Midwest Guest

Hiawatha National Forest Monument

A stone tepee I spotted at the corner of a state highway and a county road near Munising, Michigan reminded me of some structures I'd seen elsewhere in the state as remnants of the work of the Civilian Conservation Corp during the 1930s.

There was a good reason for that!

We passed the monument multiple times over several days as it sat along the route along a county road  we had to take in to Munising from a small resort about 10 miles out of town where we stayed this past summer.

Naturally, I had to stop and take a closer look at the monument.

This monument, built in 1931 by brick masons that included members of the CCC, commemorates the dedication of the original Hiawatha National Forest.

The government largely acquired the original Hiawatha Forest between 1924 and 1931, with President Herbert Hoover designating a large tract of land between the towns of Rapid River and Manistique on Lake Michigan to Munising on Lake Superior as a national forest. Today, this land pretty much comprises the Western Unit of the Hiawatha National Forest.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Government administered Marquette National Forest, dedicated by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1909, with the Huron National Forest as the Michigan National Forest from 1918 until 1962. This land, between Lake Ignace on the Straits of Mackinac and to the shore of Lake Superior just west of Sault Sainte Marie became part of the modern-day, million-acre Hiawatha National Forest as its Eastern Unit in 1962.

The stone tepee pre-dates the merger of the forests, and was the first of many CCC activities in the area.

Marquette architect D. E. Anderson designed the monument in the shape of an Ojibwa tepee with bronze tepee poles rising through a bronze cap atop the pyramidal structure of stones characteristic of the region's geology. The monument also has a bronze plaque noting Hoover's dedication of the forest and the date, as well as plaques bearing the names of the counties covered by the original Hiawatha National Forest.

The CCC started work at the original Hiawatha Forest in earnest a couple of years after the dedication.

CCC workers planted a stand of red pines south of the monument in 1935. In 1979, the park thinned the 11-acre tree plantation as part of a timber sale.

Camp Wyman sat about .7 miles east of this intersection of present-day highway M-94 and Forest Road 2254 (also known as Buckhorn Road). The camp, founded in late 1933, was home to CCC enrollees who trained in skills like tree planting and fire fighting under the supervision of experienced local men. The CCC crews also worked on hazard reduction, telephone line construction and forest inventory during their time at Wyman. The CCC abandoned seven camps in Michigan's Upper Peninsula that included Camp Wyman in early 1936. Little trace of the camps remains today.

Check out the Hiawatha National Forest's site for a scenic route listing this marker, Camp Wyman, and several other CCC-related sites in the park.

The Hiawatha National Forest has many other attractions, including lighthouses, waterfalls, abundant spring wild flowers, wildlife to look for and five National and Scenic Rivers. The area, especially around Munising, has an especially excellent reputation as a premiere place to go for winter sports like cross-country skiing and snowmobiling.

Meanwhile, the legacy of the CCC and its work at Hiawatha National Forest lives on as children and grandchildren of one of the CCC brick masons who built the original stone tepee offered to repair the aging monument with its deteriorating mortar. Mason Benjamin Franklin Cook worked on the monument in 1931. His children, Ruth Cook Blow and Larry Cook (a semi-retired mason himself), enlisted the help of Larry's three sons to complete the repairs in 2005.

Interested in learning more about the work of the CCC and the CCC camps in Michigan? Check out Proud to Work: A Pictorial History of Michigan's Civilian Conservation Corps by Annick Hivert-Carthew.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Stormy weather at Michigan's Marquette Harbor Lighthouse

Marquette's light station has a history of stormy weather, both literal and figurative, over the years.

Marquette, and the surrounding region, owes much of its development to the discovery of iron ore deposits at Lake Teal near Lake Superior.

Congress allotted $5,000 to build a lighthouse at Marquette in 1850.

The original lighthouse was a modest stone tower standing 26 feet and 8 inches tall, likely accompanied by a small stone dwelling for the keeper, just north of the harbor.

The little light proved unable to withstand the heavy wind and waves in Marquette's Harbor and continued to deteriorate as the country fought the Civil War.

The fourth light keeper at Marquette, Nelson Truckey, helped establish a Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment in 1861. He departed for war and left his wife Anastasia to tend the light and raise their four children for the next several years, making her possibly the first female light keeper to serve on the Great Lakes.

