Here’s a sampling of recent YouTube videos that showcase the best in Ohio preservation and revitalization efforts:

From Mount Vernon, the Woodward Development Corporation has produced a video to highlight recent work on the Woodward Opera House. One of the most significant preservation stories in Ohio in the last decade, the Woodward is best known for two things – first, its relationship with Daniel Decatur Emmett, composer of “Ol’ Dan Tucker” and “Dixie,” and second, its status as the country’s oldest authentic nineteenth-century theatre building. Take a look – its well worth the four minutes! Click here.

Remnants of the Ohio and Erie Canal are included in the video tribute to “The Canal Diggers.” The video looks at the work done by laborers who hand-dug and line the canal for meager pay, but who nevertheless helped to make the interior of Ohio ready for settlement. Click here.

A resident of Middletown, Ohio recently took a walk through her community, and chronicled her results in a video she entitled, “A Picture Show of the town I call Home.” Part photo essay and part social commentary, the result is powerful and speaks to the heart of preservation and revitalization issues. Note that the Carnegie Library, pictured in a series of shots starting at 01:20 in the video, has recently been purchased and awaits hopeful renovation/restoration. Click here.

Visitors to Historic Kirtland can see a reconstructed sawmill and ashery in operation. Several of the structures at the site are original to the 1830s Mormon settlement. Click here.

And, while not in Ohio itself, this video includes a visit to a restored monument that commemorates a well-known Buckeye -- the Harding International Goodwill Memorial, located in Stanley Park in Vancouver, British Columbia. The monument honors the first visit of a United States President to Canada, which occurred during President Warren G. Harding’s ill-fated westward trip in 1923. Click here.