Things You Need To Know About Toledo's Time Travelers Passport Before It Disappears

This year, the United States turns 250 years old, and the country is marking the occasion with a state-by-state campaign to get people reconnected with local history. America 250 is the official national initiative behind this milestone. In Ohio, the effort has taken shape as America 250 – Ohio, a statewide commission coordinating events, driving trails and storytelling projects in all 88 counties. For Ohio, the celebration draws heavily on the idea that national history is made of local history. One of the major projects for Ohio is the “Trails and Tails” project, which pulls together themes from six different driving trails that cover everything from Ohio’s waterways to its contributions to air and space, centered around real stories of Ohioans. Here in Toledo and the Northwest Ohio region, local communities have their own historical initiatives anchored by a handful of local landmarks and a ton of activities packed into the month of July.

For those interested in the America 250 celebration locally, Northwest Ohio offers a regional program that turns part of the America 250 – Ohio’s programming into a local game. The Time Travelers Passport runs through a two-week window this July as a scavenger hunt for the region’s history. The Time Travelers Passport sends visitors to 12 historic sites scattered between Toledo, Sylvania, Maumee, Perrysburg, Bowling Green and other areas across Lucas, Fulton and Wood counties. If you collect enough stamps at the end of this hunt, you get to walk away with a commemorative Time Travelers coin that you can pick up from the National Museum of the Great Lakes. Here’s what you need to know if you’d like to try!

Unlike a lot of the visit-anytime tourist-type programming, the Time Travelers Passport is deliberately placed as a two-week window that aligns with the country’s 250th birthday to create a more exciting experience for commemorating the event at the peak of summer.

To participate, just download the passport or pick up a physical copy at any participating site. You can access it here. Then you need to visit at least eight of the 12 participating sites between July 1 and July 15 and collect a stamp at each. Once your passport has reached eight stamps, you can receive the special commemorative coin for this event. A note, though: if you visit all 12 spots on the passport, you get bragging rights but no special prize. The final stop for the passport is NMGL, located on Front Street, to collect a special time traveler’s coin.

To get the most out of the passport program, plan ahead and check the hours of operation for each location, as they vary. Some sites, like NMGL, are open with regular museum hours for the full time. Others are only open for a few specific hours on a set day. Fallen Timbers Battlefield is only stamping passports during a single evening tour on July 12 and the Toledo Police Museum’s window is only two days. So make sure you check with the schedules before you head out the door. And there are multiple events happening on the same days, so you can make a day of hitting different events. Local America 250 events with passport sites on the same day include “Twilight on the Battlefield at Fallen Timbers” (6–9 p.m., a living history with interpreters) and “Ohio’s Homecoming and Picnic at the Toledo Museum of Art” (11 a.m.–3 p.m., free and open to the public). If you want to do more without traveling far, you can just stay in Sylvania. Check out their full programming here.

Finally, the 12 sites are a lot more than just Toledo, so if you’re up for the challenge, be prepared to spend some cash on fuel. Here is the full list: