PUTNAM COUNTY - “Snow-Going” - January 2025

It seemed as though a switch on a snow machine was flipped just as we crossed the county line. What had been a dull gray overcast day quickly became a pale white canvas with visibility reduced to a quarter of a mile at best. We made a beeline westbound along two-lane U.S. Route 224 for the county seat of Ottawa, about eight miles away. We needed to get to the county courthouse before it closed at 4:30 p.m.

At first glance, the Putnam County Courthouse looks rather plain. It was built in 1913 and its architectural style is said to be Second Renaissance Revival. Its limestone façade is attractive, but lacks the flashy elements that courthouses built thirty years earlier tended to incorporate. A closer examination, however, reveals varied and interesting components. For example, the first-floor windows have high round-arched openings while the second floor incorporates rectangular windows with alternating pediments separated by twin columns. Steer heads and other bas-reliefs can also be found if one has the time to look for them. Unfortunately, we were fighting against the clock and the weather.

Hurrying inside and past the Deputy Sheriff staffing a metal detector, we ascended to the second floor to pick up a county highway map from the Engineer’s office. Fortunately, we had a few extra minutes to appreciate the stained-glass windows above the first floor stairway landing. The three panels feature cherubs holding profile portraits of Washington and Lincoln looking toward blindfolded Lady Justice holding her scales.

We weren’t in the building for more than a few minutes, but that was long enough for a layer of fluffy wet flurries to blanket our car. The snow was beginning to stick to the road as well, so we took extra caution as we backtracked along US-224.

We arrived at the tiny town of Gilboa where we’d be spending the next two nights at the Whispering Cielo cottage, an Airbnb property on Franklin Street hosted by Jeff and Cindy Garmatter. Cindy met us at the back door and gave us a quick orientation to the cute little property before handing over the door key. We were operating under a slight time constraint and we knew the worsening weather wasn’t going to help matters, so we stayed just long enough to drop off our bags.

Gilboa is small, registering only 168 people at the last census, but it exudes an outsized level of community engagement. Near our cottage, on Main Street, we stepped into Knueven Creamery & Market, a catch-all shop featuring dairy goods and other specialty food items. Our purpose was to pick up some milk for Michele’s morning coffee, but we lingered long enough to eat some ice cream. Sure, it was snowing outside, but as a sign in the store informed us, “It’s never too cold for ice cream.” That’s a strong argument. Our Airbnb host Cindy told us how good the white chocolate and peppermint flavor was so we had to sample it as well as the peppermint with chocolate chips. Both were delicious.

Having delayed our appetite for dinner by a few hours, we wiped another layer of snow off our car and got back on the road. With weather conditions worsening, we questioned our decision to be driving anywhere, but the main reason for visiting Putnam County was its close proximity to our next destination.

One of the primary county trippin’ rules is that once we cross the county line, we stay within its boundaries for the duration of the visit, but we made a rare exception for this trip so we could see our great niece Kyla play in one of her high school basketball games. Her home school of Evergreen is near the Ohio-Michigan border, but the team was playing an away game at Patrick Henry High School, located just outside of Hamler, Ohio, which is just outside of Putnam County. (For accounting purposes, our time and mileage spent in neighboring Henry County is not included in the totals for Putnam County.)

At Ottawa, we turned north onto Ohio Route 109. Dusk was turning to night and the snow was continuing to fall. Our road might have had a state route designation, but it was still a two-lane country road bisecting wide open farm fields, allowing brisk winds to blow the flurries all about. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic, so I dropped my speed as I concentrated on the precise location of the road. I thought I was pretty smart when I noted power lines running along both sides of the road and realized I just needed to center the car between them. That worked well until the power lines disappeared. (WTF?!)

We eventually arrived safely at the school just as the varsity squad was finishing warm-ups. We enjoyed watching Kyla play, but it wasn’t a good night for the visitors. The Vikings of Evergreen were outmatched by the much taller Patriots of Patrick Henry and lost 45-76.

Climatological conditions had not improved while we were indoors and another layer of snow and ice had to be brushed and scraped off the car. Our progress on the return drive was slow, averaging about 30-35 mph. That dropped even more when we maneuvered around a couple of sharp 90-degree curves and then again when the car shimmied after losing purchase on a bridge. The last thing we wanted to do was slide off the road. Visibility was bad, but not so much that we couldn’t see the deep ditches mere feet from the berm. We’d passed a few snowplows, and at least one was dropping salt, but the wind was continually blowing more snow back onto the road.

