Explore the history of the Civil Rights Movement in Portsmouth, Ohio, where the city’s black residents resisted the development of racial segregation and other discriminatory practices that followed the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s. Learn about the decades long struggle to end segregation in the city’s schools and how in the 1960s non-violent, civil disobedience worked to integrate the Booker T. Washington School and the Terrace Club, a private, whites-only swimming pool and youth center.…

Explore the history of Spartan-Municipal Stadium and its origins in professional football in Portsmouth, Ohio. Learn how the legendary Jim Thorpe and the forgotten Jack Creasy helped build the team and organization that would become the NFL Spartans, and in time, (after being sold) were reborn as the Detroit Lions. Visit sites across the city where key moments in local football history happened and return to the scene of the Spartans’ greatest triumphs in what was originally known as Labold…

Explore the history of the Beneh Abraham Jewish congregation of Portsmouth, Ohio, what is recognized as the third oldest Jewish community in Ohio. Learn how Beneh Abraham was formed in the late 1850s and discover its contributions to the development of the City of Portsmouth. This tour visits explores the Jewish community's history through visiting the locations of the congregation's historic places of worship, along with the Hebrew Section of Greenlawn Cemetery. Complete the tour in person or…

Explore the history and archeology of the Portsmouth Earthworks Complex that prehistoric Native Americans constructed over two-thousand years ago at the Mouth of the Scioto River, which are considered to be one of the largest complexes of mounds and earthworks in North America. Complete the tour in person or virtually using the Scioto Historical mobile app and website. Learn about the construction of the mounds and earthworks and their near destruction in the 19th and 20th centuries. View a 3D…

The 1930s mark one of the most important decades in Shawnee State Forest’s history. With unemployment rates as high as 25% nationally, and even higher in some cities, the Great Depression provided the impetus for a major expansion of state-owned forest lands, improvement of forest roads, and the development of recreational infrastructure in what would become Shawnee State Park. As part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, Congress passed the Emergency Conservation Work Act of 1933,…