The Painted Fire Hydrants of Ohio City, Ohio

October 7, 2023 – Traveling with Rich & Julie

Small-town street art at its finest.

Rich and I used to live in the small village of Ohio City, in Van Wert County Ohio. There is another Ohio City located over by Cleveland, but this little village only has a current population of 629 as of 2023. In 2021, it was 643.

Ohio City is a village in Liberty Township, Van Wert County, Ohio, United States. The population was 651 at the 2020 census. It is included within the Van Wert, Ohio Micropolitan Statistical Area. — Wikipedia

As you can tell, its population is diminishing quickly. We drove over there today to take a peek at our old properties, and as we came into town I was surprised to find all the fire hydrants painted. How cool!

I think this one was made for a short-legged dog.

I told Rich to stop and let me photograph them all. “All of them?” he asked. And I said, “There are only like five streets in the whole town, it won’t take very long.”

So, here they are…the painted fire hydrants of Ohio City, Ohio for your viewing pleasure.

The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. These people must be fans.

Johnny Bravo and the Pink Panther.

Fire hydrants are located by distance from each other, not according to houses or people, or per block.

The maximum distance between fire hydrants shall not exceed 500 feet.

For a small town of only 629 people, it seemed like there was an awful lot of fire hydrants.

Section 4933.22 | Tampering with hydrant, pipe, or meter.

Ohio Revised Code

No person shall maliciously open, close, adjust, or interfere with a fire hydrant, valve, regulator, gauge, gate, disc, curb cock, stopcock, meter, or other regulator, operating or measuring device, or appliance in or attached to the wells, tanks, reservoirs, conduits, pipes, mains, service pipes, house pipes, or other pipes or apparatus of a water company or furnisher of water, with intent to cause the escape of water or to injure or destroy such property.

I wonder if painting a fire hydrant is considered tampering with it. Nah, probably not.

I couldn’t tell what or who some of them were supposed to be, but isn’t it cool to see them all?

I love m&m’s. I think this one is my favorite.

We saw more than one Snoopy dog.

I will never look at a fire hydrant the same way again. Now I will always see a face, and will always remember the painted fire hydrants of Ohio City, Ohio.

It was a beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the 70’s.

And what a great day it was. I was so happy to find something like this to photograph today.

Thanks for traveling around America with us. Even the smallest towns have something wonderful to see and experience.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *