Bluffton, Ohio

Bluffton fell from 4,125 to 3,967 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.

The same ground, surveyed 79 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

1907 1986

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.

• 1907 USGS Bluffton quadrangle1:62500
• 1907 USGS Bluffton quadrangle1:62500
• 1907 USGS Bluffton quadrangle1:62500
• 1950 USGS Marion quadrangle1:250000
• 1960 USGS Bluffton quadrangle1:24000
• 1960 USGS Bluffton quadrangle1:24000
• 1960 USGS Bluffton quadrangle1:24000
• 1960 USGS Bluffton quadrangle1:24000
• 1962 USGS Marion quadrangle1:250000
• 1966 USGS Marion quadrangle1:250000
• 1966 USGS Marion quadrangle1:250000
• 1966 USGS Marion quadrangle1:250000
• 1986 USGS Marion quadrangle1:100000
• 1986 USGS Marion quadrangle1:100000

History of Allen County, Ohio. Containing a History of the County, Its Townships, Towns, Villages, Schools, Churches, Industries, Etc; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; Biographies; History of the Northwest Territory; History of Ohio; Statistical and Miscellaneous Matter, Etc., Etc, published 1885 names this settlement in its chapter on Richland Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 50 specimens collected within 10 miles of Bluffton between 1921 and 1961: 48 Animalia, 1 Plantae, 1 Fungi. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by C. Nichols, , Beut. Coll., Huber, L. O. Gratz 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	Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
	Mycena corticalis A.H.Sm.	1941	L. O. Gratz	Bluffton
	Medicago sativa L.	1961	Robert H. Gray	1 mile west of Lafayette.
	Pteromalidae	1921	Huber
	Ambloplites rupestris (Rafinesque, 1817)	1930	Trautman, M. B. (Milton Bernard) & Foster, R. (Robert)	Ottawa River, within central Jackson township, near Lafayette, Jackson township
	Etheostoma nigrum Rafinesque, 1820	1930	Trautman, M. B. (Milton Bernard) & Foster, R. (Robert)	Ottawa River, within central Jackson township, near Lafayette, Jackson township
	Lepomis megalotis (Rafinesque, 1820)	1930	Trautman, M. B. (Milton Bernard) & Foster, R. (Robert)	Ottawa River, within central Jackson township, near Lafayette, Jackson township
	Micropterus salmoides (Lacepède, 1802)	1930	Trautman, M. B. (Milton Bernard) & Foster, R. (Robert)	Ottawa River, within central Jackson township, near Lafayette, Jackson township
	Notropis umbratilis (Girard, 1856)	1930	Trautman, M. B. (Milton Bernard) & Foster, R. (Robert)	Ottawa River, within central Jackson township, near Lafayette, Jackson township
	Notropis volucellus volucellus	1930	Trautman, M. B. (Milton Bernard) & Foster, R. (Robert)	Ottawa River, within central Jackson township, near Lafayette, Jackson township
	Ameiurus melas melas (Rafinesque, 1820)	1944	Trautman, M. B. (Milton Bernard) & Myers, A. M.	Little Riley Creek, 2mi southwest of Bluffton, ~2.5 mi SW of Bluffton, Richland township
	Ameiurus natalis (Lesueur, 1819)	1944	Trautman, M. B. (Milton Bernard) & Myers, A. M.	Little Riley Creek, 2mi southwest of Bluffton, ~2.5 mi SW of Bluffton, Richland township
	Boleosoma nigrum nigrum (Rafinesque, 1820)	1944	Trautman, M. B. (Milton Bernard) & Myers, A. M.	Little Riley Creek, 2mi southwest of Bluffton, ~2.5 mi SW of Bluffton, Richland township

All 50 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Bluffton: 1 past producer, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Limestone, General, 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.

Every working recorded in Allen County

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Bluffton in 7 storm reports between 1997 and 2023: 4 hail, 3 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.

Every storm recorded in Allen County

1 paper published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 0 issues, 0 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.

Front pages of the local paper, read from the Library of Congress scans: 5 issues spread across its run from 1939 to 1959, 2,429 words in total. Each is reproduced on its own page, exactly as the recogniser returned it.

These pages read less well than anything else here, and the number is worth stating: about three words in four come through cleanly, against nine in ten for the building records. An 1896 broadsheet sets eight-point type in seven columns on microfilm, which is the hardest thing in this archive to read by machine. We tested our own recognisers against the Library's and they were not better, so the Library's text is what appears, with the wholly unreadable columns removed. Read it as a guide to what the paper covered, and follow the link to the scan before quoting anything.

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

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.

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1064461. 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.