Coalton

• Isham JonesPerson · 1894-1956
• Jim RhodesPerson · 1909-2001

How Coalton began

Coalton began as the coal camp Eurekaville, named by German and Welsh miners, and took its present name from Coal Township, which Jackson County cut out in 1881 as mining spread across the northern hills. Its census count peaked at 1,625 in 1900 and has fallen to 445 in 2020 as the mines closed. Before any camp existed the Darling family had settled on Pigeon Creek here in 1815, and a log school stood nearby by about 1820. The village is the birthplace of James A. Rhodes (born September 13, 1909), governor of Ohio 1963-1971 and 1975-1983, and holds the Miner's Supply Store, listed on the National Register in 1977.

Settled 1815 (Timothy Darling on Pigeon Creek, per his son); the coal camp Eurekaville came later, date not found, by Timothy Darling (first recorded settler on the site); German and Welsh coal miners (Eurekaville).

Where the name comes from

First called Eurekaville by the German and Welsh miners who worked the area, the village was later renamed Coalton after Coal Township and the coal mining that built it. Coal Township itself was formed in 1881 and takes its name from the mines.

Before the town

No treaty cession, village or burial is recorded on the Coalton town site itself. The nearest documented Native site is the Leo Petroglyph, a sandstone panel with 37 carved human and animal figures and footprints that Wikipedia attributes to the Fort Ancient culture, possibly AD 1000-1650; the National Register lists it at Coalton, west of Leo, in Jackson Township a few miles northwest of the village. Jackson County as a whole was Shawnee territory before removal, with all the Ohio nations sharing the Scioto Salt Licks near Jackson until about 1815.

Nations recorded here: Fort Ancient culture, Shawnee, Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga), Lenape (Delaware).

• Leo Petroglyph (other) — Sandstone cliff west of the community of Leo, Jackson Township, a few miles northwest of Coalton; the National Register lists it at 'Coalton, west of Leo', possibly AD 1000-1650 (Fort Ancient) (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1815 — Timothy Darling of Wood County, Virginia, settles on Pigeon Creek 'where Coalton now is', according to his son James H. Darling's account in the 1900 county history.
2. c. 1820 — William Wilds teaches a log-house school with greased-paper windows on the Adam Sell place near Coalton; James H. Darling was the last survivor of its pupils.
3. c. 1823 — A bear breaks into the hog pen of a settler named Alltire where Coalton now stands and is killed after eating most of a hog, an incident recorded in the 1900 county history.
4. 1881 — Coal Township is formed in northern Jackson County, the township for which Coalton is later named.
5. 1890 — Coalton's first census count is 1,459 residents.
6. 1900 — Coalton's population reaches its historic peak of 1,625.
7. 1909-09-13 — James A. Rhodes, later governor of Ohio, is born in Coalton to James and Susan Howe Rhodes, who were of Welsh descent.
8. 1910 — Population falls to 1,111, and to 790 by 1920, as the mines decline.
9. c. 1918 — Rhodes's father dies when the boy is nine; the family moves north to Springfield, and Rhodes later reaches Columbus on a basketball scholarship to Ohio State.
10. 1963-1971 — Rhodes serves his first two terms as governor of Ohio, returning for two more from 1975 to 1983.
11. 1970-11-10 — The Leo Petroglyph, listed by the National Register at 'Coalton, west of Leo', is added to the National Register of Historic Places.
12. 1977-11-01 — The Miner's Supply Store at Main and 2nd Streets is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
13. 2020 — The census counts 445 residents, down from 479 in 2010 and 545 in 2000.

Stories

The governor from the coal camp

James A. Rhodes was born in Coalton on September 13, 1909, the son of James and Susan Howe Rhodes, who were of Welsh descent. His father, a mine superintendent according to Wikipedia, died when the boy was nine, and the family moved to Springfield, then to Columbus, where Rhodes went to Ohio State on a basketball scholarship. He became mayor of Columbus and then governor of Ohio, serving 1963-1971 and again 1975-1983. The house where he was born still stands in Coalton, photographed in 2012.

A log school on Pigeon Creek

Before there was a mining camp, there was the Darling family. Timothy Darling came from Wood County, Virginia, in 1815 and settled on Pigeon Creek, 'where Coalton now is', in a county that did not yet exist. His son James H. Darling, born December 30, 1813, told the county historian in later years that he grew up on the old Hippel place and attended a school taught by William Wilds in a low log house near Coalton on the Adam Sell place, with a puncheon floor, a big fireplace and windows made by cutting a slit across two logs and pasting greased paper over the gap. Darling was the last survivor of that school's pupils. His mother, Elizabeth Cook, was a sister of Nancy Cook, who married John James, the man Jamestown was named for.

A bear, a hog pen, and the ground that became Coalton

The county's 1900 history records that about 1823 a bear broke into the hog pen of a settler named Alltire on the spot where Coalton would later stand, and had eaten most of one hog by the time it was discovered and killed. It is a small, plain entry in a book otherwise given over to salt works and iron furnaces, but it is one of the few dated glimpses of the land before coal turned it, decades later, into a camp first called Eurekaville and then Coalton.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · jackson.ohgenweb.org · archive.org · genealogytrails.com · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · npgallery.nps.gov · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org

Every historic place in Jackson County on the full map

Three wells drawing from the ancient Teays River buried-valley sand-and-gravel aquifer near Jackson The water here

• Coalton95% of residentsTeays River Buried Valley Aquifer (own wells)
• Wellston City5% of residentsLake Rupert + Lake Alma (Little Raccoon Creek reservoirs)
• Jackson, City Of0% of residentsJisco Lake + Hammertown Lake (Jackson City Reservoir)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 2 of 4 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

Ballot issues

Auditor of State record

• Fiscal emergency: declared 1993-08-01, released 2008-09-23. source
• Financial Audit, 2021 to 2022, released 2026-01-15

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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