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Richwood, Ohio

11 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1913 and the latest in 1992. It stands in Claibourne Township. It lies in ZIP code area 43344. It stands on Peacock Run. The Survey maps it on the Richwood quadrangle. 2,222 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 951 feet above sea level.

Richwood within Union County

Then and now

1913 to 1992

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.

Topographic sheet of Richwood, surveyed 1992
Topographic sheet of Richwood, surveyed 1913

On record in Richwood

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

Businesses named in the fire insurance atlases 12 of 15 shown

Every atlas business in Union County

Population over time

2 figures

Richwood fell from 2,229 to 2,222 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.

YearPeople Change
20102,229
20202,222-7 (-0%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

9 surveys from 11 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.

In the county-history sources

120,170 words on this township

The History of Union County, Ohio, Containing a History of the County; Its Townships, Towns ... Military Record;, published 1883 names this settlement in its chapter on Claibourne Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Claibourne is the newest village in the county, and, though yet in its infancy, bids fair to surpass, in size and prosperity, some of the earlier settled villages. It is situated in the extreme southwestern part of Claibourne Township, on the New York, Pennsylvania & Ohio Railroad. The plat was surveyed March 14, 1881, by Frederick J. Sager, and contains ten and three-' fourths acres, divided into thirty-nine lots. William Jolliflf, Jr, was the proprietor. He made an addition of five lots, March 4, 1882. G. M. Warner was the first resident of the place who anticipated the location of a village. He was appointed Postmaster in August, 1879, a position which he yet retains, and in September of the same year opened a stock of general merchandise in a building which he had just erected. Through his exertions and representations, the railroad company laid a side-track, and during the winter of 1880- 81 built and opened a station. The first dwellings were erected in 1881. About fifteen families compose the population. One physician. Dr. T. F. Wurtsbaugh, is in practice here. The village contains a saw mill, owned by Bell & Shearer, a shoe shop, a blacksmith shop, one hotel, a millinery store and two general stores. A neat brick school building has just been erected, and a Methodist Protestant Church is close by. The village is six miles distant from Richwood.

Passage source: The History of Union County, Ohio, Containing a History of the County; Its Townships, Towns ... Military Record;, published 1883.

Richwood, the second town in size and importance in Union County, is located in the central part of Claibourne Township. It is a wide-awake, business place, with an enterprising, public-spirited class of citizens, and for many years has competed successfully in trade with larger towns in surrounding counties. Its streets are broad and regularly laid out. Substantial and spacious business blocks are being constantly added to the number already erected, and the indications of a prosperous, active town are everywhere manifest. It has just completed its first half -century of existence. For thirty years its crowth was slow; during the last two decades, it has been more rapid. Its success is due, principally, to the building of the railroad through the place. A tine agricultural region surrounds the town, and the facilities for commerce, which the railroad afforded, made it at once the center of a large and widelyextended trade. The population in 1840 was 99; in 1870, mainly through the growth of the last few years, it had reached 436; in 1880, it was 1,317, a ratio of increase rarely attained.

Passage source: The History of Union County, Ohio, Containing a History of the County; Its Townships, Towns ... Military Record;, published 1883.

Philip Plummer was the proprietor of Richwood. He had come into possession of the William Polham Survey, No. 6,307, of 1,200 acres, or the greater part of it, and in the summer of 1832 visited it, from Mount Vernon, Ohio, with his brother, Thomas Plummer, Elisha Merriot and Dr. John P. Brookins, a physician in search of a good location for practice. They traveled in a large two-hoi'se wagon, and stopped on the way overnight at Daniel Swartz's house on the Scioto River. The village was suiweyed and platted in the midst of a dense wilderness, August 8, 9 and 10, 1832, by Thomas G. Plummer, Special Deputy Surveyor, under the direction of the County Smweyor, Levi Phelps; and the plat was acknowledged before Ira Wood, Justice of the Peace, August 20, 1832. They all returned to Mount Vernon, and soon after Philip Plummer and Dr. Brookins returned to Richwood.