We arrived back in Ottawa around 7:30 p.m. It was the night of the semifinal College Football Playoff game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Texas Longhorns. Our lodging didn’t have access to ESPN where the game was being broadcast, so we chose our dinner destination based on the availability of big screens showing the game.

The Red Pig Inn on North Perry Street has been serving up barbecue since 1975. We might have come for the televised football, but we stayed for the delicious food! An O-Ring Basket started things off. The deep-fried-just-right onion rings were accompanied by a tasty special sauce.

For entrees, Michele chose the Nashville Hot Chicken sandwich while I picked the BBQ Pork Chop Dinner. We shared bites so we could both benefit from the delicious selections.

For beverages, we opted for local beer from the tap. 1820 BrewWerks is a brewery located in Kalida, about 9 miles southwest of Ottawa. Its name comes from the year Putnam County was founded. Michele had a nice, crisp IPA called Making Hay, while I had a pint of the Route 65 Brown, a dark brown ale with some pleasant hints of chocolate. Too bad we had more hazardous driving ahead of us because those beers went down way too easy.

The football game was exciting and we felt confident when Ohio State scored first and then took a 14-7 lead into the locker room at halftime. The restaurant had cleared out by then and there was only one other occupied table. Since we weren’t eating or drinking anything more, we felt guilty about making the staff stick around if they might otherwise be able to close up early, so we left.

We had to clear the car of snow again before getting on the road. Within the first half mile, a pickup truck we were following fishtailed on the slick surface, reminding us to take the drive slow and steady. I felt a great sense of relief when we finally arrived without mishap back at the cottage.

We followed the rest of the football game via the internet and I felt another sense of relief when the final seconds ticked away on an Ohio State victory. The Buckeyes won the Cotton Bowl 28-14 and advanced to the national championship and I was able to head to bed with the relaxed satisfaction that accompanies a big sports win. Knowing we didn’t have a strenuous itinerary the next day, we planned to sleep in and take full advantage of our clean and comfy cottage by relaxing over a pot of coffee.

It’s amazing the difference a few hours and some snowplows can make. When we looked outside, the new day was sunny and the roads had been cleared. Our hosts had even shoveled the walk from the backdoor to our car.

Before leaving Gilboa for the day, we stopped at a small park fronting US-224 where a 16-foot fiberglass bull statue stands. It has served as a landmark for the town since the mid-1970s when Peter Diller purchased it from a bar in Toledo and had it moved to Gilboa. The brown and white bovine was still decorated for the holidays with a green wreath around its neck and a red bulb on its nose that lights up and blinks at night.

About five inches of snow had fallen overnight, but the main routes had been plowed and salted. We drove northwest onto Road 5-F and found that even the minor roads had been pretty well swept clear. There were the occasional patches of drifting snow where we had to reduce our speed, but there weren’t any nerve-racking moments like the night before.

We don’t use GPS while country trippin’, but rather rely on hard copy maps and my internal compass. In most cases, this serves us well, but the latter failed me on this particular day. The road we were on should have taken us nearly all the way to the village of Leipsic, but I had mistakenly turned off it too soon. I didn’t think it would be a problem though, because most of the county roads form a grid pattern following cardinal directions. I assumed we’d eventually run into Ohio Route 65 which would lead us to our destination.

Unfortunately, the road on which I turned took us due south. When we arrived at a crossroads and Michele spotted a road sign for US-224, which should have been well behind us at Gilboa, I had trouble wrapping my head around how we could have arrived at that point on the map. It seemed impossible, as though someone was trying to convince me of a fact that all empirical evidence proved otherwise, such as up is down, or two plus two is five, or Donald Trump is an empathetic intellectual.

After finally coming to grips with the reality of it all, I cut my losses and just followed US-224 to Ottawa and OH-65 northeast to Leipsic. A few extra minutes and miles weren’t going to hurt us.

With just over 2,000 residents, Leipsic is one of the larger villages in Putnam County, where none of the communities qualify for city status. Even the county seat of Ottawa is short of the 5,000 mark needed to achieve that urban designation.

Leipsic is an attractive community with a well-kept business district. Across the street from the Village Hall is the Uptown Market & Café where we went in search of lunch. It opened about a decade ago and filled a niche after the village’s sole grocery store had closed a few years before. It offers fresh meats and cheeses and also serves as a coffee shop and restaurant.

Two state routes intersect just outside the three-story brick building that houses the Market. We placed our order at the counter for an Uptown Ham Sammie and a Buffalo Chicken Wrap and then sat near a glass window to watch the Leipsic traffic.

After our meal, we drove west across the top portion of the county along Ohio Route 613. Most of what we viewed was WIDE open farmland. A couple of solar farms in the vicinity of Miller City added some scenic variety while three snowmobilers who crossed our path provided some action.

