The definitive resource on dogs from North America's largest non-profit pet adoption website. Includes photos!The Total Dog Manual covers everything from how to choose your pet to appropriate training methods and environments, to understanding behavior and selecting the right food, toys, and care for your new family member. From understanding a dogs' anatomy and those deep-down doggie instincts to grooming tips, this team of experts provi...

In the summer of 1957, a young Holmes County farmer was gunned down in cold blood. There was little to distinguish this slaying from hundreds of others throughout the United States that year except for one detail: Paul Coblentz was Amish. A committed pacifist, Coblentz would not raise a hand against his killers. As sensational crimes often do, the "Amish murder" opened a window into the private lives of the young man, his family and his community--a community that in some respects remains ...

Authors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker separate fact from fiction in the story of Ohio's Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was a macabre sort of dance between good and evil in which each side was trying to steal away the other's partner. However, in the upside-down-world of pre-Civil War America, the law was firmly on the side of evil and the dance often ended in death. It was a time when the newly formed country was deeply divided on the question of sla...

In the years leading up to the Civil War, Ohio had more African American settlements than any other state. Owing to a common border with several slave states, it became a destination for people of color seeking to separate themselves from slavery. Despite these communities having populations that sometimes numbered in the hundreds, little is known about most of them, and by the beginning of the twentieth century, nearly all had lost their ethnic identities as the original settlers died off...

More than 200 tips on choosing and caring for your new feline friend, from North America's largest non-profit pet adoption website. Includes photos!From adoption and care to behavior and communication, this comprehensive guide to cats comes from the experts at Adopt-a-Pet.com, who have spent many years connecting homeless pets to their new families. It covers:Basics: Understand your new kitten or cat, prepare for a new arrival, get the skin...

Every community begins with a dream - a dream of a better life Home to thousands of settlements extending as far back as 13,000 years ago, Ohio has seen most of its architectural history fall to the wrecking ball. But there is still history all around if we know where to look. Located south of Dayton, SunWatch is the best-known Fort Ancient Indian village in the United States. On the other side of the state, Marietta is the oldest permanent settlement in the Northwest Territory. About fift...

The Church of Tiki To aficionados of Polynesian Pop, the Kahiki Supper Club was and remains the touchstone for all things tiki. The epitome of a fad that started at the end of Prohibition, it has been rediscovered by each successive generation, with relics of the original "mothership" proudly displayed in tropical restaurants and bars throughout the country. Years after its razing in August 2000, the legacy of the Kahiki continues to inspire artists, entrepreneurs, and other visionaries, m...

Prior to the Civil War, thousands escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad. Untold others failed in the attempt.These unfortunate souls were dragged into bondage via the Reverse Underground Railroad, as it came to be called. With more lines on both roads than any other state, the Free State of Ohio became a hunting ground for slavecatchers and kidnappers who roamed the North with impunity, seeking "fugitives" or any person of color who could be sold into slaver...

Organized crime was born in the back of a fruit store in Marion. Before America saw headlines about the Capone Mob, the Purple Gang and Murder Inc., the specter of the Black Hand terrorized nearly every major city.Fears that the Mafia had reached our shores and infiltrated every Italian immigrant community kept police alert and citizens on edge. It was only a matter of time before these professed Robin Hoods formed a band. And when they did, the eyes of the world t...

With the opening of the Ohio State Reformatory in 1896, the state legislature had put in place "the most complete prison system, in theory, which exists in the United States." The reformatory joined the Ohio Penitentiary and the Boys Industrial School, also central-Ohio institutions, to form the first instance of "graded prisons; with the reform farm on one side of the new prison, for juvenile offenders, and the penitentiary on the other, for all the more hardened and incorrigible class." ...

Department stores were a midwest institution, none more prominent in downtown Columbus Ohio than F&R Laazarus & Company. For more than 150 years, F&R Lazarus & Company was the heart of downtown Columbus. Headed by the "first family of American retailing" with an eye for flair and a devotion to the customer, this uniquely midwestern institution won the hearts and minds of a community. Look to Lazarus draws on the memories of those who worked and shopped in this grand emporium to tell the un...

As early as 1755, explorers found coal deposits in Ohio's Hocking Valley. The industry that followed created towns and canals and established a new way of life. The first shipment of coal rolled into Columbus in 1830 and has continued ever since. In 1890, the United Mine Workers of America was founded in Columbus. Lorenzo D. Poston became the first of the Hocking Valley coal barons, and by the start of the twentieth century, at least fifty thousand coal miners and their families lived and ...