Nominees for Ohio in the National Statuary Hall:
Arts
Paul Laurence Dunbar, African-American poet
Louis Bromfield, author and conservationist
Annie Oakley, sharpshooter
Clark Gable, film actor
Zane Grey, author of Westerns
Sports
Jesse Owens, Olympic track and field champion
Branch Rickey, major league baseball innovator
Woody Hayes, Ohio State University football coach
Jim Thorpe, Olympic track and field champion, professional baseball and football player
Paul Brown, OSU, Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals football coach
Business
Bob Evans, restaurant chain founder
Jay Cooke, banker and financier of the Union war effort during the Civil War
Charles Kettering, inventor
Thomas Edison, inventor
Dave Thomas, Wendy’s restaurant chain founder
Civic
John D. Rockefeller, industrialist, co-founder of Standard Oil Co.
Sarah Worthington, philanthropist and arts patron
William H. McGuffey, author of McGuffey’s Reader textbooks
Frances Bolton, first woman to represent Ohio in Congress
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., historian
Civil rights
John Parker, freed slave and Underground Railroad participant
Lucy Webb, advocate for women’s rights and the abolition of slavery
Elizabeth Bisbee, early advocate for women’s rights
John Rankin, abolitionist
William Walker, African-American publisher and politician
James Ashley, U.S. congressman and abolitionist
Military
Ulysses S. Grant, Union army general and U.S. president
William Tecumseh Sherman, Union army general
Eddie Rickenbacker, World War I and II hero, aviation businessman
Robert Beightler, World War II Ohio National Guard general
Curtis LeMay, U.S. Air Force commander, oversaw the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan.
Native people
Chief Logan, American Indian war leader who first advocated peace but later war with the whites after his family members were murdered
Little Turtle, Miami Indian war leader who later advocated peace with the Americans
Tecumseh, Shawnee Indian chief who tried to unite tribes against the whites
Blue Jacket, Shawnee Indian leader
Pioneers
Thomas Worthington, governor, senator, advocate for Ohio’s statehood
Simon Kenton, frontiersman
Wright brothers, inventors of modern flight
George Washington Williams, first African-American elected to Ohio General Assembly
Political
Edward Tiffin, first governor of Ohio
William McKinley, U.S. president assassinated in 1901
Edwin Stanton, secretary of war during the Lincoln administration
Robert A. Taft, longtime U.S. senator
Vern Riffe, Ohio House speaker
COLUMBUS — If you had to pick just one influential and terrific Ohioan to represent the state in the halls of Congress, who would it be?
Oh, and he or she has to be dead. And it’d be helpful if they look good cast in bronze or marble.
Each state gets to place two statutes in the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.
Since the 1880s, statues of former Gov. William Allen and President James Garfield have stood as Ohio’s representatives.
Garfield took a bullet for the country, assassinated by a disgruntled civil servant after less than a year in the White House. But it’s a great mystery how Allen got into the National Statuary Hall, said state Sen. Mark Wagoner, R-Toledo, who is leading a panel charged with picking a new representative.
Allen, who served in Congress and one two-year term as governor, made his name as a vocal critic of Abraham Lincoln and opponent of the emancipation proclamation. State officials think it’s time to bring Allen home to Ohio and pick someone else to stand in his place.
Wagoner’s committee is traveling around the state, learning about well-known Ohioans and trying to make the best pick for Allen’s replacement by May. Wagoner already has two full boxes packed with letters, e-mails and biographies on more than 40 nominees.
Wagoner named who he considers leading contenders: Jesse Owens, Thomas Edison, William Howard Taft, baseball player William Ellsworth “Dummy” Hoy, suffragette Harriet Upton and the Wright brothers — although only one brother could go.
“It’s been a great history lesson and a tremendous opportunity to be part of the committee,” Wagoner said. “Folks feel rather strongly about their hometown favorites so they’re trying to put together persuasive cases.”
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