I have to confess, I had little inkling of where we were headed when I accepted the university's offer back in 1963, site unseen. Place names are always revealing of an area's geographical diversity. A quick glance at a map of Ohio shows that our region is a veritable cultural hodgepodge. To start out there is Athens, Troy, Carthage, Alexander, and Antioch intermingled with Coon Hollow, Pigeon Roost, Hemlock, and Floodwood. Just a little to the north of Athens is Bremen, Hamburg, Macksburg, and Deucher.
Settlers bring their cultural baggage along and place names represent cultural memory.
New Englanders who rejected the England of King George instead identified closely with Greece and Greek culture. They were educated in the classics and those places with classical names in southeastern Ohio reflect their settlement influence. Similarly, German immigrants marked their identity on the land with names of German cities or family names, such as Deucher. Of course, the region's dependence on mineral resources is evident in names on the land. There is Mineral, Coalton, Carbondale, Union Furnace, Carbon Hill, and others.