About Cracked Buckeye

Our mission

Cracked Buckeye exists to give Ohioans the truth about their state. We crack open the public record, uncover Ohio's history, investigate what is happening now, and make all of it easy for anyone to reach. When we get something wrong, we fix it in the open on the corrections page.

What is here

A page for every ZIP code, city, village, township, county and water system in Ohio, a map of the whole state, deep dives, short films, and old maps and photographs. It began in 2026 as the Ohio Tap Water Atlas. It is independent and free to read, cite and reuse under CC BY 4.0; photos keep the license in their caption. See how to cite.

A ZIP code's water answer is the system serving the most people there, and health and radon figures are area averages, not one house or person.

How the pages are made

Most pages are built from public records: the U.S. Census Bureau, Ohio EPA, the Ohio Secretary of State, county auditors, the Federal Election Commission and other state and federal offices. A program reads each source and lays it out the same way for every ZIP code, town and county, so any place can be set beside another. Each figure names the record it came from; the full list is on the sources page.

The deep dives, lake histories, stories and claim checks are written one at a time, from old newspapers, maps, court files and agency records. Each lists its sources at the end and shows the date it was published and last updated.

The site is rebuilt several times a week as new records come in. When a reader shows us something is wrong, the fix goes on the corrections page with the date and what changed.

Get in touch

Questions, corrections and tips: contact us. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or YouTube.