COSHOCTON — There’s a lot to see at the Coshocton Flint Festival and Knap-In: cases of hand-crafted arrowheads, knives and spearpoints. Firemaking demonstrations. The tanned hides of coyotes, foxes, opossums and raccoons. Tarps covered in large chunks of multicolored flint, gleaming obsidian and fine-grained pipestone.
But what no visitor can fail to notice upon arriving at the festival is the distinct sound that fills the air—the tink, tink, tink of copper tools striking flint, a sedimentary form of the mineral quartz and Ohio’s state gemstone.
Every Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend, people flock to central Ohio from all corners of the state and the country to fashion tools and weapons out of rock alongside other flint-knappers. These gatherings took place at Flint Ridge Ancient Quarries & Nature Preserve in Licking County for decades, starting in the late 1980s, but moved to the Coshocton County Fairgrounds in 2023.
Roy Miller of Holmes County helped found the Flint Ridge Lithic Society, which hosts the festival, in the 1980s. Miller said he first became interested in flint-knapping as a boy.
Roy Miller, founder of the Flint Festival and Knap-In, displays some of his most prized arrowheads, which he knapped with flint from Flint Ridge in Licking County. He said one of his favorite parts of the festival is the 10-speed knapping contest, in which knappers compete to be the fastest to make an arrowhead. 
Rob Phillips of Beckley, West Virginia, collects aboriginal tools and weapons that he finds in fields near his home. He started attending the Flint Festival and Knap-In three years ago to learn how to make arrowheads. Here, he uses a copper-headed “bopper” to knap flint. 
Rob Phillips of Beckley, West Virginia, collects aboriginal tools and weapons that he finds in fields near his home. He started attending the Flint Festival and Knap-In three years ago to learn how to make arrowheads. Here, he uses a copper-headed “bopper” to knap flint. 
Vendors display flintknapping stone on knapping blankets at the 2026 Coshocton Flint Festival and Knap-In. 
Jack Faxon, known as “Knappin’ Jack,” started as a welder but “got hooked” the first time created a knapped knife. He now has a business making collectible knives, points, and blades. In the foreground is his favorite among the knives he brought to the Flint Festival and Knap-In—a porcelain hand-knapped blade with a handle made from a deer jaw. 
Visitors to the Coshocton Flint Festival and Knap-In wind their way among vendors and flint knapping demonstrations. 
Mitch Yorks of Snyder County, Pennsylvania; Dale Daniels of Butler County, Ohio; Joe Graham of Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania; and Chris Stricklett of Medina County, Ohio, knap flint at the 2026 Coshocton Flint Festival and Knap-in.
“I was raised on an Amish farm, and when we were working in the fields, I’d find these little arrowheads,” he explained. “And I kept thinking, ‘How did they make them?’”
He began to experiment with “pressure flaking”—that is, creating arrowheads using an antler tine or copper tip to chip away small flakes of flint. In his early years of flint-knapping, he would travel south to Coshocton to get flint, and eventually purchased a property at Flint Ridge in Licking County.
The area around Flint Ridge is known for high-quality flint, often called “rainbow flint” because of its striking colors. Historically, that unique flint was used by Indigenous communities that settled in the area for trade, tools, weapons and ceremonial objects.
Miller said creating “modern lithic art” became an “addiction”—one he takes pleasure in sharing with other flint-knappers at the biannual festival.
One of those fellow knappers is Dennis Blankenship of Dayton, Ohio, who stumbled into flint-knapping by way of his work as a reptile breeder. He said that during a reptile show in Columbus, he was approached by a kid who said, “I’ll trade you rocks for this $600 gecko.” The deal he struck with that kid ignited his interest in rocks, minerals, and gems, and when he came across a hand-knapped knife, he thought, “Well, I guess I have to learn how to do that now.”
Blankenship has been attending the Flint Festival and Knap-In since 2020, and he said that what he loves most about the event is the strong sense of community.
“It’s the most wholesome group of individuals I’ve ever met,” he said. “Guaranteed lifelong friends.”
The next Flint Festival and Knap-In will take place at the Coshocton County Fairgrounds May 28-30, 2027.
Lucy Bryan writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.