The winding mountain road is itself an historical site. Designated in 2015 as the Blue-Gray Highway, it became an official reminder of the numerous Civil War battles fought in the area. Although I don’t see mention of the battles, I count three Confederate flags on this stretch of road – fewer than I had expected. Even so, I find them unnerving. Carried today by white supremacists on their marches, the flag is an emblem of the Confederacy and feels like a warning.
Eventually, the landscape opens to a crossroad, and the Little Kanawha River joins the wide and winding Ohio River. Where West Virginia and Ohio meet, an enormous coal power plant rises from the flatland along the Ohio River and looms over empty grassy lots that line the street. The place could be a scene from the old TV show The Twilight Zone. It looks as if the houses were plucked up, leaving driveways, patios and lawns intact. Smokestacks from the coal plant that look like nuclear reactors quietly churn out billowing clouds as a lawnmower drives back and forth across the empty landscape. This had been the village of Cheshire; the power company polluted the town so severely they paid $20 million to buy out residents.3 I’ll return to this in Chapter 3, but for now the journey continues northward toward Athens. In minutes, a beautiful cable-stayed bridge takes me across the Ohio River to Pomeroy, Ohio. The $65 million bridge is stunning both in its modern expanse and its dissonance in relationship to the former village of Cheshire and the economically distressed town of Pomeroy, which it connects.
Pomeroy, the county seat for Meigs County, was once a mining town producing both salt and coal. Its claim to fame rests on its being the first town to load a coal barge onto the Ohio River. In the 1990s the mining industries shut down and the economic distress in Pomeroy is evident. Historic buildings with charming facades still line the streets, yet closed storefronts outnumber open businesses on the main thoroughfare. The town looks out onto the grand Ohio River and it’s easy to imagine this as a tourist destination, the historic buildings filled with cafés, restaurants, and specialty shops. But just across the river, in Cheshire, the Kyger Creek and Gavin Power Plant burns about 35,000 tons of coal per day. It’s rated as one of the most polluting power plants in the country.
The Pomeroy–Mason Bridge connects the former village of Cheshire with Pomeroy, Ohio.
Eventually, I reach Athens County, Ohio. It is one of eighty-three counties in Appalachia rated as distressed by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), and one of six distressed counties in Southeast Ohio.4 Counties designated as “distressed” face significant structural challenges and place economically in the bottom 10% of counties nationally. Before the pandemic, the poverty rate in Athens County hovered at 33%. In towns throughout the county the economic hardship is evident in the quality of housing, the number of cars that are falling apart, the number of shuttered businesses as well as in the kinds of businesses that remain open. Along some of the county’s back roads, ramshackle trailers and dilapidated houses rise precariously in the hollows and hillsides. On the surface, these communities resemble those I have seen on Native American reservations.
Athens County once prospered from its brickwork, including the renowned star bricks.
Unlike many Appalachian counties, Athens County is home to two colleges. Ohio University, located in the city of Athens, has approximately 23,000 students – equal to the number of local residents in the city and about one-third of the entire county population. The university has a big impact. Although the majority of students come to the university from red counties in Ohio, their presence at OU tilts the town toward more progressive politics than those of the surrounding communities. Out of eighty-eight counties in Ohio, Athens County is one of five blue counties. Students bring an influx of cash into the economy that supports restaurants and local businesses. They also push rents higher. Landlords can make more money by renting a house by the bedroom to students than by renting the entire unit to a single family. Affordable housing for locals in Athens County is rare. In addition, the large student body competes with locals for service industry jobs and arguably drives down wages in those jobs. As in most college towns, locals tend to view the student population as a mixed blessing. The town has a reputation for a drinking culture. On the main drag of Court Street, I count twenty-two bars in three blocks and quickly find fourteen additional places to go for a drink in side streets. All of them are successful businesses that operate all year.
With ARC support, Nelsonville, Ohio, is working to renovate and rebuild an historic town square in which they can host cultural activities for the communities in Athens County.
Just twenty minutes up the road from Athens is the second largest city in Athens County, Nelsonville, home to 5,300 people. There I find an emerging arts community thanks to revitalization projects funded by the Appalachian Regional Commission. Although the ARC is slated to be defunded by the federal government, its contributions to this community are clear. With ARC funding the gorgeous old opera house on the town square is being refurbished to serve as an arts and music center for the community. And, thanks to ARC cash infusions and an industrious core of volunteer residents, the town hosts car shows and a smoked meat festival that draw people from around the county.
Nelsonville is home to Hocking College, a small, two-year technical college with majors in areas such as equine studies, nursing, construction, and food service. The college adds about 2,100 students to the local population. As in Athens, and other college towns across the country, landlords here push rents higher by renting houses by the bedroom to college students. If Ohio University in Athens has not been able to shake a reputation for drugs and alcohol, Hocking has not been able to shake a reputation for scandal generated by sexual assaults, race-based hate crimes, and administrative mismanagement. Athens and Nelsonville are the largest towns in the county, which also includes eight small villages salted across 508 square miles.5
Michael Chase lives in Athens County and is working two part-time service industry jobs when we meet. With one white parent and one Black, Michael characterizes himself as American Black, “because when I say I’m Black, people ask me if I’m Ethiopian, so I’ll just say American Black.” Michael grew up in the area and has a high school degree. At age twenty-one, he is part of a generation that turns to the internet for news, social media, and impressive amounts of random trivia – like the history of straws. He is clearly a smart and engaged person, but college was never part of the plan for Michael. In his senior year, when he had his first conversations about college with friends, he realized he wanted to go, but he didn’t know what he wanted to study. Some families spend thousands of dollars on college prep courses, others spend tens of thousands of dollars on college-counseling services, and still others expect their child to walk in the front door of an elite university as a “legacy” acceptance. There was none of this for Michael. No one seemed to have college in mind for him. Not his parents, not his teachers, and not the school guidance counselors. His future seemed to end with high school. Now Michael is more aware of the hazards he faces in life than of the opportunities he might have as a college student. “I’ll say for right now, I’m only twenty-one. I don’t have kids. I’m not in jail or prison. I’m not out here doing drugs or drunk driving or anything. I like to just work, hang out with friends. As for my future, I don’t know.”