Creston

How Creston began

Creston, in Canaan Township in northern Wayne County, grew up beside the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad in the 1860s. It was platted in 1865 as Saville, called Pike Station for the old Cleveland pike road, and renamed Creston in 1881. A post office was set up at the new railroad stop in 1864-65, replacing the early one at old Jackson; the village was incorporated on June 2, 1899, and by 1909 had about 1,200 people, a hoop and stave works, a wood-handle factory and large onion and celery farms. The population peaked near 2,170 in 2010.

Settled 1865 (railroad settlement; the Canaan Township area was first settled by William Ewing Sr. in 1812), platted 1865 (as Saville), incorporated June 2, 1899, by Not named in the sources checked; the plat followed the building of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad.

Where the name comes from

The 1910 county history says the place was 'formerly known and platted in 1865 as Saville, but when the railway company established a town by that name elsewhere, over the county line, this place was, for a time, called Pike Station, it being situated on the old Cleveland pike road. But in 1881 it was changed to Creston.' Postal records agree: a Pike Station post office ran from 1865 to 1881 and a Creston post office has been open since 1881. Why the name Creston was chosen is not recorded in the sources checked.

Before the town

No Native village, trail, mound or treaty event specific to Creston is recorded in the sources checked. The settlement dates from the railroad era of the 1860s, but Canaan Township's own pioneer accounts reach back to 1812, and a 1910 county history notes that the glacial moraine at Creston once diverted the old Killbuck channel (a geological, not a human, record). The county-wide record for Wayne County covers the Delaware (Lenape), Wyandot and Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1812 — William Ewing Sr. builds the first cabin in Canaan Township, the first settlement in the township that later holds Creston.
2. 1819 — Canaan Township is organized on May 5; its first election is held that fall in an ashery.
3. 1860s — During construction of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad near Pike Station, a stretch of track bed laid across wet ground suddenly sinks into a hidden underground lake, according to the 1878 county history (which gives no date).
4. 1863 — The old frame Methodist church at Jackson is moved to Creston, where it stands on the site of the present church until 1884.
5. 1865 — The village is platted as Saville and a post office called Pike Station opens at the new railroad stop, replacing the one at Jackson.
6. 1878 — Douglass lists Pike as one of the five villages of Canaan Township, with Burbank, Golden Corners, Windsor and Jackson.
7. 1880 — The Creston Journal, an independent weekly, is established.
8. 1881 — The name is changed from Pike Station to Creston, and the post office takes the new name.
9. 1884 — The present brick Methodist Episcopal church is built at a cost of $8,000.
10. 1890 — Population recorded at 584.
11. 1899 — Creston is incorporated on June 2; Warden Wheeler is the first mayor, serving until April 10, 1900.
12. 1907 — Mayor William B. Jordan, in office from 1902, is killed on the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway on February 11.
13. 1909 — The town has about 1,200 people, three rail lines (Wheeling and Lake Erie, Erie, Baltimore and Ohio) and the Cleveland and Southwestern electric interurban, the Stebbins Banking Company, a hoop and stave works, a wood-handle company, a concrete-post plant, a pickle works and a creamery, and surrounding onion and celery farms.
14. 2010 — Population reaches a peak of 2,171.

Stories

Saville, Pike Station, Creston

The village that is now Creston was platted in 1865 as Saville, but the railway company then laid out a town of the same name just over the county line, so the Wayne County place became, for a time, Pike Station, after the old Cleveland pike road it stood on. A Pike Station post office opened in 1865; the county history says the district's post office had earlier been kept at old Jackson and was moved to the railroad stop about 1864-65. In 1881 the name changed again, to Creston, and the post office changed with it. A resident looking at the 1878 county history would have seen it listed simply as 'Pike,' one of five villages in Canaan Township and too small for a narrative of its own. By 1899 it was big enough to incorporate.

The railroad that sank near Pike Station

Ben Douglass's 1878 county history includes a tale from Canaan Township from the days when the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad was being built through it. Near Pike Station the company used for its road bed a patch of ground that looked firm, covered with underbrush and thick sod. Without warning, he writes, a large part of the track disappeared beneath the surface into a hidden lake. Douglass offers it as proof that the township's prairie lands had once been water, and adds that a flowing well sunk two miles away in Milton Township, where water rose five inches wide from eighty feet down, pointed to the same underground reservoir.

A mayor lost on the railroad

Creston was incorporated on June 2, 1899, with Warden Wheeler as its first mayor. Attorney Price Russell followed him in April 1900, and William B. Jordan took over in 1902. The county history says Jordan served until January 31, 1906, and that he was killed on the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway on February 11, 1907, on a line that ran through his village. W. H. Peters took his place, and was the mayor when the county history was compiled in 1909.

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

Groundwater wells (2 wells) The water here

• Creston Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (4)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2022: 1 of 2 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-12-30

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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