Tag: Auglaize County
Before the canal, Auglaize County’s trade crawled by river. The Miami & Erie Canal changed everything—linking towns like St. Mary’s and New Bremen to national markets, fueling mills, factories, and breweries, and transforming isolated settlements into industrial hubs.
The definitive history of the 1910 St. Marys elephant walk. Meet Granada and Fedora, the world-famous daredevils inside the 80-pound costume who walked a wire above Spring Street, and discover the incredible coast-to-coast tour that brought their legendary act to Ohio.
From makeshift courtrooms to $5 tax contracts, Mercer and Auglaize counties built civil government from the ground up. This article traces the counties’ earliest officials, records, and courts—showing how law and order took root in Ohio’s former Indian lands.
How St. Marys, Ohio turned a riverbank “eyesore” into Memorial Park—a living war memorial built by hand, vote, and will between 1922 and 1940.
In 1927, an alligator gifted to St. Marys’ Memorial Park escaped into the St. Marys River, disappearing for over a month. The town was electrified when news broke that their fugitive reptile had been captured by a fisherman eighty miles away in Fort Wayne, Indiana. However, the celebration was short-lived. The story took an incredible turn when the captured alligator…
Wapaukonnetta marked the Shawanee’s final stronghold in Ohio. This article traces its legacy—from Black Hoof’s final years to the 1832 removal—revealing a turning point where diplomacy, resistance, and forced migration reshaped Auglaize County’s future.
Long before canals or roads, portages shaped the future of Mercer and Auglaize counties. This article traces how short land routes between rivers—especially the Loramie Portage—defined trade, war, and settlement. Drawing from Knapp’s 1873 History of the Maumee Valley, it shows how geography guided forts, treaties, and canal routes, forming the backbone of Northwestern Ohio’s early development.
Post offices were the lifeblood of early American communities, often serving as the first and most tangible connection between new settlements and the nation. Guided by the Postal Act of 1792, which prioritized communication for all citizens, the U.S. postal system expanded rapidly, knitting together a growing country (Source: Richard R. John, Spreading the News). Nowhere […]
A Dream on Moorman Road In 1970, a massive joint vocational high school was nearly built along Moorman Road near Montezuma. Plans were drawn. Land was optioned. But six levy defeats later, the project vanished—giving way, after years of community effort, to what eventually became Tri Star Career Compact. The journey from that ambitious Moorman […]
The creation of Auglaize County in 1848 was not a straightforward process but rather a contentious event that revealed the complexities of Ohio’s mid-19th-century political landscape. The new county, directly and indirectly carved from portions of Allen, Mercer, and Putnam counties, sparked heated debates and strong opinions both in the Ohio General Assembly and among […]