 

 

In 1866, the Congress approved $13,000 to repair and renovate the lighthouse at Marquette. It soon became clear that replacement of the deteriorating structure became necessary. Construction began on a yellow brick lighthouse with a 40-foot-tall square tower and one-and-one-half story attached dwelling.

Congress approved money for a fog signal in 1873.

In 1875, Army engineers also built a 2,000-foot-long breakwater to protect the harbor from high wind and waves

Keeping the fog signal working, adding a beacon at the end of the breakwater, and adding two other fog signals by 1880 greatly added to the keepers' duties at Marquette.

Marquette gained approval for an assistant light keeper in 1874. By 1882, lighthouse authorities reassigned or removed ten different light keepers from Marquette.

Captain Patrick McGuire, a highly respected Great Lakes light keeper arrived in 1882, staying there for the next 11 years.

McGuire's wife Catherine served as Marquette's assistant keeper from 1882 until 1891, even though lighthouse authorities did not allow women to serve as assistants in lighthouses with fog signals. The area inspector supposedly ignored this regulation in Catherine's case because of Patrick's stellar reputation as a light keeper and the difficulty Marquette had in retaining a good keeper.

In 1891, Catherine went to Chicago to visit family. Patrick reported her as absent without permission or giving proper notice, so Catherine lost her position as assistant light keeper. The couple left Marquette by 1893.

I don't know about you, but I have to wonder if Catherine's job loss and the couple's departure from Marquette are somehow related.   

The Coast Guard established a Life Saving Station on the lighthouse grounds in 1891. That didn't help Light Keeper William Wheatley when he went fishing with a friend in 1898 and drowned when the pair's boat capsized.

Assistant keepers lived in rented quarters in town until 1895, when the city connected the lighthouse to its water system and work began to convert the light station's barn into an assistant keeper's dwelling.

The lighthouse became extremely popular with visitors. Crowds often arrived on weekends to stroll along the beach, tour the lighthouse, picnic and build bonfires.

 

 

Watching ships in Marquette Harbor

 

The crowds caused a lot of extra work for the light keeping staff, and then-Light Keeper Robert Carlson worried about the bonfires and campfires not always properly extinguished by visitors.

In 1903, Carlson asked the region's lighthouse inspector about the fires, and the inspector told Carlson to ban the bonfires and campfires. Several days after receiving those instructions, Carlson asked a group with a bonfire on the lighthouse grounds to comply with the new rules by extinguishing the fire and leaving the area.

A surf man from the light saving station named David Shelton was among the group and assaulted Carlson the next day as the keeper made his rounds on the breakwater.

It took two weeks of bed rest for Carlson to recover from injuries received in the beating. There is no record of a charge or conviction of assault for Shelton, and the assistant light keeper who witnessed the assault and did nothing to stop it. Carlson requested, and received a transfer to duty as a light keeper at the Whitefish Point light station.

Things seemed to become quieter at Marquette after the Carlson incident with the biggest events being things like expanding the keepers' home attached to the light tower from 1-1/2 stories to 2 stories with the coming of a second fog signal and a second keeper around 1910.

 

 

The Coast Guard became responsible for operating and maintaining the light station in 1939 and it became a Coast Guard training station during WWII with up to 300 recruits living in various buildings on the grounds.

Today, the lighthouse remains an active Coast Guard station with access to the lighthouse and its grounds restricted by The Department of Homeland Security.

The Coast Guard leased the lighthouse and surrounding grounds to the Marquette Maritime Museum Association for 30 years in 2002. The association operates a museum in an old city waterworks building near the lighthouse conduct tours of the lighthouse during the summer.

 

 

The museum generally opens in mid-May and conducts lighthouse tours daily from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. through mid-October.

Museum records show that 12,000 visitors toured the museum and lighthouse last year.

Unfortunately, we were not among that number as we visited the lighthouse early June and found the museum closed (as were many sites in early June of last year due to government budget cuts).

Being unable to take the museum-escorted tour made it impossible to walk around to the front of the museum to take photographs, leaving us with a few images of the back of the lighthouse.

Work continues on lighthouse restoration with a "Paint the Lighthouse Red" fund raising campaign aimed to replace the roof, repair the brick exterior and refresh the lighthouse's bright red-painted exterior.

I'm hope the next time we visit Marquette, we'll be able to take a lighthouse tour or have the opportunity to capture some better images by taking a harbor boat tour.

