OLDTOWN – The state is planning to transform a motel named after Shawnee leader Tecumseh into a state park in his honor.
Governor Mike DeWine has announced the creation of the state’s 76th park at Oldtown, in Greene County in west central Ohio, that will honor the military and political leader who united Native Americans from various tribes in an effort to preserve their culture and homelands from white Americans.
The park will be located at the location of the Tecumseh Motel on U.S. 68 in Xenia, former site of one of the largest-known Shawnee settlements in Ohio and often cited by historians as Tecumseh’s birthplace.
The State Controlling Board Tuesday approved a proposal by the Department of Natural Resources to purchase the motel for $260,000 to transform the half-acre property into Ohio’s 76th state park, DeWine said.
The state plans to work with the three sovereign and federally recognized Shawnee tribes — the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, the Shawnee Tribe, and the Absentee Shawnee –- to preserve the historical site, which will include an interpretive center, and several markers memorializing historical events at Oldtown will be preserved.