Elida

How Elida began

Elida grew out of a homestead the Welsh immigrant Griffith John carved from 160 acres of woods along Hog Creek in what was then German Township after he arrived from Pennsylvania in 1831. When the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad came through in 1852, Griffith donated the right-of-way and built a mile of the railbed himself, then platted the village that same year and named it for his brother Elida John, an abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor. A post office opened in 1854 and the village incorporated in 1878. It sits in American Township (renamed from German Township in 1918 over anti-German feeling during the First World War) and is now a residential suburb inside the Lima metropolitan area.

Settled 1831, platted 1852, incorporated 1878, by Griffith John.

Where the name comes from

Griffith John named the village for his brother, Elida John, described in the village's own history as a passionate abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor.

Before the town

No village-specific Native American sites, villages, or trails are recorded for Elida in the sources checked. The nearest documented Native settlement, the Hog Creek Shawnee reservation set off by the 1817 Treaty of the Maumee Rapids (Fort Meigs), lay along the Ottawa River in what is now Shawnee Township — a different township from Elida's American Township (German Township until 1918) — so it is not attributed here. Elida's own site, along Hog Creek in the county's interior, has no reported mounds, earthworks, or named village in the sources reviewed.

Timeline

1. 1831 — Griffith John, a Welsh immigrant from Pennsylvania, settled on 160 acres of woodland along Hog Creek in what was then German Township, Allen County.
2. 1852 — The Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad was built through the settlement; Griffith John donated the right-of-way, built a mile of railbed, and platted the village of Elida, naming it for his brother Elida John.
3. 1854 — A post office named Elida opened in the new village.
4. 1856 — Griffith John died at Elida and was buried beside the Lutheran church on Main Street he had helped establish.
5. 1878 — Elida incorporated as a village.
6. 1918 — German Township's residents petitioned to rename it American Township after the sinking of the Lusitania stirred anti-German sentiment during the First World War.
7. 1959 — The Elida post office, open since 1854, closed.

Stories

A homestead becomes a railroad town

Griffith John left Pennsylvania in the pioneering spirit of his Welsh family, the Griffiths of Haverford, Pembrokeshire, and in 1831 reached the dense woods of Allen County. He cleared 160 acres along Hog Creek and ran a small sugar camp there for two decades. When the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad surveyed a line through his land in 1852, Griffith did not just sell the right-of-way — he built a mile of the railbed with his own hands. That same year he platted a village on the site and named it Elida, for his brother Elida John, an abolitionist who had worked the Underground Railroad. Griffith gave building lots to both the Evangelical Lutheran and Methodist congregations, setting the village's two oldest churches on their corners before he died there in 1856.

From German Township to American Township

Elida's township was organized and known as German Township for most of the nineteenth century, a name reflecting the German settlers who farmed its land alongside Griffith John's Welsh family. That changed abruptly in 1918. With American troops fighting Germany in the First World War and anti-German feeling running high nationwide — fed in part by memories of the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania — the township's residents petitioned to drop the name. It became American Township, the name Elida's home township still carries.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · voelida.com · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · hmdb.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Auglaize River water fills the Bresler and Williams upground reservoirs west of Lima; Ottawa River water fills the Ferguson, Metzger Lake and Lost Creek reservoirs east of Lima; both feed the East Wayne Street treatment plant The water here

• Elida Village54% of residentsAuglaize River and Ottawa River, stored in city upground reservoirs
• Lima City46% of residentsAuglaize River and Ottawa River, stored in city upground reservoirs

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (1)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Elections for office

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

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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