Licking County CVB Magazine 2008

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Fragile Strength Makes Lasting Beauty – National Heisey Glass Museum

Glass is a significant part of human civilization, from over 4,000 years ago to your last look out a window today.

In ancient Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq), across the Roman Empire, and for the earliest American colonists, glass making by heating and blowing and shaping the red hot fluid into a stable, brittle form has always been a highly respected, even magical art.

For Licking County, glassmaking industries have long been part of the landscape, and the summit of those achievements is visible at the National Heisey Glass Museum, on Sixth Street near downtown Newark.

Part of the Veteran’s Park series of historic structures, the museum is located in one of the area’s rich heritage of Greek Revival style buildings, dating to 1831 and moved onto the present site in 1973. The Heisey Collectors of America, Inc. own and operate this museum next door to their neighbors, the Licking County Historical Society.

Collectors of the HCA have donated or loaned the 4,500 objects which were made by the distinguished A. H. Heisey & Co. glassmaking firm between 1896 and 1957. You will find on display every imaginable color and form that a piece of glass can take, arranged to show the craftsmanship, originality, and quality that have long been associated with the Heisey name.

Augustus Heisey was born in Germany, home of many American pioneer glass artisans. He fought in the American Civil War including on Little Round Top at the battle of Gettysburg, and following the war began his career, culminating in the firm which bore his name. Hand-blown glass was the particular specialty of the Heisey company, and the unique quality that also led to the firm’s demise, with the importation of mass produced machine-blown glass from overseas in the 1950’s.

What machine-blown glass can’t offer is the fine detail and exquisite lines of what Heisey collectors seek, and why so many come to view the collection in Newark. Etched, cut, and colored, glass goes through thousands of degrees of heat that goes for a short time into cherry red, back down through glowing yellows, to the enduring hues placed in the crystalline structure by minerals and chemicals baked into the substance itself . . . meaning that when you return a century or two from now to see the National Heisey Glass Museum again, the colors in bright sunlight will look just as they do on your visit this year.

A 25 minute movie on Heisey Glass is available to visitors during museum hours; they are closed Mondays, and for hours on other days, call 740.345.2932, or check www.heiseymuseum.org.

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Little Gears Turn Big Minds – The Works

At the corner of Newark’s First Street and Scheidler St., a piece of industrial history houses a wide range of not only historic artifacts, but also a vibrant home for cultural activity, community engagement, and education.

The Scheidler Machine Works building went up in 1861, at the heart of Newark’s industrial birth, a three story shop for fabricating steam engines. Local businessman and industrialist Howard LeFevre saw it empty and abandoned in the 1980’s, but could see potential in the solid brick walls and historic neighborhood, once the Ohio & Erie Canal route through the city’s south side. He had ridden the electric interurbans as a boy, helped build a national infrastructure through interstate transportation, and knew personally the inventors of fiberglas and other pioneers of modern technology.

Why not a museum of technology, from the first flint tool makers of Licking County, through blacksmiths and glassblowers to Reinhard Schiedler himself, and on to education for children and families in the technology that shapes our world today? Hands-on exhibits and working displays of what builds the world we live in, where kids could turn a crank and see an entire workshop spring to life?

Mr. LeFevre’s dream has expanded to become an “Ohio Center for History, Art, & Technology,” with status as a Smithsonian Affiliate museum since 2002. The LeFevre Courtyard hosted his 100th birthday party in 2007, and from the newest art on display to ancient Native American artifacts, The Works is born anew almost every day.

Tuesdays through Saturdays are daily glassblowing demonstrations -- an unforgettable demonstration of unimaginable temperatures, skillfully handled and unbelievably shaped to become everything from elegant pitchers to simple, squat pumpkins. The Art Works Museum hosts a variety of different exhibits through the year, along with the various artisans to put on workshops and living history demonstrations.

To find out what wheels are turning at The Works when you visit, check www.attheworks.org, or call 740.349.9277. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

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Rooted in Licking County

William Dawes rode just a horse behind Paul Revere, galloping on the road to Lexington and Concord (you know, “one if by land, two if by sea”), and unlike the more famous silversmith and patriot, Dawes actually made it to Lexington.

His descendants made it into the Ohio Territory, helped to found Marietta College, and went into a range of fields, such as Charles Dawes, who was vice-president of the United States and won a Nobel Peace Prize.

Charles had a brother, Beman Gates Dawes, who married a vivacious young woman named Bertie Burr who won a medal for lifesaving and loved the outdoors. Beman and Bertie built a family around his work building up the Pure Oil Company, and they built a legacy around their family home south of Newark, “Daweswood.”

Among foresters and arborists and plain old lovers of trees, Beman, the quiet Dawes, is the famous one. He and Bertie founded an arboretum in 1929, inspired by the Morton Arboretum outside Chicago, Illinois, home of Arbor Day. They began with trees they planted around their house. Inviting “tree dedicators” like brother Charles, his close friend Gen. John Pershing, and other notables of the 1920’s and 30’s became a way to help the general public, not just their friends and family, identify with the cause of replanting an Ohio landscape that was still nearly cut bare of forestation.

