College Corner

• Acton LakeBuilt 1956 · 569 acres

How College Corner began

College Corner sits on the Ohio-Indiana state line and takes its name from its position in the northwestern corner of 'College Township,' the survey township the Ohio General Assembly set aside as the site for the state college that became Miami University. Settlement dates to 1811, but the community's oldest standing structure, the brick Howe Tavern, was not built until 1832-33 by Gideon Sears Howe on land he bought from Miami University; Howe platted the surrounding town in 1837 and named it College Corner. The tavern, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, remained in use into the 1970s and is the village's only individually listed National Register property. College Corner, Ohio (population 387 in 2020) directly adjoins West College Corner, Indiana (population 545), and their shared public school is bisected by the state line and run jointly by both states' authorities.

Settled 1811, platted 1837, by Gideon Sears Howe (platted the town).

Where the name comes from

College Corner takes its name from its position in the northwestern corner of 'College Township,' the Ohio General Assembly's survey township set aside as the site for the state college that became Miami University.

Before the town

No mound, village, trail or treaty site specific to College Corner was found in the sources checked.

Nations recorded here: Miami, Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1811 — Settlers first arrived in the area that became College Corner.
2. 1832 — Gideon Sears Howe purchased land from Miami University for a brick tavern.
3. 1833 — The Howe Tavern opened, the community's earliest example of permanent construction.
4. 1837-05-05 — Gideon T. Howe platted the town around his tavern and named it College Corner.
5. 1920 — College Corner's population reached its lowest recorded figure, 348.
6. 1950 — College Corner's population peaked at 468.
7. 1970s — The Howe Tavern remained in its original tavern/inn use into this decade.
8. 1976-01-30 — The Howe Tavern was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, recognized both as the core of the original community and as a fine early-nineteenth-century inn.

Stories

The tavern that came before the town

College Corner had a name and a location a quarter-century before it had a real building at its center. Settlers reached the spot -- tucked into the northwest corner of the township the state had set aside for what became Miami University -- as early as 1811, but it stayed an informal crossroads community until 1832, when Gideon Sears Howe bought land there directly from the university and built a two-and-a-half-story brick tavern with a stone foundation and a gabled roof, opening for business in 1833. Howe's tavern anchored the place enough that in 1837 he formally platted the surrounding streets and lots and gave the new town the name people already used for the corner: College Corner. The tavern later grew an L-shaped wing on its northwest side and kept serving travelers on the Ohio-Indiana line into the 1970s, by which point it had outlasted the town's original reason for existing and become, in its own right, the only building in the village on the National Register of Historic Places.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · lyndonirwin.com · en.wikipedia.org

Every historic place in Preble County on the full map

Three district wells (~1,600 gpm each) in the Great Miami buried valley, Ross Twp, southwest Butler County The water here

• College Corner Water59% of residentsGreat Miami Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)
• Southwest Regional Water District41% of residentsGreat Miami Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)

Public schools (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-07-27: county board of elections.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-11-21

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