We detoured from OH-613 at the village of Continental, home to about 1,100 people, one of whom wasn’t shy about representing racism by flying the Confederate flag. We continued on Main Street and found St. John the Baptist Catholic Church just north of town. Putnam County has quite a few churches with interesting architecture and this was the first on our list to see. It was constructed fairly recently, sometime this century, and is unique for having an octagonal shape, including its small cupola. It’s topped with a cross-tipped spire. My raised-Catholic wife joked that it was too modern-looking to be a Catholic church.

From there we drove south on Ohio Route 634, through the town of Dupont, and over the Auglaize River. After another half mile, we pulled off at the entrance to a tree-lined path leading back to the small Franconia Cemetery. This graveyard, where most of the internments date to the 1800s, is reported to be “haunted” (as just about any gathering spot of dead bodies tends to be), where “strange blue lights” and “eerie noises” have been reported. Yeah, yeah, whatever. We weren’t there for paranormal activity.

The cemetery sits up on a bank above the Auglaize River, just a few hundred yards south of where the Blanchard River meets it. These are two of Ohio’s longer rivers, measuring about 113 miles and 103 miles respectively. Their confluence isn’t easily accessible, located beyond farm fields and obscured by tree lines. I was hoping there might be a navigable route to it from the cemetery. Unfortunately, all of the snow that had fallen the night before made trailblazing too treacherous. The descent to the water would have been slippery and the ice on the river was of indeterminate thickness. I didn’t want to die in an accidental drowning, or worse, have to explain to a rescue squad how I put myself into such a predicament. (“Well, you see, there’s this thing I do called ‘county trippin’…’)

I was also on my own for the short tramp back to the cemetery. Michele’s hiking boots aren’t waterproof and she didn’t want to spend the rest of the day with soggy socks and wet feet, so she stayed in the car while I hiked back to investigate my options. The snow was unbroken with the exception of the occasional animal tracks. I’m not a skilled tracker, but I assume those prints belonged to deer, rabbits, and squirrels. They were definitely not human, although considering the supernatural stories that abound, maybe some of the imprints belonged to an elaphocentaur (half human, half deer).

I walked around the cemetery for a few minutes, scouting my surroundings, but determined the way forward was fraught with too much risk. I tried peering through the trees in the direction of the rivers’ rendezvous, but even in its denuded wintry state, the brush was too thick for a clear view. Not only was my snowy trek ineffectual, but I also missed the three deer that Michele reported seeing sauntering past the car as she waited on me. At least they weren’t elaphocentaurs.

We continued south on US-634 for another mile and a half. Near the eastern edge of the town of Cloverdale, we turned onto Ohio Route 114 which led us to the east side of the Auglaize River and to Cascade Park. I wasn’t expecting to find any activity at the park and so was surprised to see about a half dozen kids, their parents, and a couple of dogs playing in the snow. There’s a small downslope to the land between the road and park, and in flat northwest Ohio, that equates to prime sledding territory.

While they frolicked, I read the nearby historical marker that talked about the “Home-in-the-Wilderness” that sat downstream a quarter mile on the Auglaize River from 1821-1870. It was built by a veteran of the War of 1812 and eventually passed into the hands of a Christian Union Church pastor and his wife. When author Henry Howe wandered by in 1846, it consisted of a double log home and was being operated as a tavern that could house up to thirty travelers a night. Howe was collecting information for his book, Historical Collections of Ohio, which was published the following year. He made a sketch of the log structure that became a favorite of readers. As Howe explained in later editions, the sketch “seemed to strike a chord in the hearts of multitudes who had begun life in the midst of such scenes.”

We returned to OH-634 and continued our journey due south for 12 miles to the village of Fort Jennings. On its south side, next to the Auglaize River, we stopped at the memorial to the War of 1812 fort for which the community gets its name. Located in a small park surrounded by a low chain-link fence is a stone monument containing an etching of the original fort. It’s guarded by two wooden statues depicting a soldier and a Native American of the time.

Fort Jennings was ordered constructed by General William Henry Harrison in the fall of 1812 to serve as one in a series of supply posts leading up to Fort Defiance about 30 miles to the north. A Kentucky militia regiment under the command of Colonel William Jennings constructed a stockade and two blockhouses. Jennings, an experienced fighter from previous battles with Native Americans, allowed the fort to be named for himself. The fort was occupied until December of 1814 and while it didn’t see any fighting during that time, about a dozen soldiers died there of “swamp fever.”

