Larue

How Larue began

La Rue is a railroad village in Montgomery Township, Marion County, founded June 3, 1851 by Major William LaRue when the railroad reached the site; a Wyandot village had stood at the same location before their 1830s removal. The village is best known for the Oorang Indians, a National Football League franchise fielded in 1922 and 1923 by La Rue kennel owner Walter Lingo, coached by Jim Thorpe and staffed entirely by Native American players, making La Rue the smallest town ever to host an NFL team. Its population was 676 at the 2020 census.

Settled 1825, platted 1851-06-03, by Maj. William La Rue.

Where the name comes from

The village is named for its founder, Major William LaRue, who laid it out on June 3, 1851 as the railroad reached the site.

Before the town

A Wyandot village stood at the site of present-day La Rue in the early 19th century, according to Wikipedia, before the Wyandot were removed from Ohio (the main removal from the Upper Sandusky reservation came in 1843, following the 1842 Treaty of Upper Sandusky). No name for the village was found. The 1883 county history says that when Maj. William La Rue built in the woods here in 1825 the place was a wilderness inhabited only by Indians, with just one white family within six miles. A Mechanicsburg to Upper Sandusky trail crossed the Scioto in Montgomery Township at Daniel Markley's cabin of about 1820, which the history calls the only traveled trail for twenty-five or thirty miles along the Scioto.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot.

• Wyandot village at La Rue (village) — site of present-day La Rue, Montgomery Township, Marion County, early 19th century, before 1830s removal (en.wikipedia.org)

Timeline

1. 1825 — Maj. William La Rue, who had come to Marion County in the fall of 1823, built a 16-foot log cabin on the east bank of the Scioto where Allinger and Quigley's mill later stood; he entered 73 1/4 acres on April 11, 1827, under a patent signed by John Quincy Adams.
2. 1838 — Maj. La Rue's log house burned, and the same day he raised the first frame barn in the township.
3. 1843 — Neighbors built the first bridge over the Scioto at La Rue, a 100-foot open structure put up by volunteer labor with timber sawed by Maj. La Rue; a freshet carried it away after eight or ten years.
4. 1845-11-29 — The Free-Will Baptist society was organized in Topliff's mill with thirteen members by Rev. G. W. Baker; its first church was built in 1850 for $800, and a new one in 1877 for $6,500.
5. 1851 — Major William LaRue founded the village of La Rue on June 3, 1851, as the railroad was extended to the site.
6. 1851 — Henry C. Seigler opened the first store on the river bank, and in spring 1852 Horace Roberts built the Union House, the first hotel.
7. 1853 — The La Rue post office was established on February 15, 1853, with George W. DeLong as first postmaster.
8. 1857-11-10 — La Rue Cemetery was laid out on about an acre; the first burial was Mrs. Cynthia La Rue, wife of the founder.
9. 1862 — The Presbyterian congregation organized at Winnemac in 1843 moved its church building to La Rue, to a High Street lot given by Maj. La Rue.
10. 1865 — The village school was organized as a Union school, with Rev. John L. Collier as first principal.
11. 1868 — C. Bechtold established the La Rue Wood-Beading Works, making shafts, felloes, buggy bows and poles; in 1870 he built a $6,000 factory on Front Street.
12. 1870-04-01 — A fire that began in Manley and Campbell's drug store destroyed the whole block, a loss of $10,000, and a second fire that July took another $5,000 of buildings.
13. 1876-12 — George A. Fleming and John Tritt founded the La Rue News.
14. 1878-02 — The fire department was organized with sixty-eight citizens, an engine bought from Ramsey and Company of Seneca Falls, N.Y., for $958 and a $360 engine house.
15. 1880 — Maj. William La Rue died on August 18; the census that year counted 614 residents.
16. 1900 — The census counted 997 residents; the village had been at 948 in 1890.
17. 1922 — La Rue kennel owner Walter Lingo bought an NFL franchise for $100 to advertise his Oorang Airedale Terrier kennels, naming it the Oorang Indians and hiring Jim Thorpe as player-coach and general manager.
18. 1923 — The Oorang Indians played their second and final NFL season before Lingo withdrew financial support and the team folded; of 20 games over two seasons, only one was played at Marion, the nearest town large enough to host it.

Stories

The smallest town in NFL history

In 1922, La Rue dog breeder Walter Lingo bought a National Football League franchise for $100, mainly to advertise the Airedale terriers he raised at his Oorang Kennels. He named the team the Oorang Indians and hired Jim Thorpe, already famous as a two-time Olympic gold medalist, to coach and occasionally play. Every man on the roster was Native American, drawn from tribes including the Sac and Fox, Chippewa, Cherokee, Mohawk, Blackfeet, Winnebago, Flathead, Seneca and Penobscot, many of them Thorpe's teammates from the Carlisle Indian School. The team barnstormed the country and staged halftime shows of dog exhibitions and traditional dances, but rarely played a true home game: of 20 games in two NFL seasons, only one was played anywhere near La Rue, at Marion. When the novelty wore off and Lingo's advertising payoff was won, he stopped funding the team, and it folded after the 1923 season. La Rue, with a population under 1,000, remains the smallest community ever to have fielded an NFL franchise.

The founder who made the trains stop

Maj. William La Rue was born in Washington County, Ohio, in 1799, of a French Huguenot family, and married Cynthia Brine in Meigs County in 1820. He built a cabin in the woods on the Scioto in 1825, entered seventy-odd acres that quite exhausted his means, and lived to own many hundreds of acres. When a railroad was first talked of, he started a subscription headed with $1,000 and gave the company its right of way, binding it to make La Rue always a watering place so that every train would stop. He laid out the village on June 3, 1851, with ninety lots, gave four lots to the Free-Will Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and Catholic churches with $10 apiece, and died in the village on August 18, 1880, his wife having died in 1857. By 1883 the town had about sixty businesses, a carriage factory turning out fifty buggies and wagons a year, and a steam elevator shipping grain to Philadelphia and Baltimore.

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Aqua Ohio - La Rue Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Money issues on the ballot since 2015: 2 of 2 passed.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked. The county's results on file run through 2024-03-19; later elections are not loaded yet.

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Financial Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-12-05

Statewide question: State Issue 3: Voter ID

Local questions for Larue, Marion County and its school district:

• Elgin Local School District: Renews a 2.88-mill property tax levy for the current expenses of Elgin Local School District for 5 years, beginning in 2027.
• Marion County: Renews a 3-mill property tax levy to acquire, construct, renovate, finance, maintain & operate developmental disabilities facilities of Marion County for 5 years, beginning in 2026.
• Marion County: Renews a 1-mill property tax levy to operate alcohol, drug addiction & mental health programs of Marion County for 5 years, beginning in 2026.

Races, candidates and every question for an address: your ballot. County offices and judges are on your county board's sample ballot.

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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