Little Cities Day | Little Cities of Black Diamonds

2025

LITTLE CITIES OF BLACK DIAMONDS DAY

This Year's Host "City"

This year’s Little Cities of Black Diamonds Day host city is Nelsonville, Ohio. Incorporated in 1838, Nelsonville holds the honor of being the “first Little City.” Long before there were mines in the region, coal in Nelsonville was so plentiful that it could be seen protruding from the hillsides. A local entrepreneur collected some of this coal and sold it for a profit, marking the first documented instance of commercial coal in the Little Cities region.

Much of the village’s historic architecture has survived, including the stunning Nelsonville Historic Town Square, where Stuart’s Opera House and the Dew House are located. The village is a hub of arts and entrepreneurship that reflects the spirit of the Little Cities of Black Diamonds.

The Venue

Little Cities Day will be located at the historic Stuart’s Opera House. Join us there for exhibitors, speakers, folk music and more.

Saturday, September 6
10:30am-5:00pm

followed by a cocktail hour 5-6pm

free admission

Stuart’s Opera House is located at 52 Public Square, Nelsonville, Ohio.

If you have questions about accessibility or accommodations, please reach out to info@lcbdohio.org.

Speaker & Musician Lineup

We have an exciting lineup of historians, musicians and storytellers.

Brian Koscho

Invisible Ground

11am

Brian Koscho is a media artist living in Athens, Ohio. He is the director and founder of Invisible Ground, a community project centered on place-based storytelling in local public history using a podcast and a series of augmented reality Immersive Historic Markers. Koscho completed his MFA in Communication Media Arts at Ohio University in April 2022. Brian is an adjunct instructor at Ohio University in the Scripps College of Communication, teaching podcasting at the School of Media Arts & Studies. Koscho has produced multimedia work and collaborated in various forms with Stuart’s Opera House (where he worked from 2007-2019) and its Nelsonville Music Festival, Inside Appalachia, POV, WOUB Public Media, Mid Atlantic Arts, Foundation for Appalachian Ohio, Ohio History Connection, COAD, Mount Zion Black Cultural Center, the Southeast Ohio History Center, and many more organizations. Find out more at www.findinvisibleground.com.

Cameron Blosser

Life as a Coal Miner

12pm

Cameron Blosser is an Appalachian folk artist living in New Straitsville, Ohio. Inspired by the old timers who labored in the oil field and mines, he has spent a lifetime collecting antique tools and machinery. He studied kinetic art at Ohio University before opening his own “rat rod” shop, Rusty Rockers. He joined the Little Cities Heritage Interpreter program in 2021, where he has created an educational show that uses his family’s coal mining tools to illustrate the experience of mining coal in Southeast Ohio. The show has been well-received and booked at libraries, schools, youth programs and community events across the region.

Talcon Quinn & Cristina Benedetti

Living Traditions

12:45pm

Living Traditions is a series of mini-festivals and workshops throughout Appalachian Ohio focused on celebrating “Living Traditions.” These events highlight, uplift, and promote the culture and practitioners of folk traditions unique to the southern Appalachian Ohio region.

Talcon Quinn and Cristina Benedetti will give an overview of the program after Life as a Coal Miner.

Nancy Devol Rose

Folk Musician

1pm

Nancy Devol Rose is a musician and storyteller who grew up in Hocking County. Rose’s passion for history and community comes out through her music. She is an accomplished musician who plays guitar, harmonica, ukulele and accordion, and she has both collected folk songs from around the region and composed some of her own. Her original song Red Row Holler chronicles her experiences living in the mining community Hopperville, and her most recent work is about Haydenville, a village famous for its role in the brick and clay industry.

T. Chris Wilson

Mother Nature and Geography

2pm

T. Chris Wilson grew up on his family’s dairy and beef farm in Southern Perry County in the 1940s and 1950s. He graduated from Corning High School in 1961 and went on to attend Ohio University for two years. In 1963, Chris joined the United States Air Force to see some of the world. During the 1960s and 1970s Chris served in Southeast Asia and South Korea as well as five Air Forces bases in the U.S. Chris attended Georgia Tech and received his B.S and M.S. degrees before moving back to build a house in the country of Southern Perry County during the late 1970s. He then had a civil engineering and resource development business in Ohio for over twenty years. He also served eight years as the Perry County Engineer and was a civil engineer for Wayne National Forest in the early 2000s. When Chris turned 70, in 2013, he retired to his country home so he could read and write about the history of Southeast Ohio.

Scott Moore

Mother Nature and Geography

2pm

Educated at Hocking Tech in the 1970’s, Scott Moore spent his employment years in forestry and mining, first in Wyoming and then later in northern California. After finishing his career in mine reclamation, he relocated back to Ohio and began volunteer work with various historical organizations, the Perry County Park District, and the Village of Corning, in management and grant funding proposals. He has devoted much time in Little Cities of Black Diamonds events, as well as securing storage for archive materials collections. This region has such a prehistoric past with earthworks, natural resources, and railroad history that needs to be told and preserved.

Dr. Amanda Flowers

Tablertown People of Color Museum

3pm

Dr. Amanda Flowers has held a lifelong vision of advancing racial equity and social justice in marginalized communities. Growing up in a region of southeast Ohio where railroading and coal mining transitioned into industrial work, she witnessed a multitude of barriers that led to poor health outcomes in rural communities. Dr. Flowers has spent her clinical career “in the trenches” combating the social and structural determinants of mental health. She also contracts on an array of research studies and clinical trials in the areas of health, mental health, and education. In addition, Dr. Flowers collaborates with grassroots organizations in redesigning their outreach programs and evaluating their service efficiency and efficacy. She previously hosted a radio show on Black Health and continues to facilitate seminars and lead projects on the intersections of race, health, mental health, and history. Dr. Flowers is the Executive Assistant for the Tablertown People of Color Museum and currently serves as the project lead for their multi-county Underground Railroad project. Likewise, she has been active in their initiatives to build a new museum on land which harbors an abandoned coal mine and overlooks where trains transported coal across Federal Creek. As her pastime, Dr. Flowers participates in competitive dog sports and engages her canine companions in therapeutic and disaster stress relief programs.

Tyler McDaniel

More To Be Told

4pm

Tyler McDaniel is President of Little Cities of Black Diamonds. He graduated from Ohio University with a BS in Human Geography in 2012. In 2015, after being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, Tyler chose to stay in Southeast Ohio and dedicate his life to his passion for regional history. He developed a successful social media channel under the moniker The Ohio and Appalachian History Geographer, which led him to Little Cities of Black Diamonds where he began managing social media accounts and rapidly expanded his role in the organization. Today, Tyler helps to produce events like Little Cities Day as well as educational group tours. He is a tour guide for Rural Action’s Appalachian Understories and consults with institutions for the development of digital tours and other heritage content.