Portage Service Plaza - Ohio Turnpike Westbound - Mantua, Ohio
N 41° 14.668 W 081° 10.544
17T E 485274 N 4565909
This service plaza is accessible westbound via the Ohio Turnpike at Milepost 197.0 in Freedom Township, Portage County, Ohio.
Waymark Code: WMH411
Location: Ohio, United States
Date Posted: 05/18/2013
Views: 6
Portage Service Plaza - Ohio Turnpike Westbound - Mantua, Ohio
ABOUT OHIO TURNPIKE SERVICE PLAZAS
The Ohio Turnpike Commission embarked on a project in the late 1990's to replace the over 40-year-old service plazas with state-of-the-art facilities.
This service plaza is one of fourteen service plazas that has been reconstructed on the existing sites of the original construction in the 1950's. The new service plazas
offer a multitude of conveniences to Turnpike customers. Included are a large variety of food offerings, expanded restrooms, and information wall
with travel and weather information, more parking for cars, trucks and busses and much more.
AMENITIES
Service plazas offer the following amenities for your convenience:
- ATM (Automated Teller Machine)
- Food Court
- Fuel
- Gift Shops
- Handicapped Accessibility
- Life-Saving Technology
- Parking
- Pet Walks
- Picnic Grounds
- Plaza Managers On-Site
- Restrooms
- TTY Phones
- Telephones
- Travel Information
- Truckers' Lounge
- Vehicle Supplies
- Vending Machines
ABOUT THIS SERVICE PLAZA
This rehabbed service plaza opened in April 2001 and is named for the cross-state divide that separates rivers whose courses were determined in large part by glaciers which covered northern Ohio many thousands of years ago. In the vicinity of Akron and Mansfield the divide is prominent and rugged. Its highest point, just east of Bellefontaine, is 1,550 feet. Where the Ohio Turnpike crosses the divide, two miles west of the Portage Service Plaza the elevation is 1,253 feet – highest point on the 241-mile toll road. Near Marion, the divide is so nearly flat that the headwaters of the Scioto and Sandusky Rivers almost meet. In fact, they did converge during the disastrous 1913 Ohio flood, and the waters stood there like a pond, trying to decide whether to flow to Lake Erie or join the raging flood in the Scioto and Ohio River valleys.
The portage across the divide, used first by the Indians, later served the trappers, traders, soldiers and settlers. They subsequently became the pathways for the early turnpikes, canals, railroads and highways that enabled Ohioans to improve their meanings of shipping and receiving goods, thus bringing prosperity to farms and towns in all parts of the state.