Want to learn more about Marquette and its harbor lighthouse? Check out Marquette (Images of America) by Gabriel N. Downs and Michael C. Downs or The Ultimate Guide to Upper Michigan Lighthouses by Jerry Roach.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Elmore, Ohio rides into the twentieth century

I first heard about Elmore, Ohio when I read a ghost story about the village's headless motorcycle rider. That mysterious story may be just a village legend, but trains, automobile, bicycles and a turnpike had a lot to do with Elmore's ride into and through the twentieth century.

Elmore developed during the 1820s and 1830s as a settlement established by pioneers like Israel Harrington near the site of an old supply depot established by General William Henry Harrison during the War of 1812.

The coming of a railroad line through the village and building of a train depot in 1869 spurred Elmore's economic growth through the latter half of the nineteenth century.

A sign at the edge of town notes the importance of bicycle and automobile manufacturing to the development of Elmore.

Harmon Becker moved to Elmore in 1869 with his family and established a saw mill and stave factory in the village with his sons James and Burton.

The Beckers capitalized on the increasing popularity of bicycles during the late 1800s by becoming bicycle manufacturers in 1892. That year, the bicycle company employed 50 workers to produce 500 bikes.

The Beckers soon expanded the company by purchasing an empty organ factory in nearby Clyde.

Elmore bicycles became popular nationally and sold for $100. By 1898, the company employed 80 workers to produce 1,500 bicycles.

The Beckers switched to building automobiles in 1898 because they did not want to sell to the American Bicycle Company, a trust formed to control competition, supply and prices.

The first Elmore car hit the road by 1900. By 1903, the company produced three cars per day.

The Beckers stressed having a valve-less motor that did not require cranking in its advertising.

The Beckers liked the lightweight two-stroke engine because they felt making smaller cars would boost sales. The 1904 Elmore Convertible Runabout, the company's smallest automobile, seated four and sold for $650, making it one of the most economical cars on the market.

Elmore automobiles also performed well in the long-distance automobile races popular in the early 1900s. An Elmore Pathfinder won a race from New York to the site of St. Louis World's Fair in 1904 to the surprise of many people, and the company's cars continued to fare well in races over the next few years.

William C. Durant, founder of General Motors, purchased the company in 1909 to become a division of GM.

By 1910, the Elmore was no more when GM ousted Durant and streamlined GM by cutting divisions to stabilize its finances.

The Harris-Elmore Library in Elmore displays one of the company's bicycles and an Elmore auto. The Plymouth Historical Museum in Plymouth, Michigan also displays an Elmore auto.

See vintage photos of Elmore bikes, cars and advertising materials at Ohio Memory, a site by the Ohio Historical Society and state library, or the Sandusky County Scrapbook site.

Elmore sustained another blow to its economic well being in 1949 when passenger service ceased at the train station. Trains ceased rolling altogether through Elmore by the early 1970s.

The old train depot remains a source of pride in Elmore as the lovingly restored home to the village's museum and the Elmore Historical Railroad Club.

Building of the Ohio Turnpike through the area in the 1950s adversely affected Elmore and many places closed as traffic bypassed the area.

The turnpike also reduced a plot of land owned by Joe and Marie Schedel. The avid gardeners created a Japanese-style garden and built a summer home on their remaining property. Today, the Schedel Arboretum and Gardens is a public attraction and botanical preserve of national note.

Today, Elmore is a 1,500-resident village with a downtown consisting of several blocks of commercial, retail and industrial businesses. Victorian-style lamp posts and signs downtown hark back to the village's earlier success as a railroad and manufacturing center.

Elmore parks are home to the refurbished train depot and a restored 1860s-era log cabin. A scenic rail -to-trail route used by runners, bicyclists, walkers and inline skaters passes by the depot as part of Ohio's North Coast Inland Trail.

You can learn more about Elmore's earliest history at the historic Harrington Cemetery a few blocks outside of downtown Elmore.

Elmore's location about 25 miles southeast of Toledo gives residents easy access to big city amenities, but its location along the Portage River in the heart of northern Ohio farm country also gives residents and visitors an opportunity to enjoy small-town life.

