Coshocton County, Ohio

Coshocton County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Coshocton
Year Organized: 1811
Square Miles: 564

Court House:

349 1/2 Main Street
County Courthouse
Coshocton, OH 43812-1510

Etymology - Origin of County Name

The county's name comes from the Delaware Indian word for "black bear town."

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

On January 31, 1810, the State of Ohio authorized the creation of Coshocton County. The county's name comes from the Delaware Indian word for "black bear town." The Delaware Indians' territory centered in modern-day Coshocton County until white settlement led the tribe to move further west in the years following the American Revolution. County residents began to prosper with completion of the Ohio and Erie Canal. Thanks to the canal, Coshocton became a major commercial center in eastern Ohio during the 1820s and 1830s.

Coshocton County is located in east central Ohio. It is predominantly rural, with less than one percent of the county's 564 square miles consisting of urban areas. The county seat is Coshocton. With a population of 11,682 people, Coshocton was the county's largest community in 2000. The next largest urban area, West Lafayette, had only 2,313 residents in that year. Coshocton County experienced a slight increase in population -- roughly 3.5 percent -- between 1990 and 2000. This raised the total number of residents to 36,655 people. The county averages sixty-five people per square mile.

The largest employers in Coshocton County are manufacturing establishments, with service industries a distant second. During the early twentieth century, Coshocton became famous for its advertising products, including calendars, trays, and other items promoting businesses like the Coca-Cola Bottling Company. In 1999, the per capita income in the county was approximately twenty-one thousand dollars, with 11.5 percent of the people living in poverty.

Among Coshocton County's more prominent residents was William Green, a past president of the American Federation of Labor.

Sources

Coshocton County, Ohio History Central, July 23, 2008,

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1916&nm=Coshocton-County

Neighboring Counties:

Holmes County (north)
Tuscawaras County (east)
Guernsey County (southeast)
Muskingum County (south)
Licking County (southwest)
Knox County (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Adams	township
- Clark	township
- Conesville	village	Incorporated Area
- Coshocton (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Crawford	township
- Keene	township
- Linton	township
- Mill Creek	township
- Nellie	village	Incorporated Area
- Newcastle	township
- Pike	township
- Plainfield	village	Incorporated Area
- Tiverton	township
- Virginia	township
- Warsaw	village	Incorporated Area
- West Lafayette	village	Incorporated Area
- White Eyes	township

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

Penn Foster High School

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