Passage source: The History of Union County, Ohio, Containing a History of the County; Its Townships, Towns ... Military Record;, published 1883.

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 Claibourne Township - it names this place 330 more 330 times.

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 242 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 242 specimens collected within 10 miles of Richwood between 1880 and 1975: 227 Animalia, 8 Fungi, 6 Plantae, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by B., D. & B., D., B., D. & K., D., Baumgartner, 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.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
A photograph of the species Ardea herodias, not of this specimenArdea herodias herodias Linnaeus, 17581880not recordedMarysville, Union, Ohio, USA
A photograph of the species Haliaeetus leucocephalus, not of this specimenHaliaeetus leucocephalus leucocephalus (Linnaeus, 1766)1881not recordedPleasant Valley, Union, Ohio, USA
A photograph of the species Galium circaezans, not of this specimenGalium circaezans Michx.1892E E BogueProspect
Anomodon rostratus (Hedw.) Schimp.1894Mrs. Smyth
A photograph of the species Leucobryum glaucum, not of this specimenLeucobryum glaucum (Hedw.) Ångstr.1894not recorded
A photograph of the species Tetraphis pellucida, not of this specimenTetraphis pellucida Hedw.1894not recorded
A photograph of the species Thelia asprella, not of this specimenThelia asprella (Schimp.) Sull.1894Mrs. Smyth
Uredo1897W. A. Kellerman
Uromyces plumbarius Peck1897W. A. Kellerman
unnamed1914not recorded
Erasmoneura nigra (Gillette, 1898)1914H.T. Osborn
A photograph of the species Puccinia graminis, not of this specimenPuccinia graminis Pers.1919MCFARLAND F. T.Prospect

All 242 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Storms near this place

21 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Richwood in 21 storm reports between 1998 and 2024: 12 thunderstorm wind, 5 hail, 3 flood, 1 flash flood. 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
July 2019Thunderstorm WindRichwood$20,000Numerous trees were downed and a trailer was destroyed.
May 2004Thunderstorm WindRichwood$10,000A trailer was blown over at a construction site. Three power poles were downed along with 1.00 hail.
July 1998Thunderstorm WindRichwood$10,000Several trees downed.
April 2002HailRichwood$10,000no account filed
July 2020Thunderstorm WindRichwood$4,000A tree and some power lines were downed.
May 2006Thunderstorm WindRichwood$3,000Numerous trees were downed.
August 2003Thunderstorm WindRichwood$3,000Several trees were downed.
October 2001Thunderstorm WindRichwood$3,000Large limbs were knocked down across town.
October 1999Thunderstorm WindRichwood$3,000A barn was damaged and several trees were knocked down.
November 2005Thunderstorm WindRichwood$2,000Power lines were knocked down due to thunderstorm winds.
August 2010Thunderstorm WindRichwood$1,000Trees were reported down due to damaging thunderstorm winds.
June 2008HailRichwood$1,000no account filed
July 2019Thunderstorm WindRichwood$500Several large branches were downed.
June 2017Thunderstorm WindRichwood$500One large tree was knocked down in the Richwood area.
July 2023FloodRichwood-High water was reported on roads.
June 2019FloodRichwood-A few roads remained closed due to flooding.
June 2017Flash FloodRichwood-Several roads were flooded, including East Bomford Street where water was 2 feet high in spots.
December 2013FloodRichwood-State Route 37 was closed due to high water caused by earlier heavy rain.
March 2024HailRichwood-no account filed
July 2023HailRichwood-no account filed
June 2011HailRichwood-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Union 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
Tawa Estates1.9 miles11
Claiborne3.8 miles11
Essex4.0 miles11
Woodland4.2 miles11
Magnetic Springs5.4 miles13
Pharisburg5.6 miles13
West Jackson5.9 miles12
Summersville6.3 miles12

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 RichwoodAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q2482947The 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 1061602. 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.

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.