From trolls to barber poles: 9 of Ohio's most unusual museums
Ohio is home to countless museums dedicated to art, local and national history, U.S. presidents, railroads, planes, trains, automobiles — you name it, chances are there’s a museum for it.
But many people don’t know about the many institutions much farther off the beaten path that offer collections more unusual than the imagination can fathom.
With exhibits devoted to oddities like ingested items and archaic birth control methods (no, seriously), here are a few of Ohio’s more obscure and offbeat museums.
Motts Military Museum, Inc.
5075 S. Hamilton Road, Groveport
https://mottsmilitarymuseuminc.com, 614-836-1500
This bastion of military history started in the basement of Warren E. Motts' home more than 35 years ago. In 1999, it was relocated to a 4-acre expanse, where it houses artifacts from every U.S. conflict from the Revolutionary War to Desert Storm, as well as a POW exhibit, a display of military medals, and items from NASA. Special exhibits are dedicated to 9/11 and specific soldiers including the Tuskegee Airmen.
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Among his collections, Motts, a former Ohio State hospital photographer with an interest in battlefield medicine, has amassed an extensive and curious assemblage of Civil War medical relics that include embalming equipment, a bone saw, and glass eyeballs.
The Troll Hole Museum
228 E. Main St., Alliance
thetrollhole.com, 330-596-1157
Sherry Groom began collecting trolls when she was 5 years old. Now, the rainbow-haired dolls occupy the 14 rooms of The Troll Hole, which has amassed more than 20,000 troll-related items since opening in 2013.
It's virtually bursting with exhibits: the Troll Hall of Fame featuring celebrities, musicians and athletes in troll form; the Troll Bowl, a replica of Canton's Pro Football Hall of Fame stadium packed with troll fans; and a room presenting its Guinness World Record collection of more 8,100 dolls, for which Groom has held the record since 2018.
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There's also a Dreamworks Troll-themed room inspired by the popular franchise, which will release a new animated film, "Trolls Band Together," on Nov. 17
But that's not the end of the troll-mania! Other attractions at The Troll Hole include an eclectic gift shop, the Grumpy Troll cafe, a troll bridge and a troll sculpture garden with a 10-foot troll mountain.
Museum of Skateboard History at Skatopia
34961 Hutton Road, Rutland
skatopia.org, 740-742-3169
Located in Meigs County in southeastern Ohio, Skatopia is a board-junkie's heaven. The park, owned and operated by pro skater Brewce Martin, is known for its assorted bowls and ramps, annual music blowouts, and an atmosphere one writer described as "a demented mess that meets halfway between an anarchistic Mad Maxian Thunderdome and a utopian skateboard society."
Skatopia also features on its "88 acres of anarchy" the Museum of Skateboard History, a wall-to-wall (and ceilings) assemblage of vintage boards — nearly 13,000 of them — dating back to the origins of the sport in the early '60s. The museum is adorned with skateboards of all sizes that are made of wood, metal, plastic and fiberglass.
Hot Dog Museum at O’Betty’s Red Hot
15 W. State St., Athens
obettys.com, ?740-589-6111
O’Betty’s packs a lot into a little space; according to the website, it’s housed in the smallest building in Uptown Athens. Boasting a hot dog menu that would rival Dirty Frank’s, the highly praised eatery also serves a variety of sandwiches, hand-cut fries and other delectables.
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Hot dogs are certainly popular — Americans eat 20 billion per year, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council — and O’Betty’s has capitalized on that popularity with its Hot Dog Museum. Visitors can browse an amusing collection as varied as the restaurant’s menu, including hot dog-shaped buildings, candy, cars, cooking utensils and toys, as well as wiener-related games, children’s books and cookbooks, clothing and even dangerous-looking hot dog cookers.
The Percy Skuy Collection on the History of Contraception exhibit
Dittrick Medical History Center, Case Western Reserve University
11000 Euclid Ave., Cleveland
artsci.case.edu/dittrick/collections
This collection started by Percy Skuy, past president of Ortho Pharmaceutical (Canada) is a testament to the drastic measures folks will take to prevent pregnancy. Skuy accumulated the world's largest comprehensive collection of historical contraceptive devices, numbering more than 650 pieces. Since its acquisition by the Dittrick Medical History Center in 2004, the collection has grown to about 1,100 artifacts.
In addition to contraceptive gadgets, items include prototypes, manufacturing devices, literature like ancient texts with recipes for birth control, and more. The exhibit also examines folkloric (and sometimes dangerous) birth control methods and the influence of religion on contraception.
Allen County Museum
620 W. Market St., Lima
allencountymuseum.org, 419-222-9426
There's much to see in this museum, which has preserved and promoted the county's history since 1908: exhibits dedicated to trains, modes of transportation, the local oil industry - doesn't sound too weird, right?
But continue your journey and you'll stumble upon an exhibit titled "Things People Swallowed" — and it's not about food. The exhibit showcases more than 100 objects ingested by patients of Dr. Walter Yingling and Dr. Estey Yingling — among them, buttons, screws, diaper pins, a long piece of rubber hose and, incredibly, a set of dentures.
Wyandot Popcorn Museum
169 E. Church St., Marion
wyandotpopcornmus.com, 740-387-4255
With Marion County being one of the top popcorn growers in the country and Wyandot, Inc. among the world's largest exporters of popcorn, it's no wonder the city of Marion has a both a festival and a museum dedicated to the tasty treat.
In fact, the Wyandot Popcorn Museum is the only such institution in the world. (The other, the J.H. Fentress Antique Popcorn Museum, also located in Ohio, permanently closed last year.) The museum, which contains the largest collection of restored popcorn antiques in the world, opened in early September 1982, shortly before the second annual Marion Popcorn Festival.
Visitors will find a variety of popcorn wagons, trucks, peanut roasters and other antiques that are anything but run-of-the-mill. Among them is a 1909 Cretors Model D Popcorn Wagon – a rare, horse-drawn unit that was used by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus.
Paul A. Johnson Pencil Sharpener Museum
13178 OH-664, Logan
You might not see the point, but the Pencil Sharpener Museum is anything but dull. Located in the Hocking Hills Regional Welcome Center, it features more than 3,400 sharpeners of all shapes — among them, U.S. presidents, Mickey Mouse, Tweety Bird, planes, trains and automobiles.
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The assortment represents 20 years of collecting by Johnson, started when his wife gave him a couple of car-shaped sharpeners in the late '80s.
If you're thinking of hurrying to the Hocking Hills, you'll have to wait — the museum is temporarily closed for renovations. Stay tuned to Facebook for news of its reopening.
National Barber Museum and Hall of Fame
135 Franklin St., Canal Winchester
nationalbarbermuseum.org, 614-565-1952
Founded as the Ed Jeffers Barber Museum in 1988 by a namesake known as the "Godfather of Barbering," the museum is the only one in the world of its size dedicated solely to barbering.
From barber poles, artwork and signs, to chairs, razors, shaving mugs and other artifacts and tools of the trade, the galleries display thousands of fastidiously maintained barbershop items from all over the United States.
Visitors from all 50 states and several foreign countries have toured the national museum, which has been featured on TV shows on the Discovery Channel, the Family Channel, Fox Live and others. It also graced the front page of the Wall Street Journal in 1999, and has been the topic of articles in many magazines including Smithsonian.
Following Jeffers' death in 2006, the Canal Winchester Area Historical Society took over the operations, renaming the museum the National Barber Museum and Hall of Fame founded by Ed Jeffers.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Nine of the most unusual museums in Ohio
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