Maumee, Ohio: Where the River Made History
Near Toledo, Ohio
Maumee sits at a bend of the river that shares its name, a waterway the Miami people called home long before European contact. After General Anthony Wayne's victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in seventeen ninety-four, the territory opened to American settlement. Major William Oliver platted the town in eighteen seventeen, directly across from Fort Meigs, the timber fortification that withstood two British sieges during the War of eighteen twelve and was named for Ohio's wartime governor, Return Jonathan Meigs.
The Maumee River made the young town a shipbuilding and trading hub. Later the Wabash and Erie Canal ran along the river here, cementing its role as a gateway to the Ohio interior.