Want to learn more about the history of Elmore, Ohio? Check out Elmore and Genoa by Jennifer Fording.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Israel Harrington and Elmore's early history

Looking for headless ghosts and haunting a graveyard along a neighborhood street was our idea of fun when we visited Elmore, Ohio last fall.

Really!

Legends and tales of times long ago always fascinate me, so stopping to check out this historical marker at a cemetery at the intersection of Rice and Clifton Streets, and learn a bit more about the history of Elmore, was a must-do for us.

Ohio pioneers established Elmore in the area called The Black Swamp and over time Elmore developed into a thriving farm town set alongside a railroad depot and the Portage River.

General William Henry Harrison built a supply depot on the north side of the Portage River across from present-day Elmore during the War of 1812. The depot sat high atop a hill above the river that allowed soldiers to watch for the approach of Indians and served as a stopping point between Fremont and Fort Meigs in Perrysburg.

This historical marker informs visitors that Israel Harrington established a tavern at  present-day Fremont, Ohio shortly after the War of 1812. Harrington eventually became a judge and land speculator, influencing much of the organization of northern Ohio during the early 1800s.

Land speculator Harrington stuck a deal in 1824, trading his tavern for land near this cemetery where an Indian trail crossed the river. The settlement Harrington established here became Elmore.

We explored the cemetery a bit before finding the grave site of Israel Harrington and his father tucked into a corner of the cemetery and marked by modest grave stones.

The younger Harrington's grave stone says that he served as a trustee and minister, in addition to his roles as a judge and a tavern owner.

The elder Harrington, also named Israel, served as a private during the American Revolution as part of a group from Vermont.

The cemetery became the Old Elmore Cemetery before taking its name from the Elmore pioneers and becoming the Harrington Cemetery. The last burial in the cemetery happened during the early 1920s, so it provides an interesting look at the lives and times of some many Elmore residents during the town's first century.

Israel Harrington (the younger) also figured in the establishment of a major attraction in today's Elmore.

A piece of land he owned, but never developed, went through several owners until 1969, when a man named Joe Schedel purchased it. Today that plot is home to Schedel Arboretum and Gardens.

Check back later this week for a story about Elmore's development through the twentieth century and today's Elmore.

Want to learn more about the history of Elmore, Ohio? Check out Elmore and Genoa by Jennifer Fording.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

A ghostly tale in Elmore, Ohio

A tale of lost love and a tragic death haunts the town of Elmore in northern Ohio as the headless ghost of a motorcycle rider allegedly revisits the scene of his long-ago heartbreak at a bridge here each March.

The story begins with the promise of a young woman that she would wait for her soldier boyfriend and marry him upon his return from fighting overseas during World War I.  

The soldier returned to the United States a year later and eagerly sped home to Elmore after purchasing a brand new Indian-brand motorcycle for the last leg of his trip.

He wanted to surprise his girlfriend with his return, so he cut his motorcycle engine as he neared the farm house late in the evening where his girlfriend lived with her parents.

The young man spotted his girlfriend working in the kitchen through an open window as he quietly rolled the bike towards her house. He got off of the bike, snuck into the house and embraced her from behind, expecting a romantic reunion with his true love.

He got a completely different reaction.

The startled woman became even more alarmed as she realized who now stood beside her and screamed.

She thought her youthful love had perished in the war, and the engagement ring on her left hand told the soldier that his love had accepted a proposal to marry someone else.

The heartbroken soldier didn't say a word before fleeing to mount his motorcycle and speed away through the night.

He didn't get far.

He lost control of his motorcycle and locals soon found his body lying alongside a nearby bridge...near his severed head.

Some details get changed and lost through time and repeated retelling of the tale, but that's the basic story I remember hearing before visiting the supposed location of the tragic story.

This spot in northern Ohio farmland looked quiet and serene when we visited last fall, with no sign of the Elmore Rider save a lawn sign at a house near the bridge warning motorists to watch for motorcycles. The bridge itself didn't look particularly treacherous to us, either.

I hear it becomes a different scene on days like Halloween and on March 21, the supposed anniversary of the accident, when crowds of curious folks can gather along the country road hoping for a glimpse or hint of the famous ghost.

Many visitors re-enact some version of a ritual involving honking their horns and flashing the lights on their cars said to bring the ghostly motorcyclist to repeat his death ride before disappearing again into the mists of time.

