No trip to the beautiful Hocking Hills would be complete without a stop at the Hocking Hills Regional Welcome Center. Located just a stones throw south of U.S. 33 on St. Rte. 664S, the Welcome Center is not only headquarter central for information on the Hocking Hills, but for all of southeastern Ohio.
The acquisition and construction of the building reads like a modern-day fairy tale and the building is becoming a tourist attraction in itself. This is how the story goes:
It all began quite meekly. About six years ago various tourism related groups and visitors councils united to form the Hocking County Tourism Association (HCTA). In the years that followed the group hoped to someday construct a welcome center to assist visitors to the area. However, with one of the smallest tourism budgets in the state, the group saw little hope of raising the funds. In the summer of 1992 the HCTA entered the Ohio State Fair's "Ohio's Own" competition. Backed by the community, the membership worked the best part of the summer creating their display - a mock up of one of the county's most popular attractions, Ash Cave - and won the contest's impressive $10,000 first place prize. Encouraged by their success, the group immediately deposited their winnings in their "Welcome Center Building Fund". October brought to a close the state's Ameriflora '92 Exposition in Columbus and with its closing came another grand success for the HCTA. The "Old Mill Building" that had served as the Ohio Pavilion during the exposition was to be given away to a non-profit organization proposing the best use for the structure. Thanks to the creativity of the group, they came up with a proposal the state just couldn't refuse.
The group proposed that the structure be disassembled, moved and reassembled to a key location in Hocking County and utilized as a regional welcome center. Their reasoning centered around the proposition that the construction of the building at the gateway to the state's depressed Appalachian Counties would help to increase the region's economic base, by providing much needed tourist information and direction. In the fall of 1992 the structure was formally awarded to the Hocking County Tourism Association, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. But their work had only just begun!
Now came the task of piece-by-piece disassembling the huge structure and transporting it to the Hocking Hills. The work was difficult, and time consuming, but thanks to the efforts of an all volunteer task force, including adult carpentry students from a local vocational school, the building was down in a matter of days. Local trucking firms provided vehicles to transport all the pieces back to southeastern Ohio, where it was stored in barns and sheds in practically every township in the county. As 1993 dawned an even larger task loomed ahead, the re-construction of the building.
The reassembling of the old mill was to be done on land provided at the intersection of U.S. 33 and St. Rte. 664 South, by the Ohio Department of Transportation. A key location, at the entrance to the state's extremely popular Hocking Hills State Park. With the adult carpentry class still providing the nucleus of the work force, other volunteers joined the guidance of a volunteer Building Committee chairman and a volunteer Project Supervisor. Scores of others offered assistance from heavy equipment and crane operation to painting, landscaping and cleaning. Funds for the project came from every aspect of the community, with each contribution valued regardless of size. In addition to the contribution of labor and cash, inkind services also poured in.
Electrical work for the project was also provided by the vocational school, with a local electrical inspector offering guidance to be sure everything was up to code. The structure was plumbed by a retired plumber, and telephone wiring provided by two area telephone experts. The community's telephone company donated the structure's telephone system, the Governor's Office of Appalachia a grant for the facilities lift station, and the City of Logan a grant for its parking lot. Landscaping was donated by two local firms, and grading by the Ohio Operating Corp of Engineers Apprenticeship program. The list goes on and on.
One group put together a Hocking Hills Trivia Game and sold it as a fund-raiser. An area Boy Scout took on the organization of the painting of the structure for his Eagle Scout project and a Logan hardware store owner heard about his ambitious project and donated the paint, while another store provided the brushes. Other stores and shops within the county and region provided discounts on many items and supplies.
Since Hocking County is located at the heart of the Hocking State Forest and Wayne National Forest regions where hardwood harvesting is plentiful, two logging firms made substantial donations of lumber. One for a display and another for an entire interior wall. Tourism related businesses rallied heavily behind the construction offering donations of time, materials and funding. Besides all of this, as the completion of the building drew near, contributions of office furniture, equipment and supplies started coming in. The year of 1993 saw 12 months of intensive, almost all voluntary work on the Hocking Hills Regional Welcome Center. Approximately 600 volunteers provided some 12000 hours of work to make Hocking County's Welcome Center dream become a reality. As 1993 drew to a close the completion of the structure was so close the volunteers could taste it, however, time, weather and other factors were not in the project's favor. The new year brought new determination to complete the project. Final interior work was completed and on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1994, the tourism office was moved into the new building. The Hocking Hills Regional Welcome Center is open seven days a week. Information about places to stay, things to see and do, where to shop and more is available with the center. Stop in and see us!
Return to the Hocking County Tourism Association