Frazeysburg, OH

Frazeysburg is a Muskingum County village along Wakatomika Creek that began under a different name. It was laid out as Knoxville in 1827, then the town site was sold to Samuel Frazey in 1828 and renamed for him. That early change is still the useful local key: Frazeysburg is an old creek-side settlement, not a place that appeared all at once around a modern highway. Tri-Valley Local School District keeps the school map regional, with grade school in Frazeysburg and intermediate and high school in Dresden.

The village also has one of Ohio's wonderfully specific roadside oddities: Longaberger Village, near Dresden and Frazeysburg, has the world's largest apple basket. It is less a civic building than a reminder of how nearby basket-making turned into a recognizable local brand and landscape. The village's present-day map is more ordinary—Wakatomika Creek, village streets, water-service work, and the Tri-Valley Red Raiders—but the apple basket gives outsiders an instant way to place it. Frazeysburg is a compact Muskingum County village with a creek, a renamed 1820s plat, and a school-and-road connection to Dresden.