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Decorative drawing: a modest post office building with a flagpole. Not a photograph of this place.

Ohio

The archive covers 88 counties in Ohio so far. Everything below is a work of the United States government or a book published before 1929, and every page links to the record it came from.

Research this state

Ohio within the United States

What the archive holds in Ohio

RecordsCount What it is
Settlements7,035Every populated place the Geographic Names Information System records, each with the survey sheets that cover it.
Topographic sheets3,997Distinct United States Geological Survey sheets covering those settlements.
Township histories861Complete chapters from the county histories, reproduced unedited.
Listed properties4,005On the National Register of Historic Places.
Nomination case files3,007The full federal document that argued each property on to the register, machine-read from the scan.
Surveyed structures960Buildings and bridges recorded by the Historic American Buildings Survey and the Historic American Engineering Record, with their photographs and written histories.
Businesses in the atlases4,065Read off the printed indexes of the fire insurance atlases. These names exist nowhere else as text.
Words of narrative19,552,723Public-domain county history, published complete.

Counties

88 of 88

All 88 counties in Ohio. Every county below has published records and opens its own page.

Map CountySettlements ListedNarrative
Adams County6313109,101 words
Allen County3929391,504 words
Ashland County3218401,498 words
Ashtabula County10338206,167 words
Athens County1012899,280 words
Auglaize County362555,739 words
Belmont County11223190,747 words
Brown County622593,132 words
Butler County15682479,808 words
Carroll County7911not yet read
Champaign County3933372,950 words
Clark County118411,427,176 words
Clermont County10719not yet read
Clinton County4214180,879 words
Columbiana County9445234,519 words
Coshocton County6520192,227 words
Crawford County3826226,686 words
Cuyahoga County21642683,334 words
Darke County8528236,512 words
Defiance County3310167,961 words
Delaware County14857413,023 words
Erie County6018133,426 words
Fairfield County703882,387 words
Fayette County461543,489 words
Franklin County315343908,359 words
Fulton County4963,123 words
Gallia County919not yet read
Geauga County5417444,848 words
Greene County49425,207 words
Guernsey County892227,643 words
Hamilton County274371630,471 words
Hancock County4214202,680 words
Hardin County376191,178 words
Harrison County637not yet read
Henry County30452,296 words
Highland County6525not yet read
Hocking County5910not yet read
Holmes County3716not yet read
Huron County411852,437 words
Jackson County6413285,823 words
Jefferson County1292458,298 words
Knox County5842248,698 words
Lake County7281not yet read
Lawrence County11420not yet read
Licking County8760465,186 words
Logan County458146,035 words
Lorain County63121494,162 words
Lucas County8294339,269 words
Madison County489102,339 words
Mahoning County11174521,977 words
Marion County5218466,273 words
Medina County5931366,883 words
Meigs County8910not yet read
Mercer County593730,201 words
Miami County11045520,119 words
Monroe County76922,766 words
Montgomery County116157995,439 words
Morgan County516176,586 words
Morrow County3615not yet read
Muskingum County13081358,860 words
Noble County5810110,731 words
Ottawa County3730not yet read
Paulding County474148,818 words
Perry County751360,611 words
Pickaway County712881,199 words
Pike County62612,049 words
Portage County8749126,012 words
Preble County4818251,443 words
Putnam County50920,233 words
Richland County6368306,663 words
Ross County852735,095 words
Sandusky County5412328,763 words
Scioto County884173,640 words
Seneca County5146332,081 words
Shelby County4120228,872 words
Stark County189951,047,868 words
Summit County180180524,971 words
Trumbull County13942not yet read
Tuscarawas County8826154,635 words
Union County507668,309 words
Van Wert County298not yet read
Vinton County397not yet read
Warren County714370,124 words
Washington County12539499,180 words
Wayne County872236,139 words
Williams County61656,209 words
Wood County16129310,986 words
Wyandot County2510229,391 words

Read off the map

46 businesses

Every fire insurance atlas opens with a printed index naming the town's mills, tanneries and hotels by proprietor. Those names have never been text: they are ink on a scanned sheet, which is why no search engine has ever found them. We read them off the sheets and matched them across volumes, so a business surveyed four times appears once, with the years it survived and the line it was read from.

All 46 establishments named in the atlases of Washington County.

One town, every survey

1904 to 1994

The government mapped Marietta 6 times in 90 years and every sheet survives. Each opens its own entry, where the earliest and the latest can be wiped between.

What happened here

Three passages from the 1881 and 1902 county histories, written while people who remembered the events were alive.

From History of Washington County, Ohio, published 1881 - Independence Township

Thomas Simms And His Captivity

About 1810 a man arrived, of adventurous and eventful history. When Thomas Simms was a boy of some eight years of age, living with his kindred near Wheeling, Virginia, the Indians attacked and massacred his grandfather, and several of the family to which he belonged, but spared his life. They took Thomas to what was called Sandusky plains, where they raised him in the ways of their tribe.

Read the rest of this passage

From History of Washington County, Ohio, published 1881 - Newport Township

The Drowning Of Charles Haskell

The drowning of Charles Haskell is perhaps the most remarkable and the saddest case of this kind on record. Charles Haskell was, at the time of his tragic death, a respected citizen and a prominent member of the Baptist church. He resided near the river where he had his store. Saturday, July 23, 1831, he observed that some boats that he had secured to the Ohio shore were being blown by the wind towards the Virginia side.

Read the rest of this passage

From History of Washington County, Ohio, published 1881 - Belpre Township

The First Death

that occurred in the new settlement was that of Captain Zebulon King, who was assassinated by the Indians May 1, 1789. While busily engaged in clearing his lot in the middle settlement, he was shot and scalped, it is supposed by two Indians who had escaped from Fort Harmar, where they were confined by reason of their treacherous conduct towards the whites during the previous summer at Duncan's Falls.

Read the rest of this passage

What the county wrote about itself

499,180 words

Between 1881 and 1902 2 county and town histories were compiled here while the settlers' children were still alive to be asked. Every township has its own chapter. It is public domain, it has never been cut into pages a search can reach, and it is reproduced here in full: who arrived first, what they built, what it cost them.

All 22 townships chapters, or the 13 on Marietta.

Places that are gone

Some of what the surveys recorded no longer exists. 5 settlements in this county are marked historical in the federal gazetteer: the post office closed, the mine worked out, the road moved. The maps that recorded them did not go anywhere.

The vanished settlements of Washington County.

Where to start

Washington County, Ohio 39 listed properties, 125 settlements and 156 topographic sheets.
Businesses in the atlases 46 establishments read off the printed index sheets.
Marietta, Ohio Fire insurance atlases, photographs and the town's own chapters.
Putnam Street Bridge A surveyed crossing of the Muskingum River, one of four remaining swing bridges in Ohio.

Every settlement

125

Every named place in the county, each with the survey sheets that cover it and where it stands.

Every business named in the atlases

13

Read off the printed indexes of the fire insurance atlases. These names exist nowhere else as text.

Every listed property

39

Properties on the National Register of Historic Places, with the maps that show them.

Surveyed structures

2

Buildings and bridges recorded by the federal survey, with their written histories.

Settlements in Ohio

7,035 settlements

Named places, each with its own page of maps and records. They are listed on the page for the county that holds them, because that is where the rest of a town's record lives too. A place with no page is a place the archive has not reached yet, not a place that does not exist.

Every county in Ohio, each listing its own settlements.

Provenance

  • Boundaries. Census Bureau TIGERweb. A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
  • Place names. Geographic Names Information System, United States Geological Survey.
  • Counts. Computed from the records this site publishes, not quoted from anywhere. They change when the archive grows.