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

Birmingham, Ohio

12 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1903 and the latest in 1986. It stands in Florence Township. It lies in ZIP code area 44889. It stands on East Fork Vermilion River. The Survey maps it on the Kipton quadrangle. 286 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 784 feet above sea level.

Birmingham within Erie County

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 Birmingham, surveyed 1986

Topographic sheet of Birmingham, surveyed 1903

Topographic sheets covering this place

12 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

6,497 words on this township

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

The first schoolhouse was built at Sprague's corners, on land owned by John Brooks. The first teacher was Ruth Squire, and the school was supported by subscription; the parents paying in proportion to the number of children sent. This schoolhouse was afterward taken down and rebuilt on the south side of the road. The second schoolhouse was built half a mile west of Birmingham, and the school first taught by Rhoda Root. A certain individual objected to her custom of opening the school with prayer, so that a school meeting was called to consider the matter. The teacher was sustained.

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

Fish, was born in Townsend Township, Huron County, Ohio, October 2, 1872. He pursued his later studies in Oberlin and in the University of Wisconsin, and for a number of years taught school in Florence and Berlin townships. He was married April 12, 1910, to Anna Sophia, daughter of Boardman Henry Packer and Mary Annie Hanson Packer of Greenville, Michigan, and later of Chicago. Their only child, John Boardman, was born December 29, 1910, in Chicago. They live on their fine farm on the bluffs overlooking the beautiful valley of the Vermilion River, about one mile south of Birmingham, Erie County, where they are enthusiastically engaged in agriculture and horticulture.

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

The First Congregational Church of Birmingham was originally Presbyterian. It was organized in 1838 by a committee consisting of Philo Wells and Xenophon Betts, of Vermillion, and Joseph Swift, of Henrietta. In 1845 the church adopted the Congregational form, but continued under the care of the presbytery until 1874, when it with- drew. Eldad Barber was the first preacher. Reverend Messrs. Goodell and Carlisle followed him, and he in turn succeeded them. The next preacher was C. C. Creegan, of Wakeman; after a time services were abandoned, and the building taken over by the Methodist Episcopal Society. .

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 Florence Township - it names this place 3 more 3 times.

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 944 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 944 specimens collected within 10 miles of Birmingham between 1874 and 1975: 705 Plantae, 147 Animalia, 91 Fungi, 1 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A. M. Evans, 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.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Carduus nutans L.	1874	Jones, G.T.	Berlin Twp., just W of Ceylon
Carex gracillima Schwein.	1892	Moseley, E.L.	Shinrock
Catharus fuscescens fuscescens (Stephens, 1817)	1892	C. Tuttle	Berlin Heights
Salix discolor Muhl.	1892	Moseley, E.L.	Florence
Huperzia lucidula (Michx.) Trevis.	1893	Moseley, E.L.	Vermilion, Furnace Woods
Ambloplites rupestris (Rafinesque, 1817)	1894	C. Rutter	Vermillion River, Ohio
Apios tuberosa Moench	1894	Moseley, E.L.	Florence
Aster macrophyllus L.	1894	Moseley, E.L.	Florence Twp
Circaea alpina subsp. alpina	1894	Moseley, E.L.	Florence
Apocynum sibiricum Jacq.	1896	Watson, J.R.	North Ohio
Aristolochia serpentaria L.	1896	Simms, C.	Berlin
Carex digitalis Willd.	1896	Moseley, E.L.	Berlin Heights

All 944 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Birmingham: 1 producer. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Flagstone. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Cleveland Quarry	Flagstone	Producer

Every working recorded in Erie County

Storms near this place

2 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Birmingham in 2 storm reports between 2006 and 2020: 1 hail, 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Birmingham	$5,000	A social media user reported trees down on their property in Florence Township. One tree fell onto a shed.
April 2006	Hail	Birmingham	-	Penny size hail was observed.

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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Axtel	2.7 miles	12
Florence	2.8 miles	14
Joppa	4.4 miles	14
Ashmont (historical)	5.3 miles	12
Ogontz	5.3 miles	14
Volunteer Bay	5.7 miles	12
Orchard Beach	5.9 miles	12
Portland Court	6.1 miles	12

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 Birmingham	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q4916572	The 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 1038057. 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.