BlockBefore
Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Berlin Heights, Ohio

14 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1903 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Berlin Township. It lies in ZIP code area 44814. The Survey maps it on the Berlin Heights quadrangle. 651 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 778 feet above sea level.

Berlin Heights within Erie County

Population over time

2 figures

Berlin Heights fell from 714 to 651 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
2010714
2020651-63 (-9%)

Then and now

1903 to 1986

The same ground, surveyed 83 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Berlin Heights, surveyed 1986
Topographic sheet of Berlin Heights, surveyed 1903

Topographic sheets covering this place

14 sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

In the county-history sources

6,812 words on this township

A Standard History of Erie County, Ohio, published 1916 names this settlement in its chapter on Berlin Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Berlin Heights became widely known at one time on account of a small free love community planted there. Only. one.citizen of the township became identified with this movement, the others coming from remote states. It was some time after the first gathering before a colony was established. Their peculiar tenets were taught and disseminated until 1860, when Point Hope Community was established upon a communistic basis, with about twenty members. It lasted about twelve months. A second organization, called the Industrial Fraternity, commenced in 1860, with twenty members, lived about six months. The third, the Berlin Community, or Christian Republic, commenced in 1865, had twelve adult members and six children and lived about one year. Mr. Hudson Tuttle, Berlin's well-known author, in writing of these people, says:

Passage source: A Standard History of Erie County, Ohio, published 1916.

Several papers were started by the communists and had a brief eareer. The Social Revolutionist, in 1857, by J. 8S. Patterson; Age of Freedom, 1858; Good Time Coming, 1859; the New Republic, 1862; the Optimist and Kingdom of Heaven, 1869; the Principia or Personality, 1868 ; the New Campaign, 1871; the Toledo Sun, moved from Toledo to Berlin Heights in 1875, by John A. Laut.

Passage source: A Standard History of Erie County, Ohio, published 1916.

Berlin Heights has had a wide reputation, but its growth has been hampered by not having railroad facilities. It has several stores, several factories, a sawmill, a grist mill, a fine school building with graded school, three churches and a hotel.

Passage source: A Standard History of Erie County, Ohio, published 1916.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Berlin Township - it names this place 3 more 3 times.

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 1,524 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,524 specimens collected within 10 miles of Berlin Heights between 1874 and 1975: 796 Plantae, 616 Animalia, 111 Fungi, 1 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A. Dowdy, A. M. Evans and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Specimen of Dennstaedtia punctilobula (Michx.) T.MooreDennstaedtia punctilobula (Michx.) T.Moore1900Grover, F.O."Dry sandy hillside, shaded
A photograph of the species Carduus nutans, not of this specimenCarduus nutans L.1874Jones, G.T.Berlin Twp., just W of Ceylon
A photograph of the species Macropetalichthys rhapheidolabis, not of this specimenMacropetalichthys rhapheidolabis Norwood & Owen, 1846 (fossil)1881D. S. Young
A photograph of the species Graminopassalora graminis, not of this specimenGraminopassalora graminis (Fuckel) U.Braun, C.Nakash., Videira & Crous1886William Trelease; A. CommonsMadison
A photograph of the species Scolecotrichum graminis, not of this specimenScolecotrichum graminis Fuckel1886Dr. Wm. Trelease; A. Commons(a) Madison, Wis. (b) Faulkland, Del.
A photograph of the species Athyrium pycnocarpon, not of this specimenAthyrium pycnocarpon (Spreng.) Tidestr.1888Steele, E.S.Milan.
A photograph of the species Carex gracillima, not of this specimenCarex gracillima Schwein.1892Moseley, E.L.Shinrock
A photograph of the species Catharus fuscescens, not of this specimenCatharus fuscescens fuscescens (Stephens, 1817)1892C. TuttleBerlin Heights
Apocynum sibiricum Jacq.1896Watson, J.R.North Ohio
Aristolochia serpentaria L.1896Simms, C.Berlin
A photograph of the species Carex bromoides, not of this specimenCarex bromoides Willd.1896Moseley, E.L.Milan
Carex digitalis Willd.1896Moseley, E.L.Berlin Heights

All 1,524 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

8 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Berlin Heights: 6 producers, 2 past producers. 6 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Harris Brothers Sandstone QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast ProducerSedimentary
Harris Brothers Sandstone QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Delhi PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Mortensen PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Reer PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Shinrock PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Shinrock Pit & PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Weilnau PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Erie County

Storms near this place

1 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Berlin Heights in 1 storm report between 1994 and 1994: 1 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
June 1994Thunderstorm WindBerlin Heights$5,000Large tree limbs were downed.

Every storm recorded in Erie County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Berlin Heights Station1.9 miles14
Berlinville1.9 miles13
Shinrock2.1 miles13
Ogontz2.2 miles14
Ceylon3.2 miles14
Colonial Villa3.7 miles12
Ruggles Beach4.0 miles12
Oberlin Beach4.0 miles14

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on Berlin HeightsAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2219095The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1064420. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.