COLUMBUS – The Buckeye State celebrates its 221st birthday today.
Ohio was admitted to the union on March 1, 1803, becoming the 17th U.S. state, after Tennessee and before Louisiana.
Chillicothe was the first state capital before it moved to Zanesville and then Columbus in 1816.
The settling of Ohio began in 1788 with the arrival of 48 members of an expedition sponsored by the Ohio Company at what would become Marietta.
Within three years, the male population of the area reached 5,000, and the settlers were given the right to elect a house of representatives. The first meeting of the Legislature was in Cincinnati in 1799 and the body elected Edward Tiffin as speaker of the House and William Henry Harrison as the territory’s representative to Congress.