Did you ever hear of Ohltown? I first saw the name when I was learning to drive. My dad would take me out on the back roads around Meander Reservoir. One of these was Ohltown Road, which runs northwest toward Warren from Route 46 just north of Mahoning Avenue. It ends by the Ohltown United Methodist Church and the Ohltown Cemetery, next to the church. Austintown-Warren Road, crossing Meander Reservoir from the west dead ends at Ohltown Road. Depot Street veers to the northeast from there.

But where was Ohltown? Basically it was around those crossroads with the western part of the village now underneath Lake Meander. The church and the cemetery are now all that is left of the town.

Ohltown gets its name from Michael Ohl. Ohl’s parents, Henry and Abolona Ohl moved to Canfield from Allentown, Pennsylvania, settling north of the village. Michael, their oldest, was born in 1785 and married Eva Meyers (Meiers) in 1806. The young couple settled in southern Austintown Township for twelve years, having the first five of thirteen children. Around 1815 and 1816, Michael acquired 230 acres in southwestern Weathersfield Township along Meander Creek about a mile and a half west of Mineral Ridge. After damming the creek to create a millrace, he built a sawmill, and later a gristmill, which remained in operation for a hundred years. The sawmill provided the lumber for the family’s permanent residence.

Ohl was enterprising. He opened a general store doe the growing village as well as becoming the first postmaster, the post office in his house. A plank road ran through the property, connecting Canfield, Warren, and Cleveland. The house became a stagecoach stop and inn. Then in 1835, Ohl began mining coal on the south side of his property one of the seams of coal that were plentiful in the vicinity of Mineral Ridge.

The Ohltown United Methodist Church traces its beginnings to 1838. They acquired a building from a Lutheran congregation in 1847. By that time, the town included a grocery store, post office, shoemaker, cabinet maker, and a blacksmith, along with the general store and mills owned by Ohl. There was also a school. In 1849, Ohl died.

This may have marked the peak years for the village. As canals and railroads were built, they bypassed Ohltown. By the 1880s, only thirty homes and a couple stores remained. By the 1900s, only a few homes, the church and cemetery remained. People went elsewhere for work.

Meanwhile, the industrial development along the Mahoning River, polluting the water of Niles and Youngstown, along with periodic flooding, led to the formation of the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District in 1927. A dam on Meander Creek was part of the plan to provide a clean source of drinking water and was part of a larger flood control plan. It would require flooding the town area west of Ohltown Road. Some people sold their homes, other homes were moved.

Today, as already noted, only the church, which has weekly services, and the cemetery remain as remnants of the town Michael Ohl built. But I can imagine that there was a time when this was a pleasant and comfortably prosperous place, located along scenic Meander Creek.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!