Jump Starts in Maumee Ohio

Maumee ( maw-MEE) is a city in Lucas County, Ohio, United States. Located along the Maumee River, it is a suburb about 10 miles (16 km) southwest of Toledo. The population was 13,896 at the 2020 census. Maumee was declared an All-America City by the National Civic League in June 2006.

In pre-colonial times, Native Americans (notably the Ottawa) began using the rich resources at the present site of Maumee, Ohio, in the Maumee River valley. Throughout much of the eighteenth century, French, British and American forces struggled for control of the lower Maumee River as a major transportation artery linking East and West through Lake Erie.

Following the American Revolutionary War, Native Americans of the region, including the Odawa, Ojibwe and Potawatomie, and Shawnee, made alliances in what became called the Northwest Territory by the United States, which claimed it from the British after gaining independence. The Northwest Indian War was a series of conflicts from 1785 through 1795 between these nations and the US; it ended with a decisive American victory over the British and their Native American allies at the Battle of Fallen Timbers at Maumee in 1794. Maumee is the site of Gen. “Mad” Anthony Wayne’s final fort, Fort Deposit, built in Aug. 1794 on his way to the battle of Fallen Timbers. Together with the conclusion of the War of 1812, which preserved most US territory, the end of warfare and defeat of the Native Americans opened the way for American expansion in present-day Ohio. Promoters arrived who were eager to make a fortune in selling and developing western lands.

In 1817 a town plat was laid out at the Foot of the Rapids of the Maumee River, and within a decade, the settlement was gaining recognition as a major trans-shipment point connecting Lake Erie and the land to the west. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 in New York State stimulated migration to Ohio, as it connected Great Lakes communities to the Hudson River and port of New York City. Completion of the Wabash and Erie Canal in 1840 further stimulated the economy. Jessup Scott, a noted town promoter, predicted that Maumee would become the “great city of the West,” surpassing all rivals. By mid-century Maumee was a flourishing center of river trade, commerce and shipbuilding. Nearly twenty mercantile companies crowded the three miles (5 km) of ship docks and competed for the retail and wholesale trade.

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