Reports of blinding lights approaching the bridge and eerie sounds abound as evidence of the ghost's existence, but there is no evidence that I could uncover that this story and accident actually happened.

The story has been around at least 40 or 50 years, but no one has uncovered an obituary, newspaper clipping or contemporary account confirming the details of the story.

Ghost hunters, folklorists and others also occasionally seek out evidence of the story with mixed results.

It's also difficult to find detailed instructions for locating the site because some local residents and officials want to discourage noisy curiosity seekers from gathering in the area or obstructing traffic.

We found the spot fairly quickly as the first part of a two-stage geocache that ultimately led to a cache hidden in a cemetery a few miles away.

The bridge spans Muddy Creek, a branch of the Portage River a few miles southeast of Elmore and about 30 minutes from Toledo.

The road here is in a slight valley, and the bridge isn't particularly high.

What did the site look like in the 1910s? Did large ditches on either side of the road meant to help drain water from The Black Swamp area or lack of guardrails along the bridge create a more deadly situation for the speeding motorcyclist?

Do more modern changes like road resurfacing or replacing the old metal grating bridge deck just a few years ago make the site even more benign now?

We may never really know the answers to these, and other, questions, but I think The Legend of the Elmore Rider will live on for many years to come.

Want to learn more about Elmore, Ohio? Check out Elmore and Genoa by Jennifer Fording.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Review: Discover Ohio iPad app

I recently took the new free mobile iPad app from Discover Ohio for a test spin and found that I liked it.

Tim and I each downloaded the tour guide app to our iPads and found that it took less than five minutes to download it to our devices.

Looking at the app on my full-sized iPad screen was a lot like seeing the usual magazine-sized paper guide, but the pages looked great on Tim's iPad mini as well.

"I like it!" were the first words out of Tim's mouth within minutes of downloading the app to his device and beginning to move through the book.

I've downloaded a number of tourism guides for various Midwestern destinations to my computer and usually found them clunky because they are often difficult to manipulate, slow-moving and lack the truly interactive features that make moving from site to site an easy and pleasurable experience.

 

Marblehead lighthouse

Our experience with Discover Ohio's app was definitely a smoother experience, especially as the app allowed us to swipe across the screen to move from page to page rather than having to stop and push a "next" button and wait for the next page or two to load as do many other tour guides' online versions I've used. I was able to swipe from page to page and scroll down or touch icons for maps or more information on individual pages.

While I do like to consume a lot of travel information via iPhone apps because of their extreme portability, I think apps like the Discover Ohio tour guide work better in the larger format and space availability of the iPad. It wouldn't hurt my feelings to eventually see a mobile phone version of the app, although I would assume it would have to be a scaled-down version of the iPad app.  (The Cleveland Museum of Art's mobile phone app I recently reviewed is another case in point. The mobile phone version of this app works well, but between the space it takes up on my phone and squinting at the tiny screen as I'm looking at the artworks, this is another app I think may work best on an iPad).

We found the Discover Ohio iPad tour guide app to be very responsive when clicking on links that took us to the external pages for specific attractions and other destination marketing organizations, and easily moving back to the main tour book site when we finished looking at the external links.

The events calendars in the iPad app run through August at this point, with plans to update the app later this summer to include events happening later in the year.

 

 

The sound and video are so good with the app that when I checked out the Ohio Symbols page to learn about things like the Ohio state bird, Tim said it sounded like there was a bird in the house as I sat across the room from him and clicked on the cardinal picture, which played a short clip of the bird's song!

We quickly got used to moving through the book and using the controls that led to specific sections of the book, calling up Ohio Tourism's various social media channels and viewing extra features like short videos.

I used to travel more frequently with a laptop computer, but I'm traveling more these days with my iPad instead of my laptop, so carrying my tour guides and brochures with me as iPad apps makes a lot of sense and seems mighty convenient.

You can order the conventional 164-page paper guide, which comes with a separate booklet for the most recent calendar of events in the state, or you can view the Ohio eTravel Guide online, which reads like the more conventional requiring users to push an arrow to change pages and use their mouse to navigate around individual pages.

But go ahead and live large--download the free iPad app to enjoy a more interactive version of the guide that includes additional photos and video.

