The End of Black River Township – Part 1

Living in a township is something that has interested me for quite a while. Maybe it’s part of a Green Acres-type fantasy; living out in the country, fresh air, etc. 

So what is a township? As the Ohio History Central website defines it, "Townships are relatively small pieces of land (usually no larger than thirty-six square miles). They are created to designate landownership or to establish a form of local government.” 

"The first type of township is a survey township. These townships were created as the United States expanded. The federal government used survey townships to survey and sell public land, as well as to designate property ownership.

"The other type of township is known as a civil township."

The website describes how a civil township works. "Typically, a board of township trustees oversees the township,” it notes. "The major issues that a township government addresses are cemetery maintenance, trash collection, road upkeep, and snow removal. Civil townships are most common in rural areas, but even large cities sometimes expand around townships or parts of townships. Commonly townships are annexed into a municipality as a town or city develops and expands." 

(Did you know that Lorain County has 18 townships? They are: Amherst, Brighton, Brownhelm, Camden, Carlisle, Columbia, Eaton, Elyria, Grafton, Henrietta, Huntington, LaGrange, New Russia, Penfield, Pittsfield, Rochester, Sheffield and Wellington.)

While growing up, I came close to living in a township. The land on Skyline Drive that my parents bought to build a house on had still been a part of Black River Township as recently as the late 1950s. However, by late 1965 when we moved in, Black River Township had already been out of business for a year.

But the process of closing down Black River Township and creating the Lorain we know today didn’t happen overnight. And it didn’t happen very quietly either, as we’ll see.

It’s an interesting story, and this article (below) from the June 3, 1957 Lorain Journal gets the ball rolling in this multi-part blog series. It notes the growing number of annexation bids at that time.

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ANNEXATION BIDS MULTIPLYING
7 Petitions Ask Lorain To Take In 3,500 Acres
Board Will Set Date Of Hearing

By JACK LaVRIHA

Seven petitions for the annexation to the city of Lorain of more than 3,500 acres of land in Black River and Brownhelm Townships were officially filed this morning with the county commissioners.

Two of the petitions, one for the annexation to Lorain of more than 2,000 acres of Black River and Brownhelm Townships, including the new Ford assembly plant site, and another for 200 acres in Black River Township, were filed by Frank Nardini, Lorain industrialist.

J. Norman Thompson, president of the commissioners, said, “The rush of petitions is attributed to the fact that Lorain is the only sub-division which has the facilities to adequately give services desired by the areas seeking to become a part of Lorain.”

The county commissioners, who meet quarterly on annexation matters, will set a date for hearing on the petitions. The hearings cannot be held until 60 days after today, the date the commissioners officially received the petitions.

In a surprise move, Carl F. Olson, of 3169 W. Lake Rd., filed a petition bearing 77 signatures of adult freeholders for the annexation to Lorain of property extending on bother sides of Lake Rd. west from the city limits to the Nickel Plate underpass and between Lake Erie and the Nickel Plate Railroad.

Commissioners dismissed an original petition of Olson’s in May which requested the annexation of a small area west of Lorain to the city. The dismissal was asked by Olson, agent for the petition.

The re-filing by Olson of the petition today, which takes in more land, came on the heels of the official filing of four more petitions requesting land in Black River Township to become a part of Lorain.

Next: Beaverdale??