After a quick inspection of the monument, we drove through the village and were tickled by a duck house we spotted in a side yard. It was made of brick and topped with a metal roof. I’m sure the two waterfowl who called it home found it all as ducky as we did.

Just three miles northwest of Fort Jennings, at the western terminus of Ohio Route 189, is the village of Ottoville. With approximately 970 residents, it’s almost twice the size of its neighbor to the south. We stopped on Church Street so I could take a picture of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, a stunning Gothic structure built in 1885. It contains twin 180-foot towers that are each tipped with crosses. Our visit coincided with a gathering for the 4 p.m. mass, so as soon we drove away, our parking space was immediately taken.

We left town via US-224 and drove northeast, passing a statuesque heron standing atop a frozen pond. Eight miles further on, we passed through the village of Kalida. It was founded in 1834 and served as the first county seat for Putnam. The county itself was formed in 1820, but was so sparsely populated -- the 1830 census recorded only 230 people living in the entire county! -- that Williams County governed it for judicial purposes for its first 14 years. In 1866, the county seat was transferred to Ottawa.

We continued northeast to Glandorf, another village founded in 1834. It took its name from the town in Germany from which its founders originated. Those same families established the first Catholic church in the county. St. John the Baptist Church on Main Street, dedicated in 1878, is the successor of earlier log-hewn churches. This current house of worship is constructed of red brick with stone trim in a High Victorian Gothic style. It features a high central tower that’s hard to miss. Once again, our appearance at the church corresponded with parishioners arriving for mass; this one beginning at 4:30 p.m.

Across the road from the church is an outdoor Catholic shrine, sometimes called the Shrine of Headstones. It’s the original location of St. John’s Pioneer Cemetery which was used from 1834-1900. In the 1930s, the headstones were collected and the ground was leveled. In 1954, the shrine was established and the headstones were arrayed in a line with a statue of St. Mary in the middle.

After taking some photographs of the church and shrine, we continued our drive east to Ottawa. We parked on South Walnut Street, just off West Main Street and next to Our Lord’s Park, a greenspace donated to the community in 1976 by Theodore Chifos, a Greek immigrant. He came to Ottawa in 1939 and owned and operated the village’s Hollywood Theatre until it closed in the early 1970s. Along with a stone cross and a nativity scene, the park contains an historical marker that records the Native American origins of the village’s name:

The Ottawa, or “Tawa” Indians had inhabited the Maumee Valley since the middle of the 1700s. By the 1790s, Ottawa settlements included villages along the Blanchard River at the present-day Village of Ottawa. During the War of 1812, Colonel James Findlay destroyed these villages because the Ottawa aided British forces. In 1817, the United States government established a reserve for the Ottawa in exchange for their lands in Northwest Ohio…The Ottawa ceded their reserve to United States in 1831 and were removed to a reservation in what would become Kansas. The land was auctioned off to white settlers in 1833 and the Village of Ottawa was established in 1834.

Across Main Street from the park is the Ottawa Brewing Company, which is really more of a restaurant where they brew their own beer than a brewpub. It felt swanky, upscale, and a little sterile, not exuding the usual casual vibe found in a “third place.” We were only there to drink, so we found stools at the bar and ordered a couple of flights. We each sampled four different ales and stouts. I was most taken with their Oktoberfest beer and the Putnam House Stout. Michele found the Twin Elm Pale Ale and Deford Red IPA most to her liking. If only they had stickers available, I could have said more nice things about the place.

We returned to our “home” town of Gilboa and parked the car at our Airbnb before walking the short distance to the Hillside Wine Shoppe. Saturday night is Jazz Night there and the Pinup Project Duo were performing live from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Scott Parnell on guitar and Morgan Stiegler on vocals made up the duo. Their musical repertoire included a sultry, bluesy version of Def Leppard’s “Too Late for Love.”

There weren’t many available seats when we arrived and by the time we left, they were all taken. We shared a couple of tasty flatbread pizzas – pepperoni and Mediterranean – and I had a glass of red blend wine from Turkey while enjoying the music.

We wanted to do some more shopping at the Knueven Creamery and Market before it closed at 9 p.m., so we skipped out before the music was over. We like supporting small independent businesses, but I must admit, we may have gotten carried away that night. By the time we left the shop, our bag contained a frankincense & oud scented soy candle, a birthday card made by an independent letterpress, a round loaf of artisan sourdough bread, banana and cashew butter granola, a jar of maple cinnamon-flavored peanut & pecan butter, a jar of pickled mushrooms, two wedges of Knueven cheddar cheese flavored with jalapeno and bacon jalapeno, and two cans of specialty brand soft drinks. The bill was over $90!

