The State Route 104
Preservation
Web Page

---

Ohio's State Route 104 is a two-lane, slightly sinuous highway that runs north through the Scioto Valley. It starts near Portsmouth, on the Ohio River at the bottom center of the state, runs through Waverly, Chillicothe, past Circleville and into Columbus, at the center of the state, where the highway makes an absurd eastward turn and really become a different road before ending after a few miles.

The part I am most focused on is the part I travel the most, between Columbus and Chillicothe. The highway is a pleasant drive, coursing through an almost entirely rural area with a few tight curves and lots of calming country scenery.

But in the last few years, it has begun to become less pleasant - in small ways, but nagging small ways that will only worsen as trends in our built environment continue.

Three things have happened.

• Development south of Columbus has required a new traffic light which seems to be always red until the sensor is tripped. (And now, a couple years later, there are three more lights, two of which used to be only stop of caution lights! Argh!)

• Gas wells and a gas substation have marred the roadside scenery and create small clouds of odor that must be driven through.

• Big trucks have begun driving on the relatively narrow and sometimes dangerous road, instead of US Route 23, the four-lane divided highway on the other side of the Scioto River.

My point with this web page is that State Route 104 is minor an example of the rural built environment that, like uncountable others, is being eroded by development. It and all those uncountable others add up to a sizable part of our heritage that is being banalized. We need these areas, if for anything, to remind us that the middle of nowhere can be calming and pleasant...and is as vulnerable to corruption as anything else, and needs to be conserved.

I plan to address the development pressures that have led to and will lead to more of the intrusions on this road: why they happen, what right they have to happen here, how to control them, and how to mitigate them. And I plan to share the history, scenery, architecture and any other information on the road that makes it worth caring about.

Let me get back to you on that...