The app debuted on February 13, 2014.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Discover Cleveland history at your fingertips at Discovering Ohio

Something that continues to fascinate me about Cleveland is its interesting history. We particularly enjoy exploring places like the city's historic Lake View Cemetery and Victorian-era bridges, and I found a great tool that allows history lovers to learn about Cleveland's storied past  as they're exploring on the road.

 

 

Check out my latest article at the Ohio Tourism Division's Discovering Ohio blog to learn more about Cleveland Historical, a free mobile app developed by the Center for Public History + Digital Humanities out of Cleveland State University.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Midwest travel links for February 2014

Check out some great Midwest-related stories I found online this past month:

A Frozen Trek to Lake Superior's Icy Sea Caves-Terri takes readers of Off the Beaten Page Travel on an adventurous trek along the shore of Lake Superior to see the ice caves near Bayfield, Wisconsin. We've visited Bayfield and the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in northern Wisconsin a couple of times in the summer, but I've always thought it would be fun to see the famous ice caves there. Not up for a three-hour trek across the icy tundra to reach the caves? Enjoy these images from Terri's trip!

Ohio, the Home of Presidents-Take a trip with Tonya as she shares some of her favorite sites related to Presidential history in Ohio--birthplace to seven U.S. Presidents! I've visited the Garfield home in Mentor and the McKinley Museum in Canton, but I've yet to see the sites associated with Hayes that Tonya spotlights here. Check it out at the Family Rambling blog.

Fargo-Moorhead: Interview with CVB-Does the movie Fargo come immediately to mind when you hear this North Dakota town's name? Adam discovers there while Fargo embraces its ties to the popular movie, there is much more to see and enjoy in the area. Fargo joins forces with Moorhead, Minnesota to spotlight these towns along the Red River with a year round schedule of festivals and family-friendly events. Check out Adam's chat with Nicole of the Fargo-Moorhead Convention and Visitors Bureau at the Visit Flyover County blog.  

Get Your Classic Cars Fix at the Volo Auto Museum!-I love visiting car museums when we travel, and the Volo Auto Museum in Illinois looks like one we need to put on our Midwest Bucket List. Join Amanda for a tour of this collection of vehicles (spread over six buildings) that includes tons of famous rides from the movies and television. Check it out at the Thoughts from Her blog.

The Warrior-McKinley Thompson Jr. made history by becoming the first African American automotive designer when he landed an automotive design position at Michigan's Ford Motor Company in 1956. Bart tells the fascinating story of McKinley's life and work on a project he envisioned as a way to help boost the economy and independence in Third World countries. Check it out at The Henry Ford blog.

Mount Rushmore: South Dakota's #1 Tourist Destination-Fans of Presidential history should enjoy reading about Jody's visit to Mount Rushmore. Honoring presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, this South Dakota site is justly popular among tourists. Jody gives readers tips to make the most of the trip with your family at the Family Rambling blog.

Indiana: Cook's Bison Ranch-Bison in Indiana? Sure! Check out Terri's post at her Travel 50 States with Kids blog to learn more about her family's adventure at this northern Indiana ranch where they raise bison to eventually sell as a healthier alternative to beef. Visitors can view, and even pet, the bison and stop on the way back from the fields to check out the gift store or buy a bison burger. I think I'm with Terri on this one, I might find it a little difficult to visit the bison herd and then stop immediately afterwards to eat one of their relatives!

The Only Time You'll See the Stanley Cup in Cincinnati-Learn about hockey history in Cincinnati, Ohio and the recent visit of the NHL's Stanley Cup to the home of the city's minor-league Cyclones hockey team. Fans of the ECHL Cyclones enjoyed a rare chance to see the Cup up-close-and-personal. Ronny captured the event with some great images and shared the story of Cincinnati's run with major league hockey and the WHA Stingers during the 1970s at his Queen City Discovery blog.

That's it for this month's Midwest travel links list. Do you have any favorite Midwest stories or blogs to share?

Want more Midwest news and links? Subscribe to my bi-monthly Midwest Guest newsletter!

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Discover Ohio with the help of these handy mobile apps (part 2)

Here are a few more useful free mobile apps from Ohio:

• Akron Zoo-The front page of this app is neatly organized into categories like Animals, Food, Features, Find Near Me, My Trip, Maps, Friend Finder, Give and Social as well as a menu bar along the bottom  to access general zoo information about hours, admission and more.

  Choosing Hours from the bottom menu will give you general zoo hours as well as a listing of events that includes hours, dates and a short description of the event and registration (if needed) information.

