteries drain. Storms dissipate at the rim.

 Cincinnati chili three-way Food Exposé

The Food Ohio Doesn't Want You to Know About (Until You Visit)

Chili on spaghetti. Fake chicken made of pork. Cold cheese on hot pizza. A breakfast meat made of oats.

 Cleveland skyline Dark Ohio

Balloonfest '86: The Day Cleveland Released 1.5 Million Balloons

An approaching cold front turned a world record attempt into a disaster that grounded helicopters and ended a rescue mission.

 Longaberger Basket Building Weird & Wonderful

The Seven-Story Basket, the Concrete Corn, and Other Ohio Monuments

A $30 million basket. 109 ears of concrete corn. A man who carved 64 train engines with a second-grade education.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Underground

12 Square Miles of Salt Beneath Lake Erie and a Subway That Never Ran

Cargill mines caverns 1,800 feet below Cleveland. Cincinnati's tunnels are maintained for a road that sits on top of them.

 Ohio State football stadium Legends & Origins

8 Presidents, 25 Astronauts, and One Very Absurd War Over Toledo

The war's only casualty was a penknife stabbing by a man named Two Stickney. Michigan got the Upper Peninsula as consolation.

 Hocking Hills State Park Cryptid Corner

The Grassman: Ohio's Bigfoot Variant Builds Nests and Snaps Necks

Salt Fork State Park hosts the world's longest-running Bigfoot conference. The Cayton family had a very bad night in 1978.

 Amish country buggy Food Files

Wendy's, Arby's, Life Savers, Cheez-Its: All Born in Ohio

The food brands you didn't know were Ohioan, plus Tony Packo's, celebrity-signed buns, and the Galley Boy.
Amish horse and buggy on Ohio country road Amish Country

A World Within a World: 39,000 Amish, 80+ Furniture Stores, World-Famous Cheese

Holmes County is the most diverse Amish settlement on Earth. Four million visitors a year. The pace genuinely slows.

 Ohio Stadium the Horseshoe aerial view Sports

O-H! I-O! The Buckeyes, the Dawg Pound, and the Factory of Sadness

100,000 seats. A logo-free helmet. A fan loyalty that borders on masochism. Sports in Ohio are a religion.

 Hocking Hills waterfalls and sandstone gorge Ohio Natural Wonders

Not All Flat Cornfields: Ohio's Gorges, Caves & Waterfalls

Hocking Hills, Cuyahoga Valley, Lake Erie islands, and the natural beauty nobody expects in Ohio.

 Cornhenge concrete corn sculpture Dublin Ohio Festivals

Pumpkin Shows, Skunk Pageants & the Largest Oktoberfest in America

Ohio's festival calendar is unhinged in the best way. Pumpkin everything. Twin gatherings. Viking combat. Free admission.

Ohio by the Numbers

238Mvisitors in 2023
330+documented Bigfoot encounters
8U.S. presidents
25+astronauts
33crybaby bridges
$130what Superman sold for
1.5Mballoons released in '86
73,282buttons in Frieda Warther's collection
Only in Ohio

Town Names That Demand Explanation

Knockemstiff Pee Pee Township Defiance Revenge Dull Climax Flushing Blue Ball Long Bottom Center of the World Fleatown Helltown

Knockemstiff (pop. under 100) most likely earned its name from Prohibition-era moonshine potent enough to "knock 'em stiff." Pee Pee Township is named after settler Peter Patrick, who carved "P.P." into a beech tree around 1785.