The City In Need of a Name Change



About an hour and a half outside of Columbus, Ohio, lies the tiny town of Pee Pee. Residents of the township in Pike County find other people’s reactions to the name comical. How did Pee Pee get its name? Local legend has it that it started with an early settler’s graffiti. The letters “P.P.” were carved into a tree by Peter Patrick, a 19th-century settler from Pennsylvania who eventually ended up in Pike County, Ohio. To mark his place, he carved his initials into a tree near the junction of the Scioto River and a small creek, and that creek became known as Pee Pee Creek. The surrounding area soon took on the name Pee Pee Township, and now about 4,000 people live there. Although nobody in the last 200 years has ever tried to change the township’s name, there are some who wouldn’t mind a new moniker. Because the town of Waverly is a mere one mile down the road, most Pee Pee residents when asked where they live will reply, “In Waverly.”