  Tapping on the Travel tab in the bottom menu gives users directions to the zoo or the ability to locate their car. The app quickly located my car in the garage behind my house when I tried it out and mapped the route from my house to the zoo.

  I liked using the Animals icon on the main page to bring up the zoo's resident animals by categories like Amphibians, Birds, Fish and Aquatic Species, Mammals and Reptiles. Choose from those categories to see a short description and photos of specific animals as well as directions to locate the animals on a zoo map.

  You can create a record of your trip or list your favorite sights at the zoo by clicking  +My Trip at the top of the individual pages and call the list back up by touching the My Trip icon on the app's main page.

  The app also allows users to find out about special shows or demonstrations, locate restrooms and find the zoo's gift stores, as well as the ATM machine! You can also link directly to the zoo's Facebook page and Twitter feeds from the app.

  I did have problems with the app slowing down or failing to show me specific pages after using it continuously for a short period of time. This seemed to happen most often after trying to access the mapping functions, and I had to discontinue using the app for a few hours before it started operating properly again.

  The latest update for the app was November 2013.

• Columbus Zoo-Launched in 2011, this app is available for smart phones and for the iPad.

  The front page has a clean and simple main page with icons for Tickets, Parks Info, Explore and Friend Finder, as well as a menu along the bottom of the page with links to the zoo calendar, animals and a zoo map.

  Start planning your zoo visit by selecting the Tickets icon from the apps main page to purchase your tickets in advance.

  Select Animals from the menu along the bottom of the main page for information about the zoo's individual residents and where to find them within the zoo. When you select an individual species, you can see a photo and scroll down for more about the animal, its geographic home, behavior and conservation information.

  The GPS-enable map displays your location and allows you to quickly locate specific animals, zoo features and amenities by using a Near Me button.

  Initial publicity for the app mentioned the availability of videos of the animals, but I was unable to find then, and a recent reviewer on my App Store page mentioned how disappointed her 2-year-old child would be to discover that their favorite videos were no longer available.

  Viewing this app on the iPad is nice if you enjoy seeing larger versions of the animal photos, but the app seems most useful in the more easily transportable mobile version to me.

  The latest update for this app was February 2014.

• Chimani Cuyahoga Valley National Park-This app is one of more than two dozen developed by Chimani, a company specializing in developing apps for National Parks in the United States and, eventually, elsewhere. The company founder, Kerry Gallivan, named it after the Chimanmani Mountains in Zimbabwe, where he worked as an intern.

  The Chimani apps debuted with a price of $3 to $10, but the apps became free in the spring of 2013. Chimani add-ons like an augmented reality tool or daily park news do cost $2 each.  

  You don't need a phone or Wi-Fi connection to access the maps and other features in the Chimani apps. Some users report problems when attempting to download or update the apps without a strong Wi-Fi or phone connection, so developers suggest waiting until you have access to a strong connection before downloading or updating the apps.

  The Cuyahoga app has an extensive menu, accessed via icons from the main page and scrolling to the left for two additional pages of menu choices.  

  First time visitors may find the photo gallery of nearly 50 images from the park and the auto driving tour which includes nearly 50 narrated stops where you can learn about the park's history and history along the Ohio and Erie Canal especially useful.

  

  Menu choices include hiking, biking, birding, fishing, picnicking and other ways to see and enjoy the park, as well as lists organized by points of interest, scenic views, and waterfalls help visitors easily find what most interests them.

  The app also includes information like the location of restrooms, park operating hours and where to stay or camp in the area.

  The map is a detailed topo-style map. Clicking on the map icons allow users to link directly to more detailed descriptions of locations along the trails.

   The app also offers details all of the park trails with information including trail difficulty, elevation gain and the expected duration of a hike.

  Check out Chimani's Facebook page for park news, events, photos and other park-related links.

   The latest update for this app was September 2013.

See part one of this series for more great free mobile apps to help you plan your next trip to Ohio!

This post is part of the Best of the Midwest blog hop. Have a post that fits this month's travel planning theme? Join in the fun below!

We'd love to see where you've been visiting!

Please read the following guidelines for sharing:

    
• Share posts related to the monthly topic.
    
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• Visit 2-3 other posts that have linked up, find some new places to visit & meet new friends!

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved