The Community, Connections & Commerce Podcast, presented by OUE & St. Clairsville Chamber - Community and Connections Season 2 Episode 11 with Belmont County Tourism

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

Welcome back to Community and Connections. I'm Drake Watson with Jason Garcic as always. I'd be here again. Good to see you. And we are glad to be joined by Jackie Pugh and Christina Essel. Thanks for having us. Thanks for coming on. We're very appreciative of your time this morning.

Christina, you're with the Underground Railroad Museum in Flushing in Belmont County. Correct. And Jackie, you are with the Belmont County Tourism. Correct. So we're really excited to talk to you guys today and how. talk a little bit about both of you guys and what you do in your respective I guess endeavors and then how your world's kind of overlap especially here here soon with with the news about the museum so we'll start with you Christina in the Underground Railroad Museum talk to us

a little about a little bit about who you are what the museum entails and how you came to be involved in that that's a really long story Hi, everyone. Christina Estel. I'm the director of the Underground Railroad Museum. I've been volunteering there for seven years now. I started, actually, during my time at Ohio University Eastern, I was writing a research paper on the history of the churches in Barnesville, my hometown. And I discovered that the Quaker Meeting House was directly involved with the Underground Railroad Movement. and I was very, very excited. My professor, Dr. David Castle, told me to interview Dr. John Maddox at the Underground Railroad Museum.

I had never heard of it, never heard of him. So I went and interviewed him, and I think that was November 2017. And after three hours, I begged for an internship and never left. So I've been with the museum for that long. Basically, my internship with Dr. Maddox lasted until I graduated in August 2018, and he passed July 17, 2019. So at that point, I just kept coming in, and here I am. Well, Jackie, you are, what is your title officially? I'm the executive director of Belmont County Tourism.

Okay. So before we talk about what you do exactly, I guess, you know, the same thing as Christina, you know, who you are and how that came about. So I've been with the tourism office since 2001. I have a large background in nonprofit marketing, was in the higher ed sector, was in an ad agency at one point, and moved back to my hometown to raise my daughter. And when this opportunity came up at the tourism office, I thought, what? a cool chance to learn about all the things happening right here in my own backyard and be able to promote all the great stuff to everyone else as well. You hear all the time, there's not a lot going on, but really there is. It's just people need to look for it. And so that's part of my job is to spread the word about all the great things happening in our communities. I'm on your email list now and it's amazing. You know, you just see all the things happening over the weekend or even

during the week. And it's like, oh, there's plenty of it to do. We send that email every week. And our, like, national readership level on emails is, like, 14%. Our open rate is at, like, 30%. So over double the national average. So that tells me people locally that get that and subscribe to our newsletter, not only get it in their emails, but open it and read it and want to learn what's going on as well.

So it's been a really great driver for us. to be able to communicate what's happening every week in the county. So you guys have kind of worked together and come into contact a lot recently because of the Underground Railroad. You guys are in Flushing and will be for a little while. And you're going to be moving into the Black Horse Inn in Morristown. Is that correct? Correct.

So talk to me about how that came about and what the thinking is behind that, what kind of opportunities do you think that's going to spur not only for the museum but the community of morristown especially from the tourism side and the historical aspect i think of everything that kind of ties into it i think they all've got they're all little trees and they've got branches of just history coming off of them i guess if that makes sense um i'll say i'll let jacky talk about the grant and the project and how she got there um and i can start off with a little bit of history um so a lot of people don't realize how important the underground railroad was here in the Ohio Valley. Wheeling, West Virginia was the last stop for slavery. And people in Belmont County would come over to the

slave auctions by the enslaved and bring them to Belmont County and free them. But that was a very expensive endeavor. So ultimately, and you had mentioned Benjamin Lundy before we got on the air, So Benjamin Lundy, born in New Jersey, moved to Wheeling as a young man to train to be a tanner, witnessed a slave auction, absolutely despised it. He moved to St. Clairsville, Ohio, in 1815, and started the first anti-slavery society west of the Appalachian Mountains in St. Clairsville. Did I say 1815? It was very, very, very early for the movement. But because of that, that laid the groundwork.

how the Underground Railroad was going to work in Belmont County. Ultimately, we estimate 27 stations of the Underground Railroad in Belmont County and 200 miles of Underground Railroad trails. So it was very, very big in Belmont County, very, very important history that people need to learn about. The current location of the museum has no historical significance. It was a bank built in 1937. So the Black Horse Inn I'm really excited about because we do, it was a station of the Underground Railroad in Belmont County. And the owner of the tavern, I believe in 1838, William Swaney, he was actually a conductor and agent for the Underground Railroad. So there's a lot of history with the Black Horse in.

that's why I'm excited. But Jackie, go ahead and tell your portion of the story. So in 2022, Governor DeWine announced a really big grant opportunity for all the Appalachian counties in Ohio. Historically, they are underfunded when you compare them to the bigger cities in Ohio. So this infused $500 million into the Appalachian counties. And when the project was, when the grant program was first announced, there were some criteria that you had to meet. And one of them was cultural tourism and bringing people back into downtowns. So it kind of got my wheel spinning like, well, what are our opportunities? So I

worked with the Port Authority and the commissioners and we had a committee formed and we talked about different project opportunities locally and how they could have an impact and how it would fit into the scoring metrics of the grant. So early on, one of the things I started pushing for was to move the Underground Railroad out of Flushing into the Black Horse Inn. It ties together two cornerstones of Belmont County history. One of my first questions when I toured the museum with Christina was, what is the significance of this building and Flushing?

And she said, well, and I was like, oh, that's kind of disappointing. I expected there to be a really cool story. No stories. One of the other things I realized, I attend a tourism day at the State House in Columbus every year. It's a chance to meet with people from all over the area that come and want to learn about what's going on in your county. The last four years of doing that, I've run out of Underground Railroad Museum brochures

in the first 30 minutes. No matter how many more I bring the next year, I still run out of those first. So I knew there was interest. There was definitely interest from outside of our region for people wanting that history. But as a tourism director, I had big concerns on bringing people in to Flushing. It's back curvy roads that if you're not familiar with driving, could be uncomfortable. If you're not used to these hills, you're wondering where the heck is this GPS taking me? And then when you get there, there's not really commerce built up to make it a day trip.

You can tour the museum, which is lovely. as it is, but there's not like a restaurant to go to or an activity to go to that you could really as a tourist spend the day then exploring, build off of the itinerary of the museum. So the opportunity of Morristown being so close to Interstate 70 was a huge attraction. The history tie with William Swaney, huge attraction. All these checkboxes started filling in like, wow, this just makes sense. You've got Bar Camp State Park right on the other side of the interstate. You've got gas stations.

You've got restaurants. You've got Lumberjacks, Route 40 Lumberjacks to do an activity nearby. So all these things were really coming together that make Morristown, make the Black Horse in, make the Underground Railroad Museum there, an anchor point on what could be an entire trip that you spend in Belmont County. So from a tourism standpoint, it all just really made sense. And that's kind of fascinating to me how a lot of this is done. I mean, I guess it's in the term tourism, but it's done with the folks outside of the Ohio Valley in mind just as much as the people that are in the Ohio Valley. Absolutely.

And you're really banking on the intricacies of, and I guess this is a lot of what you do, of trying to get people, you know, what is your idea of getting people from outside of the area into the area to look at the black horse in, the underground railroad, or anything else that's going on. in Belmont County. A carpenter's pizza is really good. But when it's the only shop, I love it. I love their property. I see your point. But so the, is now, I wanted to ask you about the Benjamin Lundy in St. Clairsville. Is that still, is that still running that building there by the, by the red light?

Is that still open? It's right next to Giacentas. I think that it's going through some new ownership or it was up for say, but there are some criteria as to what can be done with that building. Okay. And the historical marker is right on Main Street there next to it. Christina, just curious. Do you get a lot of visitors that come to the Underground Railroad Museum that aren't from this area?

Oh, absolutely. Do you really? The number one thing that brings people to the museum are the road signs on 70, which is surprising. We don't actually have a lot of locals, but, just people who are driving by on 70 and they will take the trek out to the museum. That's awesome. So having it in Morristown, that'll make it. Yes.

Especially with the historical significance there. Yes. Awesome. And we had the governor there for the groundbreaking. Yes. It was amazing. Yeah. You want to tell us about that, Jack?

Yeah. We had the groundbreaking and it was just such a wonderful day. It was very hot. Very thirsty, not going to lie. But everything couldn't have went smoother. The governor came, his wife Fran came. They not only came, they stayed. So I was told ahead of time that we had an hour with him and it was a hard cutoff hour.

He stayed nearly two hours talking with people taking pictures. He wanted a tour of the building. He wanted to understand the history. They had lots of really great questions. During the groundbreaking ceremony itself, we talked a lot about the history of Morristown and how transportation played a big role knowing that that was the original national road. And we talked about stage coaches that would have drove down there. And at one point, actually, Commissioner Eschman saw Fran Dwyne standing in the middle of the road,

kind of by herself looking around, and he went over and talked to her, and she said, I'm just trying to picture what it would have been like with stage coaches driving right through here. Like what a cool, impactful thing that she took away from our wonderful little village of Morristown. I think another point is, like when I'm driving on 70 and I pass that area through Zanesville and you see the signs for the Zane Gray and Route 40 Museum. And that's one of those things that now that I've driven past that sign so much on Interstate 70, like, you know, I won't feel right with myself if I drive past that thing one more time and I don't stop. And that's kind of the thing that you guys emulate whenever you have those.

Do you have much control over your, I guess, advertising or marketing as it relates to things such as a sign on the highway or I'm sure a lot of it's online today, things like that. What's kind of your involvement in that? So the tourism office has a very large marketing budget, and we do spend a lot digitally because that is a really great place to get a return on your investment. You can see who's clicking on ads and where they're going on our website from there. far as the interstate signs, those are run through ODOT, and it's a state-funded thing. And from what I've been told, Dr. Maddox had a really great wink and smile and handshake to be able to get those signs on the interstate. He had a lot of friends.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's really like a blessing that we were able to get those. Still don't know how he did it either. Yeah. I've heard lots of stories, but I'm not sure what's accurate and what's not. One thing Christina didn't mention is that the Underground Railroad Museum last year was added to the state tourism trail. So there is an Underground Railroad Trail that the state tourism office put out and Flushing as one of the stops on that, which really the month that it was announced, I remember I reached out to you and said, how was foot traffic?

Did you get people? And you said it was a huge increase of people after they made that announcement that first year. And then the museum is also part of the network to freedom, which is through the National Park Service. And that was something Dr. Maddox had done years ago when he started the museum as a traveling trunk that he took to schools. So one thing that Christina and I have been working with the Park Service on is about potentially adding the Black Horse in as an additional stop because of the research she's done with William Swaney. So we would have two notes on the National Park Service for our museum. Oh, that's awesome. It really is.

It really is. Yeah. That's really cool. And hopefully we can get all the sites listed one day. Yeah. That'd be really cool. I know I've seen a little bit of the map that you put together, Christina, and the research that you've done on that. Thank you.

Really interesting, really interesting stuff that you wouldn't even know that's here in Belmont County. Could you give us an idea of the timeline of transition, renovation that's going to happen at the Black Horse Inn? and maybe when you expect to be operational in Morristown. And just for transparency sake, we're recording in July of 25, and I expect the listeners, I think this would come out February-ish of 26. So that's kind of our timeline, I guess, to help you guys out. So the grant is ARPA funds. So they have a hard cutoff of October 26.

So we are, as of July 2025, just now starting construction. We just had the groundbreaking. We're looking for this fall to really start to see stuff moving. In spring of 2026, you will still be able to visit the museum in Flushing. It will stay open through late spring, is what we're guessing at this point. There will be a period it has to shut down when we take the exhibits and reconfigure them for the new space that will be open late fall 2026. One of the things we haven't really touched on with this grant project is,

It is $3.9 million. So a large amount of money. A big chunk of that is going to the renovation of the Black Horse Inn. It's been sitting vacant for years. So there is a lot of work that needs done. But a million dollars of that is going directly to the museum exhibits. We're working with a curator, an exhibit design team, who are truly taking this amazing collection of over 8,000 artifacts

and pairing them down into the story. we want to tell. So you're going to get a chronological story of a worldly view that goes all the way down to a local regional view of the impact people right here in our area had in this part of history. And I will say it's very important. I would love for people to come see the museum now as it is and then go see the new museum and be able to compare. I think that'll be a really awesome journey for everyone. But also it's important to note, the museum is staffed with volunteers.

We do need help. We do need support from the community. So in any way, shape, or form that the community might be able to help us, they can reach out to me directly. So what also will be going on in 26 is collectively we'll be celebrating America 250. And I'm curious as to both of you, your guys' perspectives on how this will relate to that and how it will kind of be woven into

that celebration throughout 26 as well. So with the quintennial, let's hope I said that one right, America's 250th birthday, there's a lot of really exciting things going on across the state of Ohio. Ohio has formed a commission to plan different events. They've been able to fund some localized grants and support different communities to be able to put together planning. So here in Belmont County, we have a local committee that is working on different events that we're going to be having throughout 2026 that also collides with Belmont County's birthday. They're going to be celebrating 225 years. So it's two really big milestones.

So it's important that locally we have an impact and we plan events that people can come and celebrate the history not only of those two anniversaries, but the history of the people here that made an impact on much bigger levels. So that's kind of where it ties in perfectly with the work Christina's doing because there's so many local heroes that were able to recognize and tell their story so that that history isn't forgotten. Belmont County had an impact in industry, in trailblazers, in agriculture, in arts. So all of those stories are not forgotten. You know, we've talked a lot about the Underground Railroad Museum, but Belmont County has eight museums. Not a lot of people know that. No, they don't know. So it's a really cool way

to tell the story on a bigger scale. The Imperial Glass Museum in Belair is part of the America, 250, Ohio, they have a creativity trail. And it highlights artisans all across the state that made an impact in that museum. And Belair is part of that. So it's really a way this America 250 celebration is a way to tie in localized things at a much larger state and nation level. Do you have, well, you were telling me a little bit before we got on air about US 250 and how that's going to be celebrated and recognized.

You want to talk about what you expect to happen with that? Yeah. So the Ohio Commission has really spent a lot of time focused on US 250. It goes through nine counties here in Ohio. And Belmont, of course, is kind of the gateway into Ohio. So they have some trails that they're planning that would be kind of audio history trails. You could follow along and hear story of different points of interest all along US 250. And Belmont County has played an important role in that.

Locally, we're planning our Rubberneck Tour, which will happen in April of 2026, to go along U.S. 250, call out different stops that have made an impact, get people to travel along roads that they might not take every day. And we are also putting together pathways of the past history trail that highlights things all over the county in addition to what's on U.S. 250. So there are a lot of things happening in the background that I'm excited to be able to share more with people in 2026 on. And there's so 250 from, I guess, Bridgeport to, I mean, all the way up through Caddus is kind of what I'm familiar with. And along there, there's a lot of great, I mean, businesses, great people, the communities, cold rain, you know, all those little places. And then, you know, you take a little, deviate a little bit and you go off 150 and Mount Pleasant has a big with their Quaker house and everything. a big push. Is there any kind of, that just made me think, like, is there any kind of, I guess, collaboration between what you guys do in Belmont County and Jefferson County's next door?

So, you know, same thing with Harrison County, Monroe and Guernstein all them. What is the collaboration look like, or I guess at least the communication look like, if there is any, between Belmont County, the tourism aspect, and then that of neighboring counties? Absolutely. We work together all the time. When people travel, they don't care about county lines. They care about their experience. We only care about county lines because that's where our budget comes from

within those county lines. So you mentioned Harrison and Jefferson County. We're part of the Omega Local Development District and it's a 10-county region. And the tourism directors from all of those 10 counties, which include Holmes County, Tuscaraurus, Columbiana, Kersakton, I'm sure if we're getting Guernsey, I'm getting close to 10.

That kind of shows you our region. We actually, as the tourism directors came together two years ago and put in through a grant through Omega, we received $100,000 to do a micro region for tourism. So we have a new name, we have a new logo, we have branding elements that we will be targeting in 2026. to get tourists to come to our region and show them all the things that we have to offer. So we do work closely together with our partners all the time because, again, people don't care if they're in Wheeling or if they're in St. Clair'sville. They just want to have a great experience while they're here visiting.

Well, you guys, there's also the Belmont County, 225 that you were saying, and there will be different things. Talk to us about what's going to go on with that. You were saying a little bit beforehand before we started that there was going to be instead of one big celebrity, there'd be many smaller things kind of building up. Talk to us a little bit about that and kind of the historical aspect of Belmont County specifically. Jason, I'm going to probably have you chime in on some of the history of Belmont County because you can't speak to it better than I can.

I don't know. Does that go back to Northwest Territory? It does, yeah. We were last county founded in the Northwest Territory. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, Jackie. So as far as the events leading up to it, you're right. We're not going to have just one big celebration of 2026.

We're going to have a lot of smaller ones that it showcases the whole county because it's hard to have a county celebration that's in one place when Belmont County is so vast as far as distance. So we'll have little different community celebrations all throughout the year. I've formed a committee of Belmont County historians and community members to really get a good perspective on what people would enjoy coming to and helping plan those different events. So you'll have to watch for more of that.

I don't have exact details and dates yet, but we're working through that. But it should be really great, and we're hoping that we get a lot of community involvement and people that really enjoy learning more about Belmont County's history. If I may, so I'm excited for the, I'm the founder and president of the history detectives

of Belmont County, and we received funding to do a historical tour of the Ohio Valley. So we have we're in the middle of getting that done, but what we're going to do is we're videoing at various historical sites, interviewing local historians who are sharing these stories of these sites. And it's a pretty large list. So when that's complete, we actually have a videographer who's going to take those videos and Anthony Atkins, the director, of Belmont County GIS, he's going to take the videos and put those on a map for me. And we're going to put it on our website and that would be available to everyone. So that's really exciting too. Wow, that's really cool. I've worked with Anthony on a project mapping original patent holders in Belmont County.

So he'll get it done. Yes, he does. That'll be really cool. Do you have any certain focus on that project? No, no. Anything history related, which is pretty broad. and there's a lot. A lot of historical sites in the Ohio Valley for sure.

Do you have any that you want to specifically touch on? Well, so far we've done Wheeling. We did the Lincoln School, which was segregated, a segregated black school in Wheeling. And we did the Pythian Building. And we also went and interviewed Catherine at the Belmont County Heritage Museum. We talked about the Benjamin Lundy House, and there's just so many more coming, and it's really exciting. It's a lot, but it's going to be really great when it's done.

Before we let you guys go, details on the Underground Railroad Museum and Flushing. What are the hours? What's the best way for somebody wanting to visit that? What's the best way to find out more information? What's the best time to come? Anything like that? Well, right now we are open through October. Our hours will be Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 12 until 3.

During the winter, we are appointment only because it will just be me. And I let my volunteers have the winter off. And then starting back up in March, March 1st or whatever that looks like, we will be back open with regular hours. You can email me, Director at U-G-R-R-M-D-R-M-D-R-M-Og or call the Museum 740963-3036, which is Google Voice, and it does come straight to my cell phone.

All right, well, that's good stuff. And then anything you'd like to add, it's visit belmontcounty.com, I'd have a batch of it. It is, yeah. Been there a few times. Yeah, it's a great website. We have an event calendar that tells you all the things going on. You can subscribe to our newsletter.

or you can get a copy of our visitors guide. You can see it digitally or ask for us to mail you one. And it really has all the happenings going on in Belmont County. And what I can't wait for is, and I hope there's some viewers that feel the same way, whenever you were talking about you'd have the map with the videos and the historical, like that's going to be fun. You make a whole day out of that and just go around. And that's, I think, something that a lot of folks in the area would probably really thoroughly enjoy myself included.

Absolutely. Well, do you two have anything else to add? Jason? I'll add one thing that we touched on the important role that Dr. Maddox had in founding the museum. And one thing we didn't really get into is at the new museum, his legacy is not going to be forgotten. You know, we are moving the museum out of Flushing, which was his hometown. And so there were some hard feelings around that. And we're very sensitive to that. And his legacy will be felt and all throughout the new museum. There will be dedications to him and his wife. who founded it, there'll be information.

There will actually be some videos that he created telling the stories, and those will be used throughout as well. So it really is going to be a special homage to him and his wife in the new space. Thank you so much, Jackie. I appreciate you bringing that up, but I second that fullheartedly. Yeah, we've definitely kept that in the forefront of the planning. That's good stuff, and we're excited to, as we hope, the listeners are as well to when the new one gets up and running and also before that and we get

to flushing as well grab a carpenter's pizza afterwards yes yes for sure get to the flushing one and then get to the one in morristown at the black horse in i think that's going to be something really cool i think what you guys are doing is special in the in the in the in the in belmont county and in the community and for really the valley in general and as you said earlier it's not just for the people of the valley it's uh folks coming from all over the country coming through the i-70 corridor and making that stop and everything else. So we really appreciate what you guys are doing. And we appreciate your time this morning.

You guys have been very, very insightful and generous with your time. We thank you for that. So for Jackie Pugh, Christina Estle, Jason Garcic, I'm Drake Watson. Thanks for listening and have a good one. Thank you. Thanks.