When I first identified chapters sites for Road to Wapatomica, A modern search for the Old Northwest, Old Chillicothe, the once-important Shawnee settlement three miles north of modern Xenia, Ohio, was an obvious candidate, This was where prominent Shawnee leader Tecumseh was born and raised, Black Fish served as chief, Daniel Boone was held as prisoner and Simon Kenton ran the gauntlet. The tiny village of Oldtown occupies this spot just west of the Little Miami River today and the tract where the Shawnee settlement sprawled is mostly covered by a farm field.
The most memorial feature of the village has been a tacky place called, quite gallingly, the Tecumseh Motel. Some YouTubers who visited the place on the way to a wedding in 2006 called it “quite possibly the worst hotel in America.” Several historical markers stand in the grass near the road in front of the building, one of which indicates the the council house of the famous Shawnee settlement stood behind the motel on the ridge of a hill. One of the motel buildings used to be the Oldtown School. It’s a pity it can’t be asked how it feels to end its life like this.
It bothered me that Tecumseh devoted a big chunk of his life trying to keep white settlers from taking the lands where the Indians lived., and now that the settlers had it, this is what happened to it. For that reason, I took great joy in making fun of the business that seemed to serve as an exclamation point to this unsettling situation.
As the book neared publication, I discovered that the state of Ohio was trying to purchase the Tecumseh Inn property for the construction of a small park that would honor the Tecumseh and the Native Americans’ legacy. It was too late to rewrite the chapter although I did add a line or two to note the developments. Now with the deal completed, the property wearing “No Trepassing” signs and the motel’s destruction imminent, I made this video outside of the closed property.
Happily, its destruction could come any day.
