East of Chillicothe, US-50 passes through Vinton County, one of the state’s poorest and least-developed regions. Hidden amidst forested hills, the remains of coal mines and overgrown, rail-fenced cornfields line the next 50 miles, and little has changed (for the better, at least) since the WPA Guide described the scene in 1939: “Abruptly the road sweeps into a rock-bound gorge dotted with the rickety houses of hill-folk . . . who make a living by seasonal mining, moonshining, trapping, or on Government relief projects.”
After all this rural poverty, US-50 finally arrives at Athens (pop. 21,265), one of the most attractive small towns in Ohio. Set, like its classical namesake, on a series of hills, Athens is an idyllic little town that has grown up around the leafy campus of Ohio University, which opened here in 1809 and has developed a reputation as the liveliest small party school in the country. Brick-paved streets lined by bookstores, copy shops, and clothing stores, mostly catering to the college’s 18,000 well-groomed twentysomethings, fill the eight-block “Uptown” neighborhood along College and Court Streets on the north side of the neoclassical College Green, a National Historic Landmark dating from 1816.
US-50 follows the Hocking River and bypasses the heart of town, so follow Stimson Avenue or State Street from the highway, past the cafes and shops that fill the few blocks around the campus. The Pub (740/592-2699), 39 N. Court Street, has Athens’s best burgers (and happy hour specials), while the best live music is played at The Union (740/593-5060), 18 W. Union Street. By most accounts, the best food is four miles east of Athens at the Big Chimney Baking Company (740/592-4147), in the historic Canaan Coal Company building just off US-50. Accommodations in Athens include a Days Inn and other motels along Columbus Road (US-33) on the north side of town.
East of the Athens area, US-50 passes through 40 miles of scrubby second-growth forests and the abandoned but enticingly named coal-mining towns of Guysville and Coolville, before reaching the West Virginia border at the Ohio River and Parkersburg.
