Best Hometowns 2025: Mount Vernon

The red door with a number seven hanging on it sits just below street level and shows up like a discovered secret. In a lot of ways, it is. Located steps away from Mount Vernon’s historic Public Square, Old Mr. Bailiwick’s feels like a trip into a world far from our own.

After crossing the threshold, descending a few stairs and walking down a short hallway, visitors find shopkeeper Josh Kuhn and wooden shelves filled with large glass jars. Kuhn opened his old-time apothecary in August 2019, making medicine and topical solutions from herbs and other organic ingredients to help with a range of issues, from difficulty sleeping to stress. But the shop also stocks gifts like wax-seal stamps and teas that are all artfully presented against a backdrop that looks to be out of the world of Harry Potter.  

“A lot of times we get stuck in the idea of tangible goods — buying and selling — and we forget about the experience,” says Kuhn, a planetary herbalist, “this idea that we can create a place that sort of emits this warmth and whimsy.”

Planetary herbalist Josh Kuhn opened Old Mr. Bailiwick’s in downtown Mount Vernon in 2019. (photo by Brian Kaiser)

Stepping out of the shop back into the summer sun, we walk over to the Mount Vernon Grand Hotel just around the corner. Hotel Curtis opened on the site in 1876, and the new hotel, completed in February 2016, was modeled after it. The Grand Hotel offers travelers a place to stay within walking distance of downtown businesses like Kuhn’s shop, as well as the wonderfully curated Paragraph’s Bookstore and the welcoming record bins at Fat Dog Vinyl. Just down Main Street from the square, visitors encounter one of the most popular downtown attractions: the South Main Plaza Dog Fountain. The Instagram-friendly spot is known for its 18 water-spouting dog statues and has become a favorite local landmark. 

These attractions are just the latest chapter in Mount Vernon’s long and rich history, which is incorporated in a variety of ways throughout town. Joseph Walker, Thomas B. Patterson and Benjamin Butler founded the city in 1805 and named it after President George Washington’s Virginia estate because the area reminded them of it. 

Located about 50 miles northeast of Columbus, the Knox County seat is surrounded by smaller communities like Fredericktown, Utica and Gambier. The latter is home to Kenyon College, which has its film school located in downtown Mount Vernon. 

The South Main Plaza Dog Fountain has become a spot visitors seek out for photographs. (photo by Brian Kaiser)

Since 2020, the 9.7-square-mile city has grown from 16,700 to 17,600 residents. That growth has required a need for additional homes, and city leaders are working with economic development partners to make it happen, including through the creation of 1,200 housing units. These consist of single and multifamily homes, townhouses and condos, 200 of which have been built and are in use. The rest are set to be completed over the next three to five years.  

“When I first took office in 2020, our net new homes for three years was negative one,” says Matthew Starr, now in his second term as mayor. “We were tearing down more homes than we were building. So, what became obvious to us is that housing was an economic development issue that we needed to address right away.”

Starr’s office is also focusing on infrastructure projects that will make for a quieter and safer downtown. With major roads running through the city, traffic can become heavy. A proposed state Route 13 corridor is set to break ground in June 2026 and will reroute semi-truck traffic around downtown, reducing the number of trucks by 50 percent. 

“We want to make it more walkable, [and] we want more bicyclists,” Starr adds. “Plus, it will reduce the number of traffic lights by five.”

A father reads his son a story at Paragraphs Bookstore in downtown Mount Vernon. (photo by Brian Kaiser)

Revitalization efforts have already set the stage for the downtown Starr envisions, the most notable being the 2019 reopening of the previously vacant Woodward Opera House. Ebenezer Woodward, a Kenyon College alumnus and businessman, opened the venue in 1851. The railroad brought traveling actors and musicians to town, as well as speakers, including then-Gov. William McKinley in 1890. When movies became popular in the 1920s, live performances waned, but the opera house continued hosting shows into the 1970s. A local group spearheaded restoration efforts in the late 1990s, kicking off the start of a more than 20-year effort to revive the oldest authentic opera house in North America. 

The Mount Vernon Arts Consortium handles bookings at the Schnormeier Event Center at Ariel-Foundation Park and Knox Memorial Theater. It also books some of the acts at the Woodward Opera House. 

“When I come out to introduce a show or do something on the stage and I look out at a full theater of people, it always takes my breath away,” says Dena Hess, managing director of  the Woodward Opera House. “It’s just awe inspiring to sit back and think, ‘We thought we would never see this day.’ And here we are.”

Much as it did during the venue’s heyday, the Woodward Opera House also houses businesses, including Bickerdyke Table & Tap. The restaurant’s dining room hosts lunch and dinner patrons, while a taproom at the rear of the building offers a perfect place to stop in for a pre- or post-show cocktail or beer and has a full food menu. The taproom wall features a depiction of Mother Bickerdyke, a Mount Vernon woman who aided in medical-supply delivery and care during the Civil War. The colorful mural portrays her on horseback with the Ohio flag waving behind her as she delivers not just medical supplies but a barrel of beer too.

The Woodward Opera House reopened in 2019 after a long restoration process. (photo by Brian Kaiser) 

Along with the arts, education has a significant presence in Mount Vernon. Beside Kenyon College’s downtown locations, the Knox County branch of Central Ohio Technical College and Mount Vernon Nazarene University are both located in the city. Mount Vernon City Schools serves 3,500 students in kindergarten through 12th grade across six elementary schools, a middle and high school, and a digital academy attended by grades 8 through 12. 

The city’s largest employers include the Knox Community Hospital, which has 1,400 workers, and natural-gas compressor manufacturer Ariel Corp., which does not release its employment numbers. Another business that looms large in Mount Vernon is one that hasn’t operated here since 1976.  

Mount Vernon’s Pittsburgh Plate Glass Works, No. 11 opened south of downtown in 1907, and the factory employed generations of locals over its more than seven-decade run. Today, the Urton Clock House, where workers once punched their timecards, houses a small museum dedicated to that history. It makes for a fitting first stop before exploring the surrounding 250 acres of city-owned public recreation space known today as Ariel-Foundation Park. 

The Knox County Historical Society (left) is a trove of local treasures; Fat Dog Vinyl (right) is among Mount Vernon’s downtown shops. (photo by Brian Kaiser) 

When the factory closed, buildings were left empty for years. Parts of the property were used by small operations, but none of them lasted. Then, in 2009, the Knox County Foundation, former city mayor Richard K. Mavis and Phil Samuell formed the Foundation Park Conservancy (now the Ariel-Foundation Park Conservancy) to clean up the property, while creating a new vision and shared future for it.

On July 4, 2015, Ariel-Foundation Park opened to the public, offering natural spaces to enjoy, as well as landmarks and site features that reflect the legacy of Pittsburgh Plate Glass. One of the most notable is the Rastin Observation Tower, a smokestack now encircled by a spiral staircase that invites visitors to climb up 140 feet to take in views of the park.

“From natural green space … to architectural interest and beauty, … it’s just such a unique opportunity right off your main downtown artery,” says Jen Odenweller, executive director of the Ariel Foundation, a local private foundation that helped bring the park to fruition. “It becomes part of daily life that adds quality to our days here in Mount Vernon.”

More Best Hometowns 2025-26: Ashland | Barnesville | Green | Mount Vernon | Yellow Springs

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