State Flag    The first Ohio flag was created to be shown at the Ohio building at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, in 1901. The General  Assembly  officially  adopted  the flag the following year.      Designed  by  John  Eisenmann,  the  flag  three red and two white horizontal  strips  (symbolizing  the  roads  and waterways), a blue traingular  field  in which there are seventeen white, five-pointed stars  (symbolizing  Ohio's  admittance  to the Union as the seventeenth State),  grouped  around  a red on a white circle (symbolizing the initial letter of the state's name.

Early History of Ohio By Darrell E. Hamilton         Before the settlement of  Ohio in  the  late  1700's, about 95 per  cent of  Ohio was  covered with a dense  forest. This was not unlike Ashtabula. Ohio,  just like  Ashtabula, received her name from a river. The  Ohio River  was  named  by  the  Iroquois  Indians which in Iroquois means great and/or beautiful river.        Ohio  received her nickname from the many buck- eye trees that grew within the Ohio boundaries when the first settlers  arrived  in  Ohio.  Some  of  the trees were a variety of horse  chestnut  in  which  the  early settlers  built many  log cabins from the  trees  across  the state.           Ohio had been a part of the Northwest Territory in which consisted  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michi- gan,  Wisconsin  and  the  eastern  part  of  Minnesota. This area was ceded by Britain to the United Sates in 1783.  On  the  basis  of  early  charters  Virginia,  New York,  Massachusetts  and   Connecticut  claimed  the greater part of the Northwest Territory. However, the other states refused to recognize  the  claims  of  those states and insisted that the territory should belong to the country as a whole.  The states finally ceded their claims with  Connecticut  being  the  last state to cede her claims in 1786.  The  states  did  however,  reserve certain lands from cession. Virginia reserved much of southern Ohio which was known as the Virginia Mili-tary District. Connecticut reserved much of Northern Ohio which was know as the Connecticut Western Re- serve.     On March 1, 1784, Thomas Jefferson, then a member of the Continental  Congress,  proposed to Congress a temporary plan of government.  The plan was not  ac- cepted until the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. It  pro-vided  the  formation  of  not  less  than  three  states   nor more than five states.  It also  defined  the bound-aries of   the  states,  forbade  slavery  in  the territory  and set  sixty thousand as the number of  free inhabit- ants  as  the  population  requirements  for statehood.         Marietta,  settled in 1788, was the first permanent settlement in Ohio.  It was named  after  Queen  Marie Antoinette of  France  in recognition  of French aid  to the  United  States  during  the  American  Revolution. Marietta  was  also  the  first  capital of the Northwest Territory.          In March of  1803,  Ohio  became  the  seventeenth state and "the  first  fruits  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787". Chillicothe became the first state capital followed  by Zanesville. After considerable  political  jockeying,  it was decided that the capital should be located  at  the center  of  the  state.  Thus,  in 1816, the newly  platted Columbus became the state capital,