The ground floor of the Ohio Statehouse hides a museum worthy of the building: the Ohio Statehouse Museum, where interactive exhibits let visitors draft a bill, stand at a governor’s desk and decode the symbolism of the rotunda’s paintings before joining a free guided tour upstairs.
The museum anchors the Statehouse experience for the 100,000+ visitors who come yearly — school groups especially — with a splendid museum shop stocked with Ohio-made goods and exhibits on the building’s own dramatic construction (1839–1861, part Greek temple, part frontier project).
Don’t miss the Map Room’s floor mosaic of Ohio’s 88 counties and the exhibits honoring the eight U.S. presidents Ohio gave the nation.
Free tours, a great museum and the working heart of state government: civics has never been this hands-on.
