November '23 Trivia Quiz

A new monthly tradition

Readers (and listeners) loved last month’s Ohio River Trivia. More, more! Encore, encore!

You asked for it, you’ve got it. My first newsletter each month will be ten trivia questions about the six states that border the Ohio River. I pull several questions from my prior newsletters, so faithful readers have a leg up! ANSWERS IN THE FOOTNOTES, so don’t click them until you’ve made your final choices.

I asked the Substack AI to generate an illustration of “question marks” and got this

QUESTIONS

1. In which Ohio River city did the screenwriter and novelist Dalton Trumbo serve his federal sentence for contempt of Congress in 1950?¹

2. What city’s famous overlook of the Ohio River features a huge bronze statue of George Washington and Guyasuta, a leader of the Seneca people? Hint: The statue is named “Point of View.”²

3. What Americans call the French and Indian War was part of a global clash of European colonial powers known to them as the Seven Years War. Which two European countries fought at the edge of the Ohio River Valley? ³

4. Which Ohio town about 30 miles from the Ohio River suffered a fiery train derailment and exposure to vinyl chloride in February? Hint: It shares a name with a region in the Middle East.⁴

5. Which Ohio River city was named for Marie Antoinette?⁵

6. The German Triangle of the Midwest is where you’ll find the largest concentration of German-Americans in the country. St. Louis and Milwaukee are two points on the triangle. What Ohio River city makes the third point?⁶

7. Which river city is home to the last government-owned uranium enrichment facility operating in the United States? Hint: Before enriching uranium, the site was known as Kentucky Ordnance Works.⁷

8. Which American president’s father apprenticed as a tanner in Maysville, Kentucky? Hint: The father moved to Hudson, Ohio, and lived and worked with Owen Brown, the father of abolitionist John Brown.⁸

9. Which American president from Ohio was the last to be born under foreign rule? Hint: The others were Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, J. Q. Adams, and Andrew Jackson, who were all born as British subjects.⁹

10. Which Ohio River town is home to the first Hindu ashram in the United States?¹⁰

Quiz Intermission Message

I hate taking a quiz when the answers are printed too close to the questions and spoil the fun of figuring them out. That’s why I’m taking this space to invite you to hear me speak about the racial history of the Ohio River Valley region this December:

Meet me in Kentucky?

For longtime readers of my newsletter, yes, Hindman is indeed where I lost my new motorcycle to the thousand-year flood in 2022.

ANSWERS

1. I covered the Dalton Trumbo story in my February 2023 newsletter! Trumbo served time in Ashland, Kentucky. He embraced his conviction, saying: “As far as I was concerned, it was a completely just verdict. I had contempt for that Congress and have had contempt for several since.”

2. Pittsburgh! I wrote about the statue and the significance of this meeting in July, 2022.

3. Also taken from my July, 2022 newsletter, it was Britain and France.

4. The town is East Palestine, Ohio. I wrote about it here. The cleanup is ongoing and expected to cost $400 million.

5. Marietta, Ohio.

6. Cincinnati. I wrote about Germans in the greater Cincinnati region here.

7. Paducah. Read about it in my last newsletter, Atomic River Valley.

8. Ulysses S. Grant. Fuller story here.

9. Born in the colony of Virginia, William Henry Harrison called Ohio home from the time it became a state. At his birth there were no states, only 13 colonies.

10. Read all about Moundsville, West Virginia and the Palace of Gold in my May newsletter.