The Dawes Arboretum now extends far beyond the original groves, still the heart of TDA’s 1,700 acres. Hiking trails and auto tour routes wind for miles across a rolling landscape looking across the valley of the Licking River’s South Fork.

Their motto is “Dedicated to increasing the love and knowledge of trees, history and the natural world,” and this dedication is rooted in the preservation of old growth trees, for nurturing unique species brought for experimental purposes to central Ohio, and to new ways of appreciating the diversity of a natural landscape.

A carefully manicured Japanese Garden, complete with Zen garden of raked gravel and standing stones, nestles into a hillside where further up, a Holly Grove with many different evergreen shrubs grow to remarkable dimensions. The southern extent of the grounds features the words “Dawes Arboretum” in hedge lettering so vast they can be clearly read by passengers heading for a landing at Port Columbus Airport, and in the northern reaches, a newly constructed wetlands zone allows plants from Ohio’s earliest, post-glacial landscape to return and flourish.

Your visit to the grounds of this beautiful arboretum can be as long or short as your schedule allows; their Nature Center will soon undergo extensive renovations, just one part of an ongoing plan of improvement and interpretation for the general public. A Gift Shop is part of the main office area with items of particular interest to birders.

The gates are open from dawn to sunset every day of the year, except New Year’s, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, with free admission to the grounds. For detailed information about Visitor Center hours and special programs, call 800.44.DAWES, 740.323.2355, or click www.dawesarb.org. you can reach the Daweswood gates at 7770 Jacksontown Rd. SE (Ohio Route 13) six miles south of Newark and four miles north of the Rt. 13 exit off I-70.

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This Land Is Your Land

The Licking Park District began life as an organization in 1989, when interested citizens and the county commissioners authorized the establishment of a board of park commissioners. Their job, then and now, is to acquire, preserve, and present the natural wonders of this diverse county to the residents and visitors of Licking County.

Over 1,400 acres in almost a dozen sites are now held as a public trust, maintaining open space and natural areas while residential growth edges out of Columbus, our state capital, towards Licking County. The commissioners and staff of the LPD also watch over and maintain the county rails-to-trails network.

Headquartered at Infirmary Mound Park on Lancaster Road, Ohio Route 37, you can find out what’s going on where around the county system by calling Park HQ at 740.587.2535, or checking the always interesting park district website, www.lickingparkdistrict.org.

One of the newest features of the LPD is their William C. Kraner Nature Center, located in the southeastern corner of Licking County, on Fairview Road just off of Linnville Road, towards Flint Ridge State Memorial. This nearly 3,000 square foot facility contains displays and exhibits for all ages, with a primary focus on children.

Opened in 2001, the staff continues to regularly update the material out for hands-on education and play. The Nature Center is on the southern edge of the Taft Reserve of LPD, whose 425 acres extend north all the way to Flint Ridge Road, with trails for hiking and, like many of the trails in the LPD system, for horseback riding as well. A hike in the Taft Reserve will take you on a loop past Native American mounds built over two millennia in the past, and back to computer stations in the center where the latest information on migratory birds and plant species is just a click away today.

The William C. Kraner Nature Center is free and open to the public Tuesdays to Sundays from Noon to 4:00 pm and other times by special arrangement; the entire building is handicapped accessible. To contact the Nature Center itself, call 740.323.0520.

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CVB Finds a New, Old Home! [322 words]

Licking County is one of Ohio’s largest counties, and contains the largest complex of ancient geometric earthworks in the world.

When the award-winning museum at the Great Circle portion of the Newark Earthworks needed refurbishment after thirty years of service, great minds thought alike, and saw a chance to put the hub of visitor services for the county there.

The Ohio Historical Society, owner of major portions of the remaining Newark Earthworks, continues as an active partner, while the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau staff and volunteers offer a warm welcome year-round.

Already, visitors from many states and even a few foreign countries have dropped by and been glad to have a friendly face to greet them. Knowledge of the upcoming nomination of the earthworks as a “World Heritage Site” recognized by the United Nations has kept visitation growing.

A new museum display with interactive exhibits and a number of artifacts related to the area will open this spring, and a dedication ceremony with participation by Native American representatives will officially open the already busy space.

Office space and informational displays for the diversity of Licking County visitor experiences is located in this new facility at the Great Circle, but it’s actually just the center of a large, ever-growing circle of communication and connection to a national and global travel and tourism market.

Just as visitors brought materials from distant cultures, like copper and mica and seashells, in exchange for natural resources such as the multi-colored flint of ancient Licking County 2,000 years ago, today we offer the cultural and economic diversity of today’s landscape as an experience our visitors can take home with them.

If they want to buy some handmade baskets, decorative glass, or even pieces of Flint Ridge flint to take home, that would complete a circle of sorts, wouldn’t it?

And the new Great Circle Visitor’s Center, home of the CVB, will be the center of that circle.


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Licking County Courthouse [91 words]

From 1809 to the present, four courthouses have stood on the "public square" at the heart of Licking County. A new brick building in 1815 replaced the original log structure, which was then supplanted in 1832 by an attractive building which burnt down in 1874. Today's Courthouse was erected in the French Provincial style popular in 1876, just in time for the nation's centennial; a fire in 1879 led to a magnificent restoration whose West Courtroom on the second floor is admired to this day, and the iconic central clock tower.