Hamilton, Ohio: Monument to Hollow Earth Theorist
Captain John Symmes thought that the earth was hollow. The monument resembles a big pitted olive on a pedestal.
- Address:
- Sycamore St., Hamilton, OH
- Directions:
- OH 177/Main St./High St. to 2nd St., go left (or whatever, it's one-way), 3 blocks to railroad tracks. That's Sycamore. Sycamore is north boundary of the park, which is between 3rd and 4th.
- RA Rates:
- Worth a Detour
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Monument to a Hollow Earther Capt. John Symmes, hero of the War of 1812, later became convinced that the Earth was hollow. After he died in 1829 his son erected a monument to him, topped by a globe with hole through its middle.
In 1991 the town of Hamilton took the globe and what remained of the inscriptions and glued them to what appears to be a recreated monument. It's locked in a steel cage because it's in a poor neighborhood, but vandals have defaced it anyway. Ludlow Park, where the monument stands, used to be Hamilton's cemetery, and the Symmes monument marked his grave. Most of the corpses were moved to a new cemetery in 1848, but Symmes is still here, according to the town. One of Symmes followers, Cyrus Teed, modified the Hollow Earth theory to an Inside-Out Earth theory, and has an entire state park dedicated to him in Estero, Florida.
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[RoadsideAmerica.com Team, 07/25/2011]Nearby Offbeat Places
- Statue of George W. Bush: No Child Left Behind, Hamilton, OH - 2 mi.
- Jungle Jim's International Market, Fairfield, OH - 5 mi.
- Ice Cream Cone Building - The Cone, West Chester, OH - 9 mi.
- Anatomically-Correct Horses and Too Many Giraffes, Monroe, OH - 13 mi.
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