Invisible Ground

Our 20th episode is all about Nelsonville, Ohio,, which is home to our two newest Immersive Historic Sites: the Nelsonville Brick Kilns and the city's historic Public Square. They join our previous site at Stuart's Opera House (featured in episode 15) We will talk about both places in this episode and learn more about the town’s Black History, its connection to professional baseball, and its industrial roots.

This episode is all about the Athens Armory, covering everything from the National Guard's early days to the historic building itself and the people who passed through its walls. We learn about Black soldiers from southeast Ohio in World War I, go back to when the lot was part of the Athens Brick Company and hosted a few tent revivals before construction on the Armory began, and the connections of all of this to the First Christian Church which is now home to our friends at the Southeast Ohio History Center—lots to explore in this episode.

In this episode of Invisible Ground we visit Rendville, a small town in Perrry County, Ohio a historic Black community. Hear about this community's story and the important people who called it home, and the work being done to preserve that legacy well into the future.

For this episode of Invisible Ground we spotlight the other big piece of this project, our series of Immersive Historic Sites at eight locations around Athens County. Hear all eight of the audio pieces from the Invisible Ground app, one for each of the markers. Each audio interpretation welcomes you to the location and allows you to hear the story from one person, someone who is directly connected to the story, place, and history. These can all be found in the Invisible Ground app for Apple and Android. You are encouraged to go use the app in person at these locations, to see these historic images in augmented reality right there on your smartphone or tablet device. This episode's sponsors are O'Nail Hartman Insurance and the 51st annual Athens International Film and Video Festival.

We head up to the village of Chauncey in Athens County for this episode. We talk about the coal mine and tipple once found where the Chauncey-Dover Community Park (and soon an Invisible Ground Immersive Historic Marker) is today and its impact on the landscape past and present. There's a huge mine strike, Ivy League University presidents, retired Civil War generals heading to the bar, explosions, machine guns, murders in a cemetery, and even a fen full of skunk cabbages in this episode. Chauncey has some fantastic stories to tell, you just have to make sure you say the name of the town right.

Invisible Ground travels to the small town of Albany, Ohio to learn about its important connection to the Underground Railroad, and early Black education in the United States. We learn about the Albany Enterprise Academy, and its predecessor, the Albany Manual Labor Academy: the legacies they leave behind, the forgotten places on the landscape, and the incredible people who walked through their doors.

No history or documentary storytelling in this episode, this time it is all focused on The Music of Invisible Ground! To celebrate the pre-order of our compilation of the same name on vinyl, cd, and digital download (which you should make sure to go pre-order and support!) we are diving into the sounds you hear throughout the podcast. Music from Todd Jacops, Powers/Rolin Duo, Daniel Bachman, The Peel, Brian Harnetty, Bill MacKay, Brandon Reisig, Unmonumental, Weedghost, Disjointed Mike, Pete Fosco, and Dead Winds of Summer on the show! This special episode of Invisible Ground also serves as the 43rd episode of Brian's long-time Ohio music podcast, The Western Reserve. Enjoy!

Enjoy this special story courtesy of the Andrew Jackson Davison Club at Athens Middle School about the Westside neighborhood in Athens and its West State Street Cemetery. The students researched, interviewed, wrote their script, and recorded their narration in only a few weeks! This episode is part of a project for Tantrum Theater and their debut play Hotel Berry, and is a collaboration with Invisible Ground, the Andrew Jackson Davison Club, Mount Zion Baptist Church Preservation Society, the Southeast Ohio History Center, and Athens Photographic Project. This project is supported by a grant from Ohio Humanities, and a matching grant from the Ohio University College of Fine Arts Community Fund. Special thanks to Joshua Coy, Angela Hall, Evan Shaw, Nicki Mazzocca, Yaphet Jackman, Chad Reich, Tommy Stumpp, and all of our historians and collaborators for making this project happen. Story by: Carter Boeninger, Cohen Stadler, Simon Foehl, Theo Smucker, and Coltrane Parsons Executive Producer: Brian Koscho Producer: Nicki Mazzocca Editor: Chad Reich Music from: Todd Jacops, Dead Winds of Summer, Disjointed Mike, and Brian Koscho

Enjoy this special story courtesy of the Andrew Jackson Davison Club at Athens Middle School about Andrew Jackson Davison and Eliza Brown Davison. Learn a bit more about this important couple, and their legacy here in Athens County and beyond. The students researched, interviewed, wrote their script, and recorded their narration in only a few weeks! This episode is part of a project for Tantrum Theater and their debut play Hotel Berry, and is a collaboration with Invisible Ground, the Andrew Jackson Davison Club, Mount Zion Baptist Church Preservation Society, the Southeast Ohio History Center, and Athens Photographic Project. This project is supported by a grant from Ohio Humanities, and a matching grant from the Ohio University College of Fine Arts Community Fund. Special thanks to Joshua Coy, Angela Hall, Evan Shaw, Nicki Mazzocca, Yaphet Jackman, Chad Reich, Tommy Stumpp, and all of our historians and collaborators for making this project happen.

This episode is about the historic Mount Zion Baptist Church in Athens, Ohio, which is celebrating 150 years since the founding of its congregation. The church, the building, and the institution are a central part of the lives of the Black community in Athens County and beyond. A building that still remains with us, when so many others have been erased with their history, culture, and stories too. Learn all about the building's history from some incredible people who have preserved its past and are also seeing its future as a non-profit organization that will restore it as the Mount Zion Black Cultural Center.

This is a bonus piece for Invisible Ground! It is the same audio orientation from Ada-Woodson Adams you will find in our Invisible Ground app (you can download it for Apple and Android!) for the first of our Immersive Historic Markers at the former site of The Berry Hotel at 15 North Court Street in Athens, Ohio. Be sure to go try it out! And to listen to the full episode about The Berry Hotel in our feed.

In this episode of Invisible Ground, we head over to eastern Athens County to learn about Tablertown and the unique family history of David Butcher. In the middle, we have a short piece about a historical mystery in the backyard of some friends. And we wrap up this installment with a quick story about Rural Action and their Ride Through Time series, which takes public history and interpretation of regional culture and puts it into a two-wheeled tour. Please subscribe, rate, and review. You can support our work through Patreon at patreon.com/invisibleground

The theme for the first few episodes of Invisible Ground is a logical place to start with a podcast like this: cemeteries. West State Street Cemetery in Athens is one of the oldest in Southeast Ohio, it is a unique location where some stories are told right on the tombstones and others require a bit more exploration. This episode features W.E. Peters, Andrew Jackson Davison, and The Currier Sisters.