Toledo - Ohio - History

The area around what is now Toledo was opened to pioneer settlement after the Battle of Fallen Timbers, a conflict between white settlers and Native Americans fought nearby in 1794. Fort Industry was located at the mouth of Swan Creek (what is now downtown Toledo), settled after the War of 1812. Two villages, Port Lawrence and Vistula, were united in 1833 and named for Toledo, Spain. This new, consolidated community was incorporated as a city in 1837.

Ohio's decision to include the Toledo area (then part of the Michigan Territory) in the state's canal system resulted in a fierce boundary dispute (the Toledo War of 1835) between Ohio and Michigan. Residents of the city mobilized to transfer political control of the lower Maumee from the Michigan Territory to the State of Ohio. Michigan's Governor, Stevens T. Mason, sent troops to put down the uprising. Ohio Governor Robert Lucas responded by calling out the militia, and the Ohio state legislature organized most of the disputed area into a new county named after Lucas himself, with the present Ohio line as the northern boundary. Troops poured into the area, but before blood was shed, President Andrew Jackson settled the dispute in favour of Ohio. A year later, the U.S. Congress compensated Michigan for the loss by awarding it the Upper Peninsula and admission to statehood.

Industrial development was spurred in the 1830's and '40s by the arrival of the railroads, the construction of the Wabash and Erie and Miami and Erie canals, and by the discovery of local deposits of gas and oil in 1844. Glassmaking (now a major industry) was introduced in the late 1880's by Edward Libbey and Michael Owens. Today, Toledo is one of America's fifty largest cities and an integral part of the Midwestern economy.

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