Ohio

Ohio is a state in the midwestern United States, and its nickname is “The Buckeye State.” It is a name taken from the buckeye trees that were common in this region. Issued in 2002, this quarter is the seventeenth coin of the 50 State series.

On the coin’s reverse are drawn together the airplane made by the Wright brothers, the “Wright Flyer III,” an astronaut in a spacesuit, and the outline of the state. Below is written the phrase “Birthplace of Aviation Pioneers.”

The Wright brothers were from the city of Dayton, Ohio. The story of these men, who held the dream of building a flying machine and persistently continued their experiments, became the starting point of the history of humans first taking to the sky. The astronaut placed in the same scene shows that this challenge continued beyond the sky and on into space.

Ohio joined the Union as the seventeenth state of the United States on March 1, 1803. This state made its own identity out of the sight of a dream that began with a single small airplane later stretching out into space exploration.

When we recall why an airplane and an astronaut are held side by side within a small coin, the story that “a challenge goes farther when it is carried on” comes to us naturally. The Ohio quarter thus conveys into our hand the courage of people reaching toward the sky and space.