Where nature meets history: restorative remembrance and sustainable tourism in Shawnee

A place once bustling with industry, labor revolution and renowned moonshine just up the road is now looking forward to new opportunities and economic growth through its natural beauty and provoking history. 

Shawnee is nestled between the winding roads and rivers of Southeastern Ohio, where the land once rich in coal, clay and timber brought booming industry and cultural majesty. 

The area’s resources had once fueled the nation and built the tracks of commercial enterprise and it’s now left with nothing but the results of brutal abuse of the land to show for it. The decades of unregulated mining and extraction left an environmental crisis of soil erosion, deforestation and “shit creeks,” as John Winnenberg described it. 

Winnenberg lives on the banks of Sunday Creek in the same community he grew up in. After going away to college he came back and is now dedicated to the revitalization of his home. 

“Ohio truly was the heart of it all back in those days, Ohio was like a rockin’ place. Our presidents during this period were mostly from Ohio, Taft, McKinley and Cleveland…and the coal contributed greatly to that story,” Winnenberg said.

Winnenberg’s goal, as he describes it, is to “regenerate around sharing our provocative story in a way that respects us and and also contributes to our regeneration.”

On West Main Street, sits the Tecumseh Commons, once known as a skyscraper and hosted sockhops, basketball games, vaudeville shows and storefronts in its heyday. The building constructed by bricks molded from local clay was purchased by Winnenberg in the 70s for $500. The building now stands as a symbol for Winnenberg’s work in mending the community, once in disrepair, written off as worthless now striving for its former glory. 

Winnenberg works to restore some of what has been extracted from the area, but he is carefully constructing a tourism sector rooted in history and preservation, avoiding “ATVs and beer drinkers,” as he put it. While he joked about “developers from Columbus,” the threat of gentrification through rapid economic boom looms. 

“We're trying to brand ourselves around our history: little cities of black diamonds,” Winnenberg said. 

Historical markers and statues are only the start of sustainable tourism and with the Sunday Creek Associates, the Little Cities of Black Diamonds Council and Ohio’s Winding Road, he has been working to restore the bones of the town by promoting local food, art and culture. 

Ohio’s Winding Road works specifically to build an experience-based economy through a seed grant program, community networks, enterprise support and its marketplace across the street from the Tecumseh Theater.  

Winnenberg’s philosophy and strategy in experience tourism is community-based. 

“What we do we do for ourselves first, and if we do it well enough and make our communities interesting and our story understandable and interesting to ourselves, others will come,” Winnenberg said. 

Tourism isn’t a new concept to the area, it boomed during the height of the Devil’s Oven in the 70s which brought national attention to the rural town. The appreciation for the land rich in resources, now since burned by the extractive industries, holds strong through the efforts of community members like Winnenberg. 

Summer recreation programs, music festivals and farmers markets are only the start to the healing and economic recovery process, according to Winnenberg, but it's a fine line to walk between sustainable community-building and extractive vacation destinations.