Chillicothe sits in the Scioto Valley about an hour south of Columbus. It served as Ohio's first state capital from 1803 to 1810 and again briefly in 1812, and the small downtown still has a serious 19th-century brick-and-limestone confidence about it. The bigger draw is older: the surrounding valley was the heart of the prehistoric Hopewell culture, and the mound complexes of the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park — inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2023 — are one of the most important archaeological landscapes in North America.
From about 200 BC to AD 500 the Hopewell built large geometric earthworks — squares, circles, octagons — joined by causeways and dotted with burial mounds, often laid out with precise astronomical alignments. The mounds and embankments are spread across five separate sites around the city, ranging from the easily-visited Mound City group beside the visitor centre to the more atmospheric Hopewell Mound Group and Hopeton Earthworks.
Beyond the mounds, the Adena Mansion — the home of Thomas Worthington, Ohio's sixth governor and one of the architects of statehood — sits on a ridge west of town with views that inspired the Great Seal of Ohio. Through the summer, the long-running outdoor drama Tecumseh! tells the story of the Shawnee leader in a natural amphitheatre north of the city. Downtown is walkable, and Yoctangee Park along the Scioto River is a pleasant place to round off a visit.