The quirky journey begins in Granville, where the 4-lane Ohio 161 merges with Route 16 in divided 4-lane limited access highway. Granville is a unique place to visit with a "downtown" that is picturesque and 19th Century. Home to Dennison University, Granville (wiki, city web) was settled by New Englanders who laid out the town similar to their homes in, fittingly, Granville, Massachusetts and Granby, Connecticut. For such a charming, but small community, it is little known that is has produced Woody Hayes, Lee Ann Parlsey (2002 Winter Olympics medalist), Steve Carrell (The Office, feature films) and Jennifer Garner (feature films), albeit Carell and Garner attended Denison and wasn't a "townie").
It will take about an hour to travel this Route to Coshocton, but keep eyes out for many usual vistas that are historic or interesting (depending upon your definition of "interest" of course).
Newark is the next and most sizable city along this stretch, about 10 minutes westward. It is deeply historic, as the Fort Ancient peoples have a burial mound here known as the Newark Earthworks, operated by the Ohio Historical Society. It is not along Route 16, but it is close. Newark is another of those Ohio towns that had its heyday in another era. It's growth traced to the Ohio-Erie canal, Newark today is slowly revitalizing and updating but bigger than you might think if you looked at road maps alone.
As you reach the eastern outskirts of Newark, one of the country's most unusual buildings can be found soaring mildly above the countryside the beckons you beyond. Longaberger Basket Company plopped its international headquarters down here, right on Route 16, and how better to advertise your unique product than with unique architecture. The one-of-a-kind basket building certainly is a conversation centerpiece (see right, click to enlarge). The 7-story "basket" bears almost no resemblance to a building, save for windows "woven" harmoniously into the design. The handles of the basket soar another five or six stories.
Moving beyond Newark the road carves through many rocky limestone and sandstone hills, leaving behind many interesting formations, including one where lichen has grown a firm and thick green sheen to the rock face (see left, click to enlarge). There are numerous places throughout Ohio where you can come across a sudden rock facing apparently out of nowhere. This particular facing doesn't appear man-made. Other facings bear the drill marks where explosives were set to blow the rock apart and can show the strata of the rock layers.
The aforementioned Longaberger's factory, and unique shopping village, lay another further east of corporate HQ along Route 16. Photos and essay of the Homestead were previously posted here, including links to former Route 16 little burgs of Frazeysburg and Dresden. 4-lane highway move the visitors to Longaberger out of Newark to the factory quicker these days by bypassing the few stoplights that exist along that stretch.
Passing along the high ridges of the hills, once can look down upon the sprawling Longaberger complex. While hit harder than other manufacturers during the down Ohio economy of the first decade of the 2000's (the baskets are an expensive luxury item), it is still nonetheless chugging along. About 10 minutes further east on Route 16 the 4-lane divided highway collapses back into a 2-lane highway, but one where no traffic light will be seen until the outskirts of Coshocton.
Along this 2-lane stretch there is a centennial, working farmstead (see right, click to enlarge). Nestled into the hills, a sign proudly displays the years of operation and fittingly the barn carries the Ohio Bicentennial logo. A barn in each of Ohio's 88 counties was chosen to have the logo painted and whether or not this is the official barn I have no knowledge. The farmstead buildings are all painted white and in excellent condition.
Continuing eastward, rounding a curve along the base of some hills is an open stretch of grassy land nestled between wetlands, railroad tracks and the road. A westward route makes this site easier to comprehend than an eastward one, but the long strip of land contains the Graham Farm Airport. Little more than a shed for a plane and a pair of large orange wind-sock indicators (see left, click to enlarge), this grass strip could easily strike terror into the hearts of motorists should a plane come in for a landing. The "airport" is but feet off the road!
Literally moments on down the road, a non-descript crossing belays the historic nature of what used to be here. Westward travel might make this landmark easy to miss, but eastward traveling focuses the eyes a bit better. It is the remnants of a pair of locks on the Ohio-Erie canal. This particular lock bears the name Adams Mills. The half-dozen buildings here with a simple state road sign announcing the name give little historic indication of the place.
George Willison Adams constructed a mill at this location in the 1830s and allowed his employees to construct homes on the adjoining property of the mill free of charge. The flour mill operated continuously and was dismantled and rebuilt a few miles down the road into Dresden in the 1900s but burned to the ground in 2009. Despite its tiny stature (only 15 homes currently), Adams Mills operated a post-office between 1944 and 1990 with only one postmaster during that time.
The stone foundation of the locks is in amazingly good condition despite the long-since disappeared canal (see right, click to enlarge). The road is but a dozen or so feet from the lock and either by chance or care, nothing other than grass has grown in the lock basin that extends for a good 30 feet or so. The individual cut stones look as if they could have been cut last week, let along just shy of 200 years ago.
Backtracking a quarter mile or so westward on Route 16 towards the "airport" the boggy wetlands between the rail line and the road is known as Munro Basin and was used to park or turn around canal boats. Fittingly that rail line mimics some of the old canal route moving significantly more freight but in similar circumstances.
About four miles to the east, as you finally start to close on Coshocton, lies Conesville, Ohio. The site along Route 16 here is visible just about as soon as you pass through Adams Mills from the west or Coshocton from the east. American Electric Power (AEP) operates a massive power generating facility in Conesville on behalf of Duke Energy (see right, click to enlarge). The smokestacks of which tower high over the land (google map) and can be seen snaking in and out of the treeline as the road winds between hills and the Tuscarawas River as one travels westward from Coshocton. A sign along Route 16 near the facility entrance touts the energy and job creation of the plant, the site is not without its opposition as a web site warns of its high toxic output to the environment.
Route 16 ends in Coshocton, and as the road re-emerges as a divided 4-lane limited access highway, Roscoe Village can be seen on the western side of the road. The town emerged in the 1830s as another canal stop along the Ohio-Erie Canal. Today the village is a restored arts and crafts stop that also offers historical connections in a museum, Monticello canal boat ride and renovated villages with first-person re-enactment available. Christmas is a unique time in the village with themed 1800s activities for the season (see above left, click to enlarge).
An interesting stop at the edge of Roscoe Village is the "Triple Locks" - a spot where canal boats were raised three levels to continue the journey along the canal (see right, click to enlarge). The locks today are a small community park, offering just a few benches and a 
small picnic shelter that overlook a little lake (or perhaps large pond better describes). At first glance the locks spill into the lake and it takes a moment to realize how an animal-pulled boat would make it to the locks across that lake. But still visible today are the stumps of the wooden piers that held a bridge or dock (see left, click to enlarge) for the animals to pull the boats across the lake.
While Route 16 ends unceremoniously here in Coshocton, continuing on U.S. 36 towards the highway to faster travel of points north and south along I-77, 
there is one more stop that provides a fitting cap to this quirky little journey. About 10-15 minutes east of Roscoe Village (depending upon wait time at traffic lights) is Unusual Junction, a fitting name to a strange sight (see right, click to enlarge). Several old railway cars and a reproduced depot are the storefront for a strange combination of bridal shop and antique mall... across the street from a winery no less (Raven's Glenn Winery). Scattered among the parking lot are more unusual sites, such as a miniature Statue of Liberty and a jail-rail car.
This last inclusion is not a historic stop, but the label is fitting for it is an unusual junction. And only in Ohio can such an excursion combine 200 years of history with unique, if not quirky, sites.
- J.
