Day 3 - Corner to Corner to Corner II at DennyGibson.com

Day 3: September 10, 2020
Rollin' on 3C
Comment via blog

Prev

Next

I think it was even foggier than yesterday as I headed out of Medina on the same street I first arrived on on Tuesday. At the south edge of town, US-42 heads west while I and OH-3 keep rolling to the south. I've read that when Ohio began numbering its highways, the lower numbers were assigned in order of importance which I suspect equates to traffic volume. OH-1 was given to the National Road which crossed central Ohio and the route across the top of the state near Lake Erie was designated OH-2. The 3C Highway became OH-3.

It was still quite foggy when I reached Hartzler Dairy's Ice Cream Shop at the north edge of Wooster. We stopped here in 2001 when they were celebrating the owners' 50th anniversary with a 1951 flashback and 51 cent ice cream cones. It was too early to buy a cone at any price today.

I think I already knew that Daniel Emmett, composer of the song Dixie, was from Mount Vernon Ohio, and when I began routing this trip I learned that the house he was believed to have been born in was on display in the town. I also learned that some of the cost of the house's restoration had come from another local celebrity and everyone's favorite Hollywood Square, Paul Lynde. Then I learned that the house had caught on fire in 2014. Then I learned that recent research indicated that it really wasn't Emmett's birthplace at all and would not be restored. I saw nothing of the house when I drove by the specified address so assume it is totally gone now. But I did stop to visit Paul in Amity a few miles before reaching mount Vernon giving me a single picture to show for all this learning. Actually two, since Paul's parents and a sibling are identified on an adjacent stone. The other names on Paul's stone are also siblings.

OH-3 joined up with US-36 in Mount Vernon and the two are still together entering the not-quite-in-the-center-of-Ohio Centerburg. A brand new looking stretch of Old 3C Highway branches off of OH-3 just a couple of miles south of Centerburg. At Sunbury, US-36 takes off for Colorado.

The middle 'C' in 3C is Columbus where I grabbed some drive-by snaps. The first is of the capitol which opened in 1857 after eighteen years of "construction". The National Veteran's Memorial and Museum opened in 2018 about a month before my visit. Tommy's Diner, which I've visited more than once, opened in 1989.

OH-3 picks up another US numbered hitchhiker on Columbus' Central Avenue but I briefly got away from the numbers altogether on a short stretch of one time 3C Highway now signed Old Harrisburg Road. My drive-by shot of the Washing Court House courthouse was photo-bombed by an unnamed tree. US-62 and OH-41 both join up in Washington Court House but both split off before leaving town. OH-41 is headed for Aberdeen, Ohio, while US-62 is bound for El Paso, Texas. OH-3 and US-22 will travel together until the end.

Even though I had once lived on Old 3C Highway, I knew very little about it when I made that 2001 trip. My ignorance was reduced considerably by a Frank Brusca article published in American Road Magazine in the spring of 2004. One of the things Brusca mentioned in that article was Kim's Classic Diner which had just opened in Sabina on September 11, 2003. Over the years, I've taken and posted several photos of the 1946 Silk City due partially, I admit, to the fact that it was the subject of my first published article in American Road in 2006. Opening the diner had been a dream come true for Kim Starr but it wasn't to last. Family health issues forced its closing in 2009. It has been operated by others for relatively short periods but is currently idle and available for sale or lease.

I'm back in more or less home territory now with camera targets becoming more familiar. In Wilmington, I paused for a cold beer on the patio of the historic General Denver Hotel and took a picture of the equally historic Murphy Theater across the street while I was there. I also visited with my daughter but there's no photographic evidence.

One of the things I learned from Brusca's article was that this road through Clarksville, which I'd driven many times, was part of the 3C Highway.

This is the section of Old 3C I once lived on and I posted a couple of pictures from it in 2001. What was then called the Train Stop is now The Monkey Bar & Grill (from a Train Stop resident chimpanzee) with many additions and improvements. The picture showing the name was taken from approximately the same spot as this a href="../../C2C2C/Day04/pic5a.jpg">2001 shot and, yes, that little brick and stone building is in there somewhere. Back in the late 1970s, I lived in an apartment in one of those buildings in the third picture. I didn't work my way in to get a picture of the bridge as I did in 2001 but I did take a snapshot of the entrance and signs. Looks like it's still a rather exclusive joint.

Here are a couple of places in Pleasant Ridge that I photographed in 2001. The Dubliner changed hands and changed names then was severely damaged by a 2018 fire that took the next door building to the ground. Across the street, Everybody's Records is still going strong after celebrating its forty-second anniversary this summer.

This panel is a mix of stuff I included in 2001 and stuff that didn't exist then. The Harriet Beecher Stowe appeared in the 2001 journal. Not so the Art Climb at the Cincinnati Art Museum. It opened in May of this year and I climbed it in June. The Elsinore Arch was built as a Cincinnati Water Works valve station in 1883 so was here and 119 years old when photographed in 2001. The newer Proctor and Gamble towers in the background of the fourth picture were also included in 2001 but the casino in the foreground didn't exist until 2012. Arnold's is older than everything in this panel except the Stowe House. The routs end sign looks to be unchanged since I photographed it nineteen years ago.

As I did in 2001, I looped back to Arnold's after completing my mission. I took a somewhat better picture of the building then settled in for dinner in the courtyard. Although it has been Arnold's signature dish for as long as I can remember, I had never eater their Greek Spaghetti. I did tonight (excellent!) and washed it down with Listermann Märzen. The drive-by shot in the previous panel shows some street area blocked off and some people eating there. I try to stay outside when I can and am not entirely sure why I didn't ask to be seated there but I didn't. The courtyard is covered by a plastic sheet so it's not quite inside but not quite outside either. Tonight a party of eight and I had it all to ourselves.

In the almost empty courtyard, I instantly noticed the mural of "Peanut Jim" Shelton. Even though I recognized the subject, the mural itself didn't seem particularly familiar. I decided that was because there are usually people sitting along that wall an partially hiding the image. I took advantage of the sparse crowd and grabbed a few pictures. Then, for no clear reason, I used my phone to search for Peanut Jim and quickly discovered that the mural was done in February by Vhils, a Portuguese street artist visiting Cincinnati for other projects. I hadn't noticed it before because it wasn't there. Peanut Jim got his name by selling peanuts from a cart while wearing a top hat and tails. Arnold's has the cart he used on display so I snapped a picture of it too. Read what I read here.

[Prev] [Site Home] [Trip Home] [Contact] [Next]