Shortly after returning to our cottage, Michele began to feel cold. Then achy. Then overall BLAH! When we got up the following morning, she was feeling even worse. When we left at the 11 a.m. checkout time, all she wanted to do was lay down in the back seat of the car and sleep. (But who was going to listen to my lame puns and tedious tidbits of historic lore? Needless to say, neither of us enjoyed the final hour of our trip very much:-))

Before leaving Gilboa for the final time, I wanted to get a closer look at the metal truss bridge that spans the Blanchard River on the south side of town. It was built in 1886, but is now closed to vehicular traffic. I might have strolled across the river for the heck of it, but the path was blocked. Some of the snow cleared off the streets the day before had been plowed up into a mountain at the north end of the bridge prohibiting egress, so I had to satisfy myself with a picture.

On our way out of town along Old Route 224, we passed the Gilboa Quarry. The former limestone pit is now a premier scuba diving site. Since 1990, the quarry has been filled with water and has provided divers and snorkelers a great place to swim around. The water is 140-feet at its deepest and contains a variety of sunken objects for divers to investigate including a school bus, a Grumman airplane, and a Sikorsky helicopter. It almost makes me want to take up the sport.

After a couple more miles, we turned south onto Road 6 and drove another 2 and a half miles to our next attraction. There’s not much to stop the wind out in that area of Riley Township where vast expanses of fields are the norm. The wind was biting as I stepped out of the car. Sitting lonely on a corner of one of those fields is the Bridenbaugh District No. 3 School, a one-room schoolhouse. The area’s children were educated there from 1889 until 1927, when it was closed due to a district consolidation of students.

The 42-foot by 30-foot red brick structure replaced a previous wooden school and was named for Michael Bridenbaugh who donated the land on which the school was constructed. After it closed, the Bridenbaugh family, who still owned and farmed the surrounding fields, repurchased the property. After being used as a storage shed for decades, Dale Bridenbaugh, Michael’s great grandson, decided to renovate and preserve the building. It is the only restored one-room school house in the county. He also furnished the school with wooden desks, a chalkboard, and other school accoutrement.

Even after Bridenbaugh completed his work and reopened the school to the community in 1997, he had to contend with damage from vandalism, a windstorm, and a fire. He persevered though, and his labor of love earned the school an Ohio Historic Preservation Merit Award in 2000, placement on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, and an historical marker in 2019.

Standing outside it on a cold and windy January morning, all I could think of was how bitterly cold and miserable it must have been for all the children who attended that school 100-plus years ago when the only source of heat was a single wood-burning stove. Those kids must have been tough and I wouldn’t be surprised if their walk to school in the snow really was uphill both directions.

The next point of interest was less than a mile away, but due to a road closure, we had to drive about three miles to get there, south on Road 6, west on Road O, and then north on Road 7-L. (Are these driving directions or guesses in a game of Battleship?) The Mallaham Bridge spans Riley Creek on Road M-6 (“Hit!”) just off of 7-L. The Bowstring metal truss bridge, so named for its curved shape, was built in 1876. It no longer allows vehicular traffic, but is a unique sight for its they-just-don’t-make-‘em-like-that-anymore design.

After some quick pics, we continued on our way north and west back to Ottawa for one last stop. I wanted to get a photo of the county courthouse. It was blowing snow when we’d first seen it Friday afternoon and it was too dark after we emerged from the Ottawa Brewing Company on Saturday evening. The cloudy conditions on Sunday didn’t make for a favorable photo shoot, but it was still light enough for a picture.

I stood at the southwest corner of the square so I could include in my photo the Putnam County Firefighters Memorial Statue, which was dedicated in 1915. The monument depicts a firefighter holding a child in one arm and a lantern in the other hand. The memorial was ordered after two men suffered fatal injuries while fighting a fire in Ottawa in 1911. The original unveiling involved 10-year-old Mildred Shondel whose father was one of Ottawa’s oldest firefighters.

Over the years, the statue deteriorated. The cast-iron base began to rust, paint chipped, and small decorative pieces went missing. About 20 years ago, local leaders collected $27,000 in donations to have the memorial completely repaired and renovated. When a rededication ceremony took place in 2005, Mildred Shondel, then 99-years-old, was back to help again.

As we left Ottawa for the final time, heading eastbound out of town on US-224, we passed a billboard containing in large letters the message, “Love Makes America Great.” It was paid for by the Putnam County Democratic Party. With so much bullying bluster and mean-spirited vitriol being spouted in politics, that more compassionate and gentler message left me feeling hopeful as we drove the remaining miles out of the county.

Time spent in the county: 42 hours, 18 minutes

Miles driven in the county: 161

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