Elmore

• Terence T. Henricks1952-Air Force test pilot from Woodville who piloted two space shuttle missions and c...

How Elmore began

Elmore was surveyed and platted on October 2, 1851, on the Portage River in what had been the Great Black Swamp, a wet forest that covered most of northwest Ohio until German immigrant settlers cleared and drained it through the nineteenth century. The river's own name is thought to come from early travelers who had to portage, or carry, their canoes and boats around its shallows and rapids. Village sawmills supplied lumber for the plank road that became U.S. Route 20 between Fremont and Perrysburg, and for a time in the early twentieth century Elmore's name was attached to an early automobile maker before the business became part of the young General Motors; sources disagree on whether it was ever based in Elmore or was in nearby Clyde from the start.

Platted 1851-10-02.

Where the name comes from

Elmore sits on the Portage River, whose own name is thought to derive from early explorers who were forced to portage -- carry -- their canoes and boats around the river's intermittent shallows and rapids; no source consulted gives a separate origin for the village's own name.

Before the town

No source found documents a Native village, trail, or other specific site at Elmore itself; Wikipedia states generally that the region was primarily inhabited by Native Americans until the nineteenth century, without naming a specific nation or site there. The village's ground was part of the Great Black Swamp country, ceded under the 1807 Treaty of Detroit.

Timeline

1. 1851-10-02 — Elmore was surveyed and platted along the Portage River in the drained Great Black Swamp.
2. 1800s (mid-late) — German settlers cleared forest and drained swampland around the village, exposing nutrient-rich soil for farming; sawmills provided timber for the plank road (later U.S. Route 20) between Fremont and Perrysburg.
3. 1893-1909 — An automobile maker carrying the Elmore name operated; sources disagree on its origin -- Elmore's own Wikipedia page states the village was the original manufacturing site before the business relocated to Clyde, Ohio, while the Elmore Manufacturing Company's own article states it was founded and based in Clyde from the start, by Harmon Von Vechten Becker and his sons.
4. 1909 — General Motors founder William C. Durant, drawn by its distinctive three-cylinder two-stroke engine, bought the Elmore automobile company for $500,000, making it one of GM's early divisions before it was discontinued after Durant's 1910 removal from GM.
5. 1950s — Construction of the Ohio Turnpike bypassed the village, leaving abandoned motels and restaurants along the former U.S. Route 20.
6. 1994-03-17 — The Ohio State Route 51 Bridge over the Portage River was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
7. 1997 — A new Ohio Turnpike interchange near Elmore spurred renewed development after decades of being bypassed.
8. 2024-10 — Elmore completed a 4.38-mile, 12-inch waterline connecting to Ottawa County Regional Water, a Lake Erie surface-water treatment plant, switching its water supply.

Stories

The car with no valves

For a few years in the early twentieth century, a small Ohio village lent its name to an automobile brand distinctive enough to catch the eye of the man building General Motors. The Elmore's selling point was its two-stroke, three-cylinder engine, marketed under the slogan "The Car That Has No Valves" -- a genuine mechanical difference from the four-stroke engines most competitors used, and one simple enough to appeal to buyers wary of the complexity of early automobiles. William C. Durant, assembling GM out of a grab-bag of independent car makers between 1908 and 1910, bought the company in 1909 for $500,000 and folded it into the new corporation. It did not last: when Durant was pushed out of GM's management in 1910, the company's bankers trimmed several of his acquisitions to stabilize the balance sheet, and the Elmore brand was discontinued. Its factory building, in Clyde rather than in Elmore itself, went on to make Clydesdale trucks and then Bendix and Whirlpool appliances -- it is reportedly still the largest washing-machine factory in the country -- a longer industrial life than the car that gave the plant its start.

Photographs

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

Every historic place in Ottawa County on the full map

Lake Erie, via a submerged intake crib serving the county's regional plant near Port Clinton (precise offshore crib coordinates not documented) The water here

• Elmore Village98% of residentsLake Erie
• Green Valley Mobile Home Park2% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (1)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Public EV charging (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (3)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-04-10: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2015: 5 of 6 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, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-12-17

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.

Cite this page