| THE
NICKNAME:
The Buckeye State: (Official)
A buck's eye; this is what the fruit, or nut, of the buckeye tree is
said to resemble. The buckeye's association with Ohio dates back to
1788, but may have been fixed forever in Ohio history during the
election of
William Henry Harrison
as President of the United States in 1840.
William Henry Harrison was born in
Virginia, but he settled along the Ohio River west of Cincinnati. He
entered the race for President as a candidate of the Whig party. An
opposition newspaper said Mr. Harrison "...was better fitted to sit in a
log cabin and drink hard cider than rule in the White House." Harrison
capitalized on this image by issuing an engraving of himself seated in a
rustic buckeye wood cabin with a barrel of cider and rows of buckeyes
hanging from pegs. Buckeye cabins and buckeye canes carried by Harrison
supporters ensured that the buckeye would be forever associated with the
state of Ohio.
In 1953, the Ohio Buckeye, (Aesculus
globra), was made the official State Tree of Ohio and "The Buckeye
State" was made the official State Nickname.
The Flag:
Ohio is the
only state not to have a rectangular flag. It adopted the pennon-shaped
flag on May 9, 1902. The pennon was used by the cavalry between 1862 and
1865 and in 1901 was designed by John Eisenmann. A pennon is extremely
different from a pennant by ending in a swallow-tail shape. The states
nickname was used long before the buckeye was confirmed as the state
tree in 1953. The design was based on the shape of the tree’s seed and
its circular form on the flag could suggest both the “O” for Ohio and
the tree itself. The name of the state is derived from the Indian and
means “beautiful river”. Mr. Eisenmann designed the flag to represent
the roads and rivers of Ohio. The number of stars, as in many other
flags, indicates the position held by the state in its joining the
Union, in this case being seventeenth.
The
Ohio State Flag displays a white circle with a red center, representing
the "O" in Ohio and the Ohio "Buckeye."
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