Blakeslee, Ohio

13 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1914 and the latest in 1990. It stands in Florence Township. It lies in ZIP code area 43505. It stands on Bear Creek. The Survey maps it on the Blakeslee quadrangle. 104 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 863 feet above sea level.

Blakeslee within Williams County

Then and now

1914 to 1990

The same ground, surveyed 76 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Blakeslee, surveyed 1990

Topographic sheet of Blakeslee, surveyed 1914

Population over time

2 figures

Blakeslee grew from 96 to 104 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, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. 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.

Year	People	Change
2010	96
2020	104	+8 (+8%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

7 surveys from 13 printed 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.

1914 USGS Pioneer quadrangle1:62500, 2 printings
1944 USGS Pioneer quadrangle1:62500
1953 USGS Fort Wayne quadrangle1:250000, 4 printings
1956 USGS Fort Wayne quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1961 USGS Blakeslee quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
1985 USGS Adrian quadrangle1:100000
1990 USGS Adrian quadrangle1:100000

In the county-history sources

4,297 words on this township

The County of Williams : a History of Williams County, Ohio, from the Earliest Days, with Special Chapters on Various Subjects, Including Each of the Different Townships ; Also a Biographical Department, published 1905 names this settlement in its chapter on Florence Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Edon and Blakeslee are the only villages in the township, and Edon is the sixth town, as regards population, in Williams county. For a number of years prior to the establishment of the town, the contiguous territory, and even the town site, contained a number of settlers. The land upon which Edon is located was originally owned by Henry Stuller, John Garwood and Thomas Smith, who occupied it in 1852. Henry Stullcr came to this county in the above year and settled near the present town site on timber-covered land, which was transformed, however, by the united labor of father and sons, into a comfortable home. Here, Henry Stuller died, in 1864, aged fifty-seven years. Soon after that date Andrew Sheline came into possession of a tract upon which the principal corner of "Mudsock" was located, and in 1874, the village was regularly incorporated and christened Edon. Andrew Sheline was born, in Washington county. Pennsylvania. April 20, 1819. He came with his parents to Carroll county, Ohio, in 1824, and resided there until 1855, when he came to Williams county and here spent the remainder of his life. He was both carpenter and farmer, but did not confine himself to any one business. Seeing the opportunity for a broader field of enterprise in the building up of the West, he laid the foundation of the present village of Edon, building the first dry-goods and grocery stores, cabinet shop and doctor's office in the place. He also erected the first grist mill and woolen factory in Florence township, and the second sawmill, and was also the owner of a fine farm of eighty acres. He was the proprietor of a hotel as soon as Edon needed one, but in later years he disposed of his hotel and factory interests and retired to private life for the rest and quiet from activity he so deservedly merited.

Passage source: The County of Williams : a History of Williams County, Ohio, from the Earliest Days, with Special Chapters on Various Subjects, Including Each of the Different Townships ; Also a Biographical Department, published 1905.

Blakeslee is an enterprising and busy trade center, located on the Wabash railroad, ten miles southwest of Montpelier, and in 1900 had a population of 239. It was laid out in 1882, by John Boman, at which time that branch of the Wabash was built.

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.

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 271 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 271 specimens collected within 10 miles of Blakeslee between 1893 and 1971: 244 Animalia, 23 Fungi, 3 Plantae, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by Adler, K. K., Anson A. Hinkley, Bauer, L. 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
unnamed	1897	F. L. Stevens	Columbia.
Coleosporium asterum (Dietel) Syd. & P.Syd.	1902	Kellerman, W.A.	Edgerton
Elimia livescens (Menke, 1830)	1916	Anson A. Hinkley	St. Joseph River, Edgerton, North America
Anaxyrus americanus (Holbrook, 1836)	1893	not recorded	Edgerton, Fish Lake
Apalone spinifera (Lesueur, 1827)	1893	not recorded	Edgerton
Ericymba buccata Cope, 1865	1893	P. Kirsch	St. Joseph River, Edgerton, Ohio
Lithobates clamitans (Latreille, 1801)	1893	not recorded	Edgerton, Fish Lake
Notropis atherinoides Rafinesque, 1818	1893	P. Kirsch	St. Joseph River, Edgerton, Ohio
Noturus miurus Jordan, 1877	1893	P. Kirsch	St. Joseph River, Edgerton, Ohio
Pimephales notatus (Rafinesque, 1820)	1893	P. Kirsch	St. Josephs River, Edgerton, Ohio
Aspidium Sw.	1895	Collector(s): Edwin Lincoln Moseley	Florence
Coleosporium solidaginis (Schwein.) Thüm.	1902	W. A. Kellerman	Edgerton

All 271 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Blakeslee: 1 past producer, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
	Hoffman Sand and Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
	Tri-State South Dredge	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Williams 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
West Buffalo (historical)	2.0 miles	13
Denmark (historical)	2.5 miles	12
Valley Springs Addition	2.5 miles	12
Edon	3.0 miles	14
Edon Home Court	3.3 miles	14
Mina	5.0 miles	12
Edgerton	5.3 miles	12
Melbern	5.8 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 Blakeslee	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2574423	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 1064447. 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.