It’s been a work in progress. Slowly, ever slowly, I chipped away at Ohio counties as my older kid attended school in Michigan. I took a different route through Ohio multiple times, collecting counties and adding them to my list. So this was, I think, the sixth trip involving Ohio, all dutifully recorded on Twelve Mile Circle: Arc of Columbus; Taming the Frontier; Detour to Ashtabula; Dayton; The Ohio River; and of course the current (final) effort.
This is why I don’t believe I’ll ever visit every county in the United States although it remains a worthwhile goal. It’s simply too time consuming given other commitments in my life.
Before this journey, I’d carved Ohio down to six residual counties clustered near the northwestern corner of the state. I planned to hit Auglaize, Allen and Putnam on the way up, then Pauling, Van Wert, and Mercer on the way back. That would complete all 88 Ohio counties.
Lima
I barely clipped Auglaize the first day but it still counted. However, in my defense, I planned to return to Auglaize and spend the night there on the return trip. So I didn’t fret as I drove through and entered neighboring Allen County. I checked into a hotel in its largest town and seat of local government, the city of Lima (map).
Unfortunately there wasn’t much to see or do around here, and believe me I checked. I didn’t even plan to take a photo until I saw this amazing truck throuple in the parking lot by the hotel.
By the way, local residents don’t pronounce the name of the town like the city in Peru. Instead, it’s something closer to Lime-uh, like a citrus fruit, even though ironically it may be named for the Peruvian city. Early residents chose Lima as an expression of appreciation for Peru, the source of quinine used to treat a malaria outbreak. One doesn’t normally associate malaria with Ohio but apparently that was a concern in the mid 19th Century.
Lima sounded familiar so I dug into my genealogical records and I found a tenuous connection. My Great-Great-Grandfather, Levi Meyers, was a fireman and constable there in the 1870’s and 1880’s. He lived in Pennsylvania beforehand and Tennessee afterwards, but called northwest Ohio the family home for awhile. My great grandmother (my mother’s mother’s mother) was born in Lima. So I guess I came full circle for a day.
Fort Defiance
We awoke the next morning and planned a casual ride to Michigan. First we drove north through Putnam County — another new one for the list — but we kept going. Then we crossed into Defiance County and stopped at Old Fort Defiance Park (map) in the town of Defiance, a place I learned about in Centers of Michigan. That’s a lot of Defiance!
They all got their name from the fort of course, a hastily built defensive position from the 1794 Northwest Indian War. General “Mad Anthony” Wayne needed a series of fortifications and this one filled a particularly strategic point at the confluence of the Maumee and Auglaize Rivers.
The fort served its purpose and the U.S. military abandoned it in 1796, although a trading post continued there. Then, a few years later, the 1807 Treaty of Detroit defined a land boundary between the United States and several Native American nations. The old fort served as a reference point for the longitudinal border, a vertical line that became the Michigan Meridian. Hold that thought, I’ll get to more of that later.
4KD Crick Brewery
Now it was lunchtime so we stopped at a country club on the outskirts of Defiance which included a couple of restaurants and a brewery. The brewery was called 4KD Crick (a.k.a. “Forked Creek”) and the beers were available in both restaurants. I debated whether this qualified as a brewery visit. Ultimately I decided to count it because, even though I couldn’t go into the actual brewery, it was all part of the same entertainment complex called The Compound.
Lockport Covered Bridge
Of course there’s always time to drive a little out of the way for a covered bridge. We found one a bit further north near Lock Port, a “village” which has seemingly contracted to just a couple of houses. Even so, it offered a name for the Lockport Covered Bridge (map) over the Tiffin River.
Some sources reference this as an “Historic” covered bride. However, that’s a misnomer unless someone considers 1999 historic, which is when Williams County built it as a tourist draw. The bridge adheres to modern specifications, the full width of a 2-lane road, with guardrails and even a dedicated pedestrian walkway. Even relatively new it’s still beautiful and worth a detour.
Meridian Baseline State Park
Then we left Ohio and entered Michigan. I’d never driven into East Lansing directly from the south before and that was an opportunity for some additional exploration. A slight jog took us past Meridian Baseline State Park on the border between Jackson and Ingham Counties (map).
This was the same meridian that ran due-north from old Fort Defiance. However, the baseline for Michigan intersects it here, making it particularly memorable, because every speck of land in Michigan references it.
A short, easy trail led through the woods from the parking lot, an out-and-back of 1.4 miles. We visited both points of intersection. Yes, TWO baselines exist, separated by a very precisely measured 935.88 feet. Ideally that shouldn’t happen. However, look at the southern border of Ingham County and you will see the kink it causes quite clearly.
It’s an odd story. Surveyors ran a baseline to the meridian right around 1815. Then, a few years later, they did it again for some inexplicable reason but it intersected the meridian at a slightly different point. Unfortunately settlers were already moving into eastern Michigan and referencing the original intersection for property boundaries. So they came up with a novel solution: land east of the meridian would continue to use the original intersection (the northern marker) and land west of the meridian would use the new intersection (the southern marker).
From there we continued up to East Lansing where we would spend the week.
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