Bairdstown

How Bairdstown began

Bairdstown was platted in October 1874 by, and named for, Josiah Baird, in Bloom Township in southern Wood County; its post office, established in 1873, ran for 66 years, until 1940. The village incorporated in 1881, and a decade after platting it found itself at the edge of the North Baltimore oil and gas field: a well drilled in on July 26, 1886, proved a paying producer, part of the boom that nearly tripled the village's population by 1890. The 1890s brought hard luck too, with a string of fires in 1890 and a deadly train robbery in December 1894.

Platted October 1874, plat recorded, incorporated village, August 16, 1881, on a petition of 61 residents filed June 8, 1881, by Josiah Baird.

Where the name comes from

Bairdstown was platted by, and named for, Josiah Baird.

Before the town

No mound, earthwork or named Native village specific to Bairdstown was found in any source consulted; the county's own 1897 history states that no such evidence exists anywhere in Wood County.

Nations recorded here: Ottawa.

Timeline

1. 1873 — A post office is established at Bairdstown, with M. G. Heaton or Benton Leathers as master, a year before Wikipedia's date for the village's post office and plat.
2. 1874-10 — The plat for Bairdstown, surveyed for Josiah Baird, is recorded; between April 1876 and February 1877, 38 frame houses and two brick houses are built in the new village.
3. 1881-08-16 — Bairdstown is incorporated as a village on a petition of 61 residents; the first officers, elected to serve until April 1882, are Levi Kistler (mayor), E. A. Ogden (treasurer) and A. B. Frankfather (marshal).
4. 1886-06 — Oil men begin leasing and drilling across the North Baltimore field, which the county's own history describes as running 'from Bairdstown to Hoytville and northward.'
5. 1886-07-26 — A well at Bairdstown is drilled in and proves a paying producer.
6. 1886 (approx.) — A gas well at Bairdstown is producing about 3,000,000 cubic feet a day during the peak of the boom.
7. 1890-07-08 to 1890-07-28 — A series of four fires in three weeks destroys a saloon and dwelling, a drug store, the Ogden brick block, and four barns -- the postmaster saving the office's papers by hand from the burning Ogden block.
8. 1890 — Bairdstown's population reaches 347, roughly tripling from its earliest recorded count as the oil boom draws in workers.
9. 1894-12-07 — A Baltimore and Ohio train is held up leaving Bairdstown; four robbers board the train, demand money and open fire, instantly killing two Indiana men, Arthur Brown and Henry Rees, and seriously wounding a third, Henry Harris, all of whom had been traveling east looking for work.
10. 1940 — Bairdstown's post office closes after 66 years of operation.

Stories

The Baltimore and Ohio train robbery

On the night of December 7, 1894, a Baltimore and Ohio train pulled out of Deshler heading east toward Bairdstown carrying, among its passengers, three men from Auburn, Indiana -- Arthur Brown, Henry Rees and Henry Harris -- who were riding the rails in search of work. Just after the train left Deshler, four armed men boarded the car, announced a holdup and demanded the passengers' money. When they met resistance or hesitation, they opened fire. Brown and Rees were killed instantly; Harris was seriously wounded but survived to tell what had happened. The robbery, recorded in the county history among Bairdstown's 'Railroad Incidents' alongside a separate fatal train wreck at the village that same year, stood as a stark reminder of how dangerous freight and passenger rail travel could be for poor and transient workers in the 1890s.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · archive.org

Rocky Ford Creek, pumped into two off-stream reservoirs that supply the plant. The water here

• North Baltimore Village100% of residentsRocky Ford Creek (via North Baltimore upground reservoirs)

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Basic Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-02-10

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