South Charleston, OH

South Charleston is a Clark County village laid out in 1815, with its first plat recorded in London the following winter. The first village election came in 1818, and the name still carries an old local puzzle: this is an Ohio community called South Charleston, but Ohio has no city named Charleston to account for the direction. The village’s public library and schools keep the civic side of the place visible, while its two-century-old street plan gives the center a much older shape than the population count suggests. South Charleston is a small Ohio village whose name sounds like a map clue and turns out to be a bit of history instead.