BlogsCommunityMusicArtsScreenEat & DrinkLegals
A monthly guide to day trips around the state
By Kevin J. Elliott
Situated in Knox County approximately 50 miles northeast of Columbus, Mount Vernon has everything one could want in the typical Ohio downtown.
There’s a perfect independent bookstore, an adjacent coffee shop, a town center with monuments, a great little hotel, a leather shop that has been there since the 1880s, reputable art galleries, a couple of pizza shops, a diner and an incredible, newly installed Fountain of Dogs that you must see to believe.
But there’s also the sense of a small town life left behind. Like many similarly sized Ohio towns, you will see defunct storefronts and empty factories, as well as a huge, historic bank that harkens back to a time when Mount Vernon was a power of industry. The town was founded on railroads, natural gas and most of all sheet glass. None of these survived.