Another Roscoe Village?

Stardom Revoked! "We don't want no tourist traps here" Snote Burke 1967? Lockville resident.

For those familiar with the attractions of Ohio, N.E. Ohio has Roscoe Village a restored operating Canal Town . The restored canal town is at the northern limits of the Ohio and Erie Canal and Lockville was one of the last points on the canal before it hit the Scioto River. I was a snip of a lad at the time the amusement park prospectors came threw town, this was probably in 1967 scouting out Lockville as a possible tourist trap. (as the locals seen it). I heard the comments on the day they showed up as I rode my little lime green groovy Huffy bike threw town and talked with Harry Myers junior a local cabinet maker and our next door neighbor and my Dad's best friend. Harry and possibly Junior Stambaugh (not sure) and Ed Baker another neighbor were talking over the idea and they mentioned things such as Kings Island in Cincinnati (just being built). The developers were intrigued with Lockville and its proximity to Columbus and also how amazingly intact it was (still is) as an 1800's village. They talked how easy it would be to refill the canal and repair the locks and turn it into a Thomas Kincaid picture post card type of place.

They were talking of already built highway and the possibility of hotels and conference centers. All of this was pretty big news to a sleepy little town the frankly liked its pass me on by reputation. Weather by design or default the prospectors were privileged to talk with on Snote Burke one of the oldest most colorful characters living at the time. I guess Snote,might have met them on his porch and treated them like nosey flatlanders with a shoo-in Iron thinking they were "Insurance Peddlers" but, from what Harry said the welcome mat was not exactly obvious when talking with him.

Perhaps the scouts were from the Ohio Historical Society, In Columbus?

So it seems Lockville's chance at making it big in 1960 something seems to have vanished just about quick as it presented itself. Perhaps it is just as well as slow progress finally yielded fire hydrants in 1996. They were just as shocking to the locals as any amusement park would have been. By the 1990s Lockville was still as sleepy as ever but the Fairfield County Water system was born and the pipe went threw Lockville by default. Most thing happend in Lockville by default. The local church the former one room school house now with stained glass windows (making it a church) got a parking lot out of the left over gravel pile the county made there while storing gravel for the water lines. Lockville is surrounded my many million dollar properties today and the progress is happening no matter how Lockville tires to avoid it. It is all part of the urban sprawl from Columbus. As the water tower grew up making a presence like a possible amusement park ride would have done, the local wells typically hand dug wells in the range of 25 foot all dried up. Just as the wells dried up in 1996, the chances of being a Roscoe Village did in 1960 something.

Time remembers and time forgets, time forgives and time forgets but time never tells you what might have been.

Rich Shull, 2007 , Columbus Ohio