Dillonvale

How Dillonvale began

Dillonvale began life under a different name entirely, and not the one usually given for it: Joseph B. Doyle's 1910 Jefferson County history states directly that the site was 'long known by the classic name of Annadelphia,' where a pioneer paper mill and two grist mills once stood, including the substantial stone Updegraff-Barkhurst mill, a couple of miles from Mount Pleasant village in Mount Pleasant Township. Nathan Updegraff had platted the site on February 20, 1816, but it was never occupied as a town. Coal mining and the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad's arrival in 1889 changed its fortunes: a new 33-lot plat was made on February 22, 1889, under the 'prosaic name' of Dillon, later expanded to the 'more euphonious' Dillonvale, with a post office the same year. The town grew quickly on coal traffic, incorporating April 25, 1902 with a claimed population of 2,000 (soon reported at 2,500) -- by 1910 the fourth-largest town in the county -- and supported its own First National Bank by 1900. Population later peaked at 1,643 in 1920 and has declined, like much of the Ohio Valley coalfield, to 589 by the 2020 census.

Settled February 20, 1816, platted as Annadelphia by Nathan Updegraff, but never occupied as a town, platted February 22, 1889, replatted with 33 lots under the name Dillon, incorporated April 25, 1902, by Nathan Updegraff (1816 plat, never occupied); the 1889 Dillon plat's proprietors are not named in the source consulted.

Where the name comes from

First platted in 1816 under the name Annadelphia (not Annapolis, as some secondary sources state), a site never actually built up as a town. Renamed Dillon when a new 33-lot plat was made in 1889 following the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad's arrival, then expanded to Dillonvale; the 1910 county history does not explain who or what 'Dillon' honored.

Before the town

No source reviewed names a specific Native American village, mound or documented encounter within Dillonvale/Annadelphia. The site's 1816 platting came two decades after the Treaty of Greenville (1795) extinguished Native title to the area.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Shawnee, Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1802 — Nathan Updegraff, from Winchester, Virginia, settles on Short Creek and builds the first mill in Mount Pleasant Township on the site where Dillonvale later stands; he also makes paper there for some years before converting the building to a flour mill.
2. 1816 — Nathan Updegraff plats the site on February 20 under the name Annadelphia, home to a pioneer paper mill and two grist mills including the stone Updegraff-Barkhurst mill, but the plat is never occupied as a town.
3. 1867 — The Updegraff flour mill burns; a fine stone mill is built in its place and run by John R. Barkhurst, and it still stands, idle, in 1910.
4. 1889 — The Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad reaches the site, and on February 22 a new 33-lot plat is made under the name Dillon, soon expanded to Dillonvale; a post office opens the same year.
5. 1890 — A post office named Dillonvale is recorded in the postal-history list from 1890.
6. c. 1892 — A Methodist Protestant mission is established at Dillonvale with a frame building, served from Mount Pleasant; two Roman Catholic churches are later built for different nationalities.
7. 1900 — Dillonvale's First National Bank is organized, part of the town's rapid coal-era growth.
8. 1902 — Dillonvale incorporates on April 25 with a claimed population of 2,000, soon reported at 2,500; by 1910 it ranks as the fourth-largest town in Jefferson County.
9. 1908 — Dillonvale, which had stayed 'wet' despite the township's dry law, goes dry when county prohibition is adopted in the fall.
10. 1909 — The Presbyterian chapel built in Dillonvale soon after the town was laid out is destroyed by fire in the early morning of February 23, ruled arson; an arrest is made but the jury returns a verdict of not guilty, and the chapel is never rebuilt.
11. 1920 — Village population peaks at 1,643.

Stories

A quiet mill site renamed twice

Long before it was Dillonvale, the spot was known, in the words of the 1910 Jefferson County history, by 'the classic name of Annadelphia' -- not Annapolis, as some later sources have it -- a quiet place on the creek a couple of miles from Mount Pleasant village, home to a pioneer paper mill and two grist mills, one an imposing stone structure known as the Updegraff-Barkhurst mill. Nathan Updegraff platted it as a town on February 20, 1816, but nobody ever built on the plat, and it stayed farmland and millpond for more than seventy years. What changed everything was coal and a railroad: when the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad arrived in 1889, developers surveyed a new 33-lot plat on February 22 and gave it what the county historian calls 'the prosaic name of Dillon, which has since expanded into the more euphonious title of Dillonvale.' The bet paid off fast -- additions followed quickly, a post office opened that same year, and by 1902 the town incorporated with a claimed population of 2,000, becoming, within a generation, the fourth-largest town in the entire county. The old Updegraff-Barkhurst mill was still standing in 1910, the historian noted, 'a monument to other days.'

From Updegraff's mill to a coal town

The first mill in Mount Pleasant Township was built about 1802 by Nathan Updegraff on Short Creek, where Dillonvale now stands. He made paper there for some years, then turned the building into a flour mill, which burned in 1867; a stone mill took its place under John R. Barkhurst, and the spot was known as Annadelphia, when Updegraff platted it on February 20, 1816. Nothing came of the town. Then the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad arrived in 1889 with its extension to open coal mines, a 33-lot plat was recorded on February 22 under the prosaic name Dillon, and the town grew until it incorporated on April 25, 1902 with a claimed population of 2,000. Dillon No. 2, one of the oldest mines on the W. & L. E., worked a five-foot seam of No. 8 coal with machine mining and about a hundred miners. The old stone mill still stood in 1910 as a monument to other days.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Dillonvale80% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Mount Pleasant14% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)
• Tri-county Water Authority6% of residentsOhio River valley aquifer (wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public libraries (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Police stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 7 of 8 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

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

Auditor of State record

• Fiscal emergency: declared 1988-11-29, released 1993-07-06. source
• Financial Audit, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-02-03
• Financial Audit, 2021 to 2022, 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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