glass act

With a lively waterway and a powerful sense of place, Toledo, Ohio, shatters expectations and the record for the country's largest mural.

-  STACEY BRUGEMAN

Stepping onto the massive Great Lakes freighter Col. James M. Schoonmaker, I'm awestruck. First launched in 1911the same year as Titanic-the colossal 617-foot-long vessel once carried coal, iron ore and grain. Today it's part of Toledo's National Museum of the Great Lakes, some 5 miles downriver from Lake Erie. The painstakingly restored cargo hold, engine room and captain's lounge evoke a bygone era of freshwater transport. Wandering around the top deck, I can't decide which has captured my heart: the ship itself or the westward view of Toledo's skyline.

I grew up just an hour or so north of here, in a suburb of Detroit. Yet not once did we venture to the Glass City. People talked about the zoo, the Libbey Glass Factory Outlet and even the nearby Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, but the city which takes its nickname from its manufacturing roots-was known to me only as the place where Jeeps were made. (They still are.) We'd whiz by the plant on Interstate-75 without exiting.