Logan Daily News

Net Watch
by Bob Green

The other day during a conversation, a friend was telling me about an article he had seen in a Columbus newspaper about our area. It seems that a Logan resident has put together a Hocking County guide on the Internet. As the story in the paper related, somebody had seen the site on the Web, became interested in an event that was listed, hopped in their car and drove eight hours or so from their home in Ontario, Canada to come and attend the event.

After a bit of exploration, I was able to locate this site on the Web (www.hockinghills.com) and was very, very impressed. It ranks among the best sites I've ever explored. The author's name is David Swain and I left him an E-mail (dswain@HockingHills.com) telling him how awed I was with the site and invited him to call me. If you'll recall, several weeks ago one of our readers had offered a suggestion that I would like to re-post:

"Someone may have done this already (and we're not ready for our own homepage yet), but it would be wonderful to have a "Gallery of Hocking County Caves", with a point and click reference for each of the sites, with color photos and text giving the history, geology, wildlife and plants. The crafts and antique shops could pool their money for a site for the tourist trade, and people in the hospitality business could really benefit from an inclusive reference guide. I've spent time for friends hunting down rental cabins in the local yellow pages."

Keep up the good work.
Maggie Ingalls

It appears that David Swain has done just this. David and I have sent several messages back and forth over the Internet to each other and I had the opportunity to do an interview with him over the phone last week. In our discussion, I asked if he had been inspired by Maggie Ingalls post and he informed me that his idea came to him one night when he was sleeping.

I'd like to give you a description of what the site looks like for those of you who aren't on line yet. The visitor to the site is greeted with a picture taken by Marti Weis Photography of one of the area caves and an animated hiker walks across the screen. To the left of the picture is a menu of selections that the visitor can choose to go to. Some of the selections are State Parks, State Forest, Maps, Accomodations, Activities, Merchants, Realtors, etc. I clicked on the State Parks option and a screen appeared that gave brief descriptions of Old Man's Cave, Ash Cave, Conkle's Hollow, etc. I selected Old Man's Cave and an expanded description of where the cave is located, and the hiking trails that run through the area as well as a history about the cave appeared. Here's an excerpt:

"Old Man's Cave derives its name from the hermit Richard Rowe who lived in the large recess cave of the gorge. His family moved to the Ohio River Valley arount 1796 from the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee to establish a trading post. He and his two dogs traveled through Ohio along the Scioto River in search of game. On one side trip up Salt Creek, he found the Hocking Region. Rowe lived out his life in the area and is buried beneath the ledge of the main recess cave."

From there, I clicked on the main menu's selection for maps. A menu appeared for an Area Map, Topo Maps, Hiking Maps, etc appeared. The maps came up fast and included instructions on how to get into our area from different directions. Back at the main menu, I selected Activities and found horeseback riding, off road vehicles adventures, hiking, rapelling, swimming, fishing, etc. The off road vehicles section interested me so I clicked on it. An attractive Home Page appeared for Snake Hollow Adventures describing the adventure awaiting the visitor there. Actually, I think I would like to go there myself. I didn't know anything about it and it sounds like a fun way to spend a day. Selecting Merchants from the menu I found about fifteen local merchants listed. The Wind Chime Shop has a nice home page that includes pictures of their shop and some of the chimes together with a map of their location.

I highly recommend this site even to local people because there's a lot of stuff here. I learned much more about the area attractions and businesses than I had previously known. If you have a business, even if you don't own a computer, it would be my recommendation to contact David Swain. For a small fee, he'll list your business on the site. For a bit more money, he'll even create a home page where visitors from all over the world can learn all about your offering. He will send you all the requests that come into his computer.

Is it effective? Based upon early results, it would be my guess that it will be. There is an area where visitors to the site can request information about the Hocking County area. Those requests are being forwarded to the Hocking County Tourism Association. I contacted Rita Jones and Sally Dunker with the Association to find out what the response has been so far. The site has been up less than four weeks, and already there have been 101 requests from as far away as Texas. Over 1100 people have visited the site so far. It is estimated that eventually from three hundred to five hundred people per day will be visiting this site on their computers.

Thanks to the excellent efforts of the Hocking County Tourism Association, we have seen a major increase in the amount of visitors to our area. Although it gives us a bit more traffic, the increased traffic also represents a very positive economic impact for our region. The joining of the Association's efforts with the power of the Internet can only guarantee the continuance of that success. Sally was telling me about a number of writers representing major publications throughout the Midwest that are coming into the area this Wednesday and Thursday. They will be the guests of some of our area hotels and bed and breakfasts. The Association has put this together and they are calling it the Waterfall and Wildflower Tour. It would be my recommendation that the owners of the lodgings pass along a copy of this column to those writers. Not only will it provide them with a treasure trove of information about the area, but maybe they will even list the Internet address for their readers to access.

Looks like my space is used up for this week. Be sure to visit the Hocking Hills Internet Site listed above. Surf safe and we'll meet again next week. Send me your stories (mdpine@brutus.bright.net).