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

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

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. 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%)

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

Topographic sheets covering this place

13 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

4,993 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.

The Thomas family were early settlers of the township, locating in the extreme northwestern part, where they enterd land, and where the parents, Moses Thomas and wife, spent the remainder of their lives. The children were David, who yet lives in Florence township; Joseph W.. deceased ; Rebecca J., who is the widow of Joseph W. Back, and lives in Montpelier; Benjamin, deceased; William, a < resident of Lucas county, Ohio; Deborah, the widow of Ira Bratton, and lives in Angola, Indiana; Albert 1\, of Montpelier; Richard, killed at the battle of Resaca ; Mary, the widow of Sylvester Graves, now residing in Oklahoma; Sarah Ann, the wife of John Maxwell, of Stockton, California, and James C., who lor years past has been a resident of Chicago. The family originally came from Bucks county, Pennsylvania, where seven of the eleven children were born. They first migrated to Crawford county. Ohio, and thence, in 1840, to Florence township, where, the year previous, Moses Thomas had entered the southeast quarter of Section 32. Many descendants of Mr. Thomas live in Williams and adjoining counties.

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.

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 1 more 1 time.

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.