Custar

How Custar began

Custar grew up around Daniel Scheuren's 1864 sawmill, then the largest in the county, in the swamp forest of Milton Township in western Wood County. It was platted the next year as Lewisburg, named for proprietor Frederick Lewis, but took the different name Custar when its post office opened in 1866. Described in 1897 as 'practically a German hamlet,' it shipped roughly $60,000 worth of lumber, hoops and staves in 1875 alone before incorporating as a village in 1881. In late 2019, a fire and explosion at the village's grain storage facilities left corn smoldering for roughly two months.

Settled 1864, when Daniel Scheuren built what was then the largest sawmill in the county nearby, drawing a large workforce, platted surveyed as Lewisburg in 1865, plat recorded July 15, 1865, incorporated village, August 16, 1881, on a petition of 61 residents presented June 8, 1881, by Frederick Lewis.

Where the name comes from

The village was originally platted as Lewisburg, for proprietor Frederick Lewis, in 1865; a post office opened the following year under the name Custar, which the village eventually adopted in place of Lewisburg. The reason for the change, and any connection to George Armstrong Custer (whose name is spelled differently), was not found in the sources consulted.

Before the town

No mound, earthwork or named Native village specific to Custar 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. 1860 — Father Baur of Maumee comes as first missionary to the Catholic settlers; Mass is said in a log house on the later Wentz farm.
2. 1864 — Daniel Scheuren builds a sawmill at the site, then the largest in the county, drawing a large workforce that begins clearing the surrounding swamp forest.
3. 1865-07-15 — The plat of the village, surveyed as Lewisburg for Frederick Lewis, is recorded.
4. 1866 — A post office opens under the name Custar.
5. 1866 — A German Lutheran class is organized in the neighborhood by Rev. C. F. Kaeding, according to the records of the Perrysburg church.
6. 1870 — The Scheuren sawmill burns and is rebuilt; after Scheuren's death, William C. Mullally buys it, runs it briefly, then moves the machinery to Henry County.
7. 1873-02-02 — The German Lutheran Evangelical society is organized with thirteen members, including Th. Meier, D. Scheuren and F. Koch; a frame church is built in 1874.
8. 1875 — The village ships about $60,000 worth of lumber, hoops and staves in a single year, along with shingles and grain, at the height of its lumber-town years; the county history describes it as 'practically a German hamlet, partly Americanized.'
9. 1880 — The census counts 248 residents.
10. 1881-08-16 — Custar is incorporated as a village on a petition of 61 residents; G. P. Thompson is elected the first mayor that November.
11. 1882-03-23 — All forty voters of Custar declare Sub-District No. 9 a village school district.
12. 1884-04-17 — The United Brethren society signs articles of incorporation and builds a brick church for $2,200.
13. 1889 — The corner-stone of the new brick St. Louis Catholic church is laid by Bishop Gilmour; it is dedicated less than two years later.
14. 1890 — The census counts 329 residents.
15. 1891-12 — Custar voters approve $7,500 in school bonds, 59 to 22; the new building is finished in January 1893.
16. 1892-05-04 — Day Post No. 577, G.A.R., is mustered in with sixteen members, named for Gen. Day of Bowling Green.
17. 1893-01-24 — Custar Lodge No. 604, Knights of Pythias, is chartered.
18. 2019 (late) — A fire and explosion at Custar's grain storage facilities leaves corn smoldering for roughly two months.
19. 2020 — The census counts 178 residents, down from 345 in 1910.

Stories

Two Catholic churches, one dedication day

In the early 1860s the Catholic families of Milton, Weston and Liberty townships split over where to build. The founders of the old Wirtzburg church, a mile and a quarter northeast of Custar, included John Wirtz, John Koch and Peter and Nicklaus Blasius; the families farther west along the D. & M. railroad, among them Henry Louy and his sons John and Peter, Joseph Durliat and Martin Schill, resolved to build their own church at what was then Lewisburg. Both churches were finished about the same time and were dedicated on the same day by Bishop Amadeus Rappe. The Wirtzburg church was soon merged into St. Louis. After the young Father Michael Vollmayer arrived in 1885, the parish laid the corner-stone of a 47-by-106-foot brick Gothic church in 1889, finished it debt-free in under two years, and in December 1891 bought three bells, which rang out the old year and rang in 1892. The interior was painted by F. X. Hefele of Cincinnati, a graduate of the Munich academy, and the building cost $12,000 to $13,000.

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

No water-system data is linked to Custar's ZIP codes yet.

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 2 of 2 passed.

Ballot issues

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-07-22

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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