McCONNELSVILLE — The story of Big Muskie, the giant dragline that once worked southeastern Ohio’s coal fields, is getting a bigger telling at Jesse Owens State Park, where the Ohio Department of Natural Resources will cut the ribbon on a round of site improvements on Friday, Oct. 16.
The 10 a.m. ceremony takes place at the Miners’ Memorial, 4470 Ohio 78, and visitors can follow it with a guided hike on the newly finished Straker Ridge Trail.
Eight new kiosk panels now walk visitors through the history of Big Muskie, regarded as the largest single-bucket earth-moving machine ever built. Its enormous bucket, the piece preserved at the park, remains the centerpiece of the site.
Signage at the Miners’ Memorial has also been updated to honor the people tied to the region’s coal-mining past, and a new restroom building carries a large-scale map showing the park’s trails, overlooks and amenities.
A digital feature called the Ohio State Parks Virtual Explorer, developed with TimeLooper, is designed to help visitors grasp just how large the machine was through an immersive display.
Trail access is the other half of the upgrade. The 28-mile Straker Ridge Trail links up with sections of the Buckeye Trail, adding new backpacking options across the park for hikers heading into the fall season.
