Pathway to Preservation

The Great Circle was preserved as the main attraction of Licking County’s Fairgrounds from 1854 to 1933. In 1861, the site served as Camp John Sherman, the training camp for the 76th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Seventeen years later, it hosted a Great Reunion of the Veteran Soldiers and Sailors of Ohio that nearly ended in disaster when the speaker’s platform, crowded with President Hayes and Generals Garfield and Sherman before nearly 20,000 people, abruptly collapsed, and they saved themselves by springing forward as their chairs tumbled back into the ruins. In 1933, the Licking County Commissioners deeded the Great Circle to the Ohio Historical Society.

Heath, Ohio · United States