small businesses

Visitors at Indian Creek Distillery cozy up to the bar for some samples.

Among Ohio’s numerous tourism “trails” that group loosely kindred attractions to create a single novelty destination, the recently conceived Sweets and Spirits Trail in Miami County seems a perfect pairing for this time of year.

My husband, Mike, and I made a date of it recently. To guide us along the route, we downloaded the Miami County Sweets and Spirits Trail app, which showcases all stops and includes a map with distances between each location. Some spots offer incentives for visiting, including purchase discounts, free samples, or a free shot glass. As we virtually checked in at each location, we earned points toward prizes from the visitors bureau.

We were taken with the area’s charming small towns and the warmth and authenticity of the trail’s shop owners. For example: 

The Christian Children’s Home of Ohio is perfectly nestled on 163 acres of former farmland just north of Wooster.

About 60 years ago, the pastor at a church in tiny Rittman, near Wooster, heard about a young person who needed a safe place to stay.

When the property was first acquired, there was a barn, a couple of outbuildings, and a farmhouse that was converted to the first foster home. Since then, five more cottages have been added to the property — each set up similarly to the original farmhouse. Cottages are separated by gender and age and can house as many as 36 residents at a time. 

“Our kids have experienced severe trauma, so one of the things that we really want them to know is it’s okay to just be a kid,” says Kevin Hewitt, CCHO’s president and CEO.

Brett Fletcher has been selling Maine lobsters out of a 96-square-foot shack in Knox County for 14 years.

Along the road connecting Fredericktown and Amity in Knox County is a red wooden sign with a lobster on it, marking a driveway leading to 22 acres of wooded property featuring a creek, walking trails, two cabins and a 1961 Shasta Airflyte camper trailer for rent, a house, a

The road to Amity

After graduating from Ohio State University, Fletcher talked his dad into co-signing a loan for a lobster boat and moved to an off-the-grid family cabin in Georgetown, Maine. He spent the next 20 years as a professional lobsterer, hauling water to his makeshift shower and 200 traps’ worth of lobsters per day from the waters surrounding the island town.

Experienced Klier crew members place long steel beams beneath a structure, then slowly raise it.

Jim Klier has been a mover for 39 years.

Klier has moved plenty of homes for lots of different reasons — some legal, like for zoning issues; others more sentimental. Klier’s moved a lot of older homes. Much older. Like an 1813 timber frame home on Lake Erie.

“Oh, heavens yes,” he says. “A home that’s been in the family for generations, for example. You really have to love the house to do something like that, to go through that process.”

Co-owner Andy Lane of Hand Hewn Farm shows the latest class of would-be butchers the first steps in the process (photo by Margie Wuebker)

Friends Andy Lane and Doug Wharton offer tasty lessons and plenty of hands-on experience during unique “Pasture to Plate” workshops at rustic Hand Hewn Farm in rural Tuscarawas County.

The men, who began homesteading at the Fresno-area farm once owned by Lane’s grandmother in 2015, raise heritage hogs, chickens, and rabbits. They initially learned to butcher for their families’ consumption, relying on pointers from old-timers as well as detailed books on the subject.

“We learned through trial and error,” says Wharton, a former commercial contractor. “Now we focus on doing it right and demonstrating how to use each cut to its best purpose.”

The second and third generations of the Stalder family of cheesemakers: John Stalder and Chuck Ellis stand behind Grace Stalder and Sally

For Swiss immigrants Ernest and Gertrude Stalder, 1937 was an important year. Not only was their son John born, but a new rural electric cooperative began powering their business, Pearl Valley Cheese, in eastern Coshocton County.

For the Stalders, cheese is more than a business — it’s a lifestyle that has endured for four generations. John and his wife, Grace, took over the factory during the 1960s, and though they’re now octogenarians, they lend a hand there practically every day. The couple also raised four daughters — Ruth Ann, Sally, Heidi, and Trudy — who, along with their spouses and offspring, have helped to make cheese and run the plant in various ways over the years.  

Bess Paper Goods & Gifts, Cincinnati

Granted, Santa’s workshop is at the North Pole. But we think his helpers must live in Ohio. Why?

Bess Paper Goods & Gifts, Cincinnati

At her West Benson Street shop, Kristin Joiner not only designs the artwork and composes witty messages — for example, “Happy Ugly Sweater Season” — for her Christmas and Hanukkah cards, but she also prints them one at a time on an 1882 letterpress named Bess. Joiner uses paper sustainably made from recycled cotton, and her repertoire of handmade goods includes ornaments and miniature paper trees. 
kristin@besspapergoods.com; 513-748-6955

Laurelville Fruit Farm sign

It was the antics of a wily and very hungry fox that serendipitously led to the creation of an apple-growing enterprise and cider mill that are still going strong more than a century later.

“My dad took over the farm after World War II,” he says, “and growing up in the ’60s, I remember working my tail off to help out. Some of my high school friends and I would get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and make a thousand gallons of cider before school started, and then jug it when we got home. But it was fun, we didn’t think of it as work.”

The display at Ormandy’s Toys and Trains delights visitors during the Candlelight Walk and throughout the season.

Candles have symbolized the Christmas season for centuries, but how many places become merry and bright because they’re the home of a company that produces millions of candles every year?

Featuring traditional Yuletide activities such as a parade and visits with Santa, the Candlelight Walk attracts about 50,000 people every year. With genuine candlelight charm and a picture-perfect setting, the event exemplifies the glad tidings of small-town America, and it’s easy to imagine George Bailey shouting “Merry Christmas!” to folks on the square or the Gilmore Girls joining in the caroling at the gazebo. Indeed, says Sam, “Visitors often tell us, ‘I feel like I’m in a Hallmark movie.’” 

A crowd watching the fireworks show

What started out as a little backyard celebration just outside the village of Fletcher in Miami County nearly 20 years ago has evolved into an event that everyone can enjoy. 

Even their “humble” beginning wasn’t all that insignificant; the event drew between 100 and 150 agricultural business contacts, family, friends, and neighbors. But now, the event has grown to several thousand in attendance — and that doesn’t even include those who watch the show from neighboring private parties or from safe parking spots nearby.

“Ultimately, we do this to make people happy, especially those in our community,” Mike says. “You don’t do this for the money — you do this because you want to make those people happy. That, to me, is the challenge.”