Paulding County, Ohio

Paulding County is a located in the  of,. As of the, the population was 20,293. Its is  and is  for, one of the captors of Major  in the.

Geography
According to the, the county has a total area of 1,085 (419 ). 1,078 km² (416 sq mi) of it is land and 7 km² (3 sq mi) of it is water. The total area is 0.63% water.

The center of the county is 723 feet above sea level and the rest of the county does not vary much from that. The land is the most level of any county in the state, and plats look like a checkerboard, with roads every mile. This level terrain resulted in Paulding County being entirely within the, unlike any other.

The county contains U.S. Routes, , and (the Lincoln Highway). There are two major rivers, the and the, as well as numerous small creeks. The largest bodies of water are manmade ponds.

Adjacent counties

 * (north)
 * (east)
 * (south)
 * (west)

History
The of  were the prevalent occupants of the region before Europeans arrived in  following the  expedition of. By, however, there were , Prankaahaws, Delawares, Shawnee, Kickapoos, Muscounteres, Huron, Weas, Wyandotts and Mohawks.

Under the of, the  opened what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin to settlement. However, the that ended the  in  allowed the British to remain in the  until matters were resolved with the Indians. General sent General "Mad"  to subdue the native population. He built a series of forts, including Fort Brown, located between Charloe and Melrose. In order to defend against Indian ambush, he cut a swath of woods a mile wide, known as the. His campaign culminated in a decisive victory by the  against Indians led by Chief  of the near  in the, and signing of the  in.

Paulding County was originally part of territory set aside for Ohio’s Indian people by the. That did not last long. Paulding County was organized by the legislature on, from lands that were formerly part of. At that point, it consisted of 12 perfectly square townships. In, was formed from lands that were part of Williams County, plus the northern half of Auglaize Township. It was at this time that four sections of Emerald Township were transferred to Auglaize Township.

Settlement of Paulding County was slow, due to the difficult living conditions. Farmers complained that they grew two crops a year - frogs and ice. Many residents suffered from the ague, a disease later determined to be. The primary industries were based on the thick forests. Many timbers were floated up the to be used as ship's. The trees were so big that one man lived in a hollow tree. There were also many who earned money through the winter by crafting barrel staves with an.

had promoted the building of canals to provide interior transportation for this fledgling nation. Once the was opened in, entrepreneurs promoted other canals, including the  and the. The Miami and Erie ran from Lake Erie to the near, through Paulding County, and the Wabash and Erie Canal went west into Indiana, meeting the Miami and Erie in Junction, a community in Auglaize township. The canal excitement was so great that people were leaving for Junction, feeling that it had a much brighter future. Canal workers choosing Paulding County as their tax home built the county's population to 25,000 people in 1835, a number it has never approached since.

The combined canal system was the largest canal system in the world - but it was not successful. The canal was useless in winter, and the banks were constantly caving in, requiring constant dredging to remain passable. To protect the banks, canal boats had to operate at extremely slow speed - and the canal system started being abandoned even before it was completely built.

A relic of this era is the Furnace Farm near Cecil. Ore was brought in by canal, where it was turned into iron using the ample local fuel. One furnace remains, where it was allowed to cool without being emptied, there being no point in pouring iron that could not be shipped economically to market.

Demographics
As of the of 2000, there were 20,293 people, 7,773 households, and 5,689 families residing in the county. The was 19/km² (49/sq mi). There were 8,478 housing units at an average density of 8/km² (20/sq mi). The racial makeup of the county was 95.85%, 0.96% or , 0.29% , 0.15% , 0.01% , 1.41% from , and 1.33% from two or more races. 3.02% of the population were or.

There were 7,773 households out of which 34.10% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 60.90% were living together, 8.10% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.80% were non-families. 23.00% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.30% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.59 and the average family size was 3.06.

In the county, the population was spread out with 26.80% under the age of 18, 8.60% from 18 to 24, 28.00% from 25 to 44, 24.00% from 45 to 64, and 12.60% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 96.70 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.40 males.

The median income for a household in the county was $40,327, and the median income for a family was $45,481. Males had a median income of $35,809 versus $21,965 for females. The for the county was $18,062. About 4.90% of families and 7.70% of the population were below the, including 9.50% of those under age 18 and 7.10% of those age 65 or over.

Paulding County has a significant African-American population, unlike most rural counties in Ohio and Indiana, and while the African-American population in most northern cities dates from the early 20th century, there are a number of African-American families that trace their Paulding County roots to the 1860s and before. Racial strife in Paulding County is relatively low. Leo Goyings, a cobbler and veteran, was elected to the Paulding town council in the 1960s, and other non-whites have been elected to public office since. The Paulding County Historical Society received a significant gift from a local African-American resident that became a physician in.

The Hispanic/Latino population largely arrived after from  near the  border, as migrant workers. The factory in  decided in  to no longer contract for crops that were not mechanically harvested. Those remaining have largely found job in area factories, have established farms, or work in government, or retail occupations.

Government
Main article: 

Schools
In 1971, the Ohio Board of Education revoked the charters of Payne, Blue Creek, Grover Hill and Auglaize-Brown school districts. Blue Creek was itself the merger of Latty and Haviland schools only a few years prior. Payne, Blue Creek, and Grover Hill merged to form the Wayne Trace school district, and Auglaize-Brown joined Paulding Exempted Village Schools.


 * Antwerp Local School District
 * Paulding Exempted Village School District
 * Wayne Trace Local School District
 * Vantage Career Center

In the late 1950s, Paulding Exempted Village Schools enacted a pay-as-you-go tax for school construction, designed to reduce overall taxes by paying cash for school construction rather than paying high interest rates on bonds. The pay-as-you-go concept has been adopted in a number of local government units in Ohio.

With students from kindergarten to high school at one location, the Paulding campus of PEVS is one of the largest schools in the state.

Interesting facts
The Paulding County motto of "No Compromise" came from a banner carried by participants in the ,

Paulding County was the first county in the US to receive funding from steel magnate to build a library. Carnegie also matched funds to purchase the pipe organ in the Paulding Methodist Church.

The town of Payne got its name when the railroad hauled in a used depot with that name already on it. Prior to that, the community was known as Puckerbrush.

Judge of Paulding County spent the better part of his life as a Paulding County resident. His claim to fame is that he changed the name of Cleaveland to. Earlier in life, as a printer, he founded the Cleaveland Advertiser. That was just a bit too long to fit atop page one - so he omitted the one letter.

In 1996 and 1998 Paulding County was home to two separate Crop Circles.