The Rankin House was an important stop on the Underground Railroad in southern Ohio through which many slaves escaped from the South to freedom. John Rankin was a Presbyterian minister and educator who devoted much of his life to the antislavery movement. In 1826 he published his antislavery book, Letters on American Slavery. In 1834 he founded the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society in Zanesville. From 1825 to 1865, Rankin and his wife Jean, with their Brown County neighbors, sheltered more than 2,000 slaves escaping to freedom, with as many as 12 escapees being hidden in the Rankin home at one time. The house, a National Historic Landmark, is included in the National Underground Railroad to Freedom Network. Outside is a reconstruction of the stairway used by slaves to climb from the Ohio River to the Rankin House.

The house offers tours and educational programs.

This Italianate turn-of-the-century structure was the final home of the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. It exhibits his literary treasures, many of his personal items and his family's furnishings. During his short lifetime Dunbar became known as the poet laureate of African Americans. Drawing on his observations of society and the experience of his parents—both former slaves—he gave voice to the social dilemma of disenfranchised people of his day and became a proclaimer of black dignity.

The site offers exhibits and tours.

The Moravian church founded Schoenbrunn ("beautiful spring") in 1772 as a mission to the Delaware Indians. The settlement grew to include sixty dwellings and more than 300 inhabitants who drew up Ohio's first civil code and built its first Christian church and schoolhouse. Problems associated with the American Revolution prompted Schoenbrunn's closing in 1777. Schoenbrunn's story features a rare meeting of Indian and European cultures and a fascinating perspective on the American Revolution. Today the reconstructed village includes 17 log buildings, gardens, the original mission cemetery, and a museum and visitor center.

The village offers a short film, exhibits, and tours.

Fort Hill State Memorial is a nature preserve containing one of the best preserved Indian hilltop enclosures in North America. The Hopewell Indians (100 B.C.–A.D. 500) constructed the 1 1/2 mile long earthwork hilltop enclosure as well as at least two ceremonial buildings and probably a village in the Brush Creek Valley.

The site is open to the public.

The Piqua Historical Area State Memorial celebrates 2,000 years of Ohio's rich history from prehistoric Indians to Ohio's canal era. The focal point of the peaceful 200-acre park is John Johnston—farmer, public official, and United States Indian Agent for western Ohio from 1812 to 1829. Today, visitors enjoy the home and farm of this most extraordinary man much as it appeared in 1829. Preserved and furnished structures include Johnston's two-story mixed Dutch Colonial/Georgian style farmhouse, a unique two-story spring house, and a cider house. Costumed interpreters and craft demonstrators provide farm tours and display activities in the summer kitchen and fruit kiln areas. A mammoth double-penned log barn, constructed in 1808, is reputed to be the oldest and largest of its type in Ohio, and is still in use on the grounds. Nearby a ring-shaped mound earthwork discovered and preserved by Johnston was constructed by people of the Adena culture over 2,000 years ago. Not far from Johnston's farm is a modern museum, which was constructed to resemble the blockhouse style of Fort Piqua, General Anthony Wayne's 18th-century supply post. In 2001 the museum was renovated with updated exhibits that trace the story of the Eastern Woodland Indians of Ohio and the newly acquired Fort Pickawillany site. Artifacts from Ohio's canal era are also on exhibit. The patio portion of the museum building allows visitors the opportunity to view a restored mile-long section of the Miami and Erie Canal, which extended the length of Ohio from Toledo to Cincinnati. An array of outdoor interpretive panels explore Johnston's later role as a state canal commissioner and provide an introduction to how canals helped in the development and expansion of frontier Ohio. Afterwards, guests may enjoy a ride aboard the General Harrison of Piqua, a replica 70-foot-long mixed cargo canal boat often used for transportation of passengers and cargo in the 19th century. Costumed guides direct the mule-drawn boat to provide an authentic and memorable experience for all.

The site offers exhibits; tours; demonstrations; boat rides; and recreational and educational events, including living history events.

Marietta, Ohio is proud of its riverboat heritage and at the Ohio River Museum visitors can discover the golden age of the steamboat, and learn more about the ecology of the Ohio River system. The Ohio River Museum consists of three exhibit buildings, the first of which houses displays depicting the origins and natural history of the Ohio River. The history of the steamboat on the Ohio River system is featured in the second building, along with a video presentation on river steamboats. The last building features displays about boat building, mussels in the Ohio River system, and tool sand equipment from the steamboat era. Outside the museum, on the Muskingum River, visitors can take an escorted tour of the W.P. Snyder Jr.—the last intact steam-powered "pool-type" stern-wheeled towboat in the United States. Other exhibits on the museum grounds include the pilothouse from the steamboat Tell City as well as a full-scale reproduction of a flatboat from Ohio's early settlement period. Also on site are a series of poles showing the heights of some of the worst floods to hit the area in its recorded history: the 1884 flood at 54.5 feet, the 1898 flood at 49.6 feet, the 1907 flood at 52.1 feet, the flood of 1913 at 60.3 feet, and the 1937 flood at 55 feet.

The museum offers exhibits, a short film, tours, and educational programs.

This three-story brick building was erected in Mount Pleasant in 1814 and was the first yearly Quaker meeting house west of the Alleghenies. Capable of holding 2,000 persons, the building contains an auditorium with a balcony. The auditorium can be divided into two rooms by lowering a wooden partition; when the building was actively used by Quakers, men and women met separately. Jesse Thomas and Robert Carothers laid out Mount Pleasant in 1803. It soon became an important market for Quaker settlers. The Mount Pleasant meeting house was used regularly until 1909.

The house offers tours.

The Grant Boyhood Home was the home of Ulysses S. Grant, 18th president of the United States, from 1823, when Grant was one year old, until 1839, when he left to attend West Point. Ulysses Grant lived in this home longer than any other during his lifetime. Jesse and Hanna Grant, the parents of young Hiram Ulysses Grant, built the original two-story brick section of the Grant Boyhood home in 1823, when they moved to Georgetown from Point Pleasant in Clermont County, where Ulysses had been born the year before. Grant attended the Schoolhouse from the ages of about six to 13. The building, built in 1829, consisted of only one room at that time.

The site offers tours.

Flint Ridge contains quarry pits where all of the ancient people of Ohio came to get flint for both tools and weapons. The flint was also a trade item for many of these people. The flint was especially prized by the Hopewell Culture for its quality and beauty. A walk through the site brings home how hard people labored to remove this material from the earth. The museum at Flint Ridge is built around a restored prehistoric quarry pit and explains both the digging and shaping of flint. The unique geology of the area is also a feature of the displays.

The site offers exhibits, tours, and educational programs.

Buckeye Furnace is a reconstructed charcoal-fired iron blast furnace with original stack, typical of those operating in southeastern Ohio's Hanging Rock Iron Region more than a century ago. Visitors to this 270-acre site can see the furnace, originally built in 1852, which went out of blast for the last time in 1894. Attached to the furnace is the reconstructed casting shed. Above the furnace is the charging loft where iron ore, limestone, and charcoal were loaded into the furnace, and the engine house which contained a steam-powered compressor. The reconstructed company store serves as a visitor orientation area.

The site offers exhibits, tours, and educational programs.