Local city information for Tiffin, OH

Tiffin is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Seneca County. The population was 18,135 at the 2000 census. The National Arbor Day Foundation has designated Tiffin as a Tree City USA.

It is the home of Heidelberg College and Tiffin University. At one time it was noted as a glass and porcelain manufacturing center.

The history of Tiffin dates back to 1812. The familiar bronze statue of "The Indian Maiden" on Frost Parkway, near Miami Street, marks the site of Fort Ball, which was a military depot of the war of 1812. Fighting an engagement of that war, Eratus Bowe first sighted the location upon which Tiffin now stands. In 1817, he returned to the site and built his Pan Yan Tavern, which later became a stagecoach stop, on the north bank of the Sandusky River.

Early homesteaders followed soon after Bowe, and the settlement of Oakley sprang up around the Pan Yan. The main traveled road of the area followed the path of the stagecoaches through Oakley, called Fort Ball after 1824.

In 1820, Josiah Hedges purchased a piece of land on the south bank of the river opposite Oakley and founded another settlement. He named this village “Tiffin” in honor of Edward Tiffin, first governor of Ohio and later member of the United States Senate, and a man who had fought to finally win statehood for the Ohio Territory in 1803. Tiffin was incorporated by an act of the Ohio Legislature on March 7, 1835. These two communities, split by the Sandusky River, were great rivals. But, in 1850, seeing that later their interests lay together, the two villages merged to form greater Tiffin, with Fort Ball becoming a part of Tiffin in March of that year.

In 1824, with the establishment of Seneca County by the Ohio Legislature, Tiffin became a county seat. The county took its name from the Seneca Indians, who originally were native to this territory. The discovery of natural gas in the vicinity in 1888 gave new momentum to the town’s industries and new enterprises located in Tiffin, making it a prosperous industrial city:

-- The National Machinery Company moved from Cleveland to Tiffin in 1882.

-- Webster Industries, Inc. moved from Chicago to Tiffin in 1906.

-- In April 1914, brothers Milton B. and Clifford O. Hanson founded The Hanson Clutch and Machinery Company in Tiffin. It was acquired by Pettibone in 1966. Pettibone LLC, which today is an affiliate of The Heico Companies, renamed the business unit Tiffin Parts in 1997. Operating at the same site since the 1920s, the building on Miami Street is on the National Register of Historic Places.

-- Tiffin was the home of Tiffin Glass Works from 1889 to 1980.

-- Tiffin was the home of American Standard Company (formerly Great Western Pottery), maker of ceramic kitchen and bath products, from 1899 to 2007.It was the largest employer in the city.

Ever since the late 70s, the city has lost industry. The city was dealt another blow in 1996 when a prominent family moved out of town. The city was home to a GE plant until 1985. Today, there is currently no major industry left due to the closure of American Standard.

In the spring of 1913, the Upper Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys were ravaged by one of the most devastating floods in the region's history. Among those communities which suffered the consequences of that flood was Tiffin, located on the Sandusky River in northwest Ohio.
During that three-day period, Tiffin sustained more than $1,000,000 in property loss, 46 houses and 2 factories swept away, 10 factories damaged, 69 places of business heavily damaged, 6 bridges within the corporate limits destroyed, and -- worst of all -- 19 lives lost.

Tiffin has been the home of Ballreich's Bros., a potato chip company, since 1920.

In the first decades of the 20th century, Tiffin was known to have the largest number of millionaires per capita in the United States.

Tiffin St. Paul's United Methodist Church was the first church in the world to be lit by Edison's light bulb, and the first public building in the United States to be wired for electricity. Tiffin is home to a large population of German-Americans and a smaller but significant population of Italian-Americans.

Tiffin is the home of the historic Ritz Theatre, built in 1928 as a vaudeville house with an Italian Renaissance design. The Ritz Theatre underwent extensive renovation and restoration in 1998.

In 2002, a F3 tornado hit SE Tiffin destroying several homes outside city limits.

A Lowes has been built on the site of the original Ames.

A new Mercy Hospital of Tiffin was built and opened in July 2008.

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