Latty

How Latty began

Latty village, in Paulding Township, grew up around 1886-88 as a hoop-and-stave labor camp in the woods, three miles south of the county seat, before taking its lasting name from Judge A. S. Latty, an 1837 settler, and getting its post office in 1882. It peaked at 594 residents in 1890 and has declined steadily since, standing at 165 by the 2020 census. Its best-known native son is Ralph L. Ropp, a 1913 graduate of Latty High School who went on to serve as president of Louisiana Tech University from 1949 to 1962.

Where the name comes from

Named for Judge A. S. Latty, an early settler who, per Henry Howe's 1888 travelling notes, told Howe in an interview that he had come to the Paulding County wilderness in 1837, when the whole 108-square-mile territory later forming Emerald, Paulding, and Blue Creek townships held only two families.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound, or treaty site specific to Latty is documented in the sources checked.

Timeline

1. 1837 — Judge A. S. Latty, for whom the village is later named, comes to the Paulding County wilderness; per his own account to Henry Howe in 1886, the area was then home to only two settler families.
2. 1882 — Latty gets a post office, named for Judge A. S. Latty.
3. 1888 — Henry Howe describes Latty, three miles south of Paulding village on the Cincinnati, Jackson and Mackinaw and the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroads, as a wild collection of huts in the woods where laborers cut timber for the hoop and stave trade; its school census that year counts 169 pupils.
4. 1890 — Population peaks at 594.
5. 1913 — Ralph L. Ropp graduates from Latty High School; he later serves as president of Louisiana Tech University from 1949 to 1962.
6. 1920 — Population has fallen to 294, half its 1890 peak.
7. 2020 — The census records 165 residents.

Stories

A Hoop-and-Stave Camp in the Woods

When Henry Howe rode a freight train south from Paulding village in December 1886, the stop at Latty was still, by his description, little more than a clearing. "Latty is composed of a collection of huts in the woods for laborers who are at work cutting down timber for hoops and staves that are made here," he wrote. Softer woods were felled with cross-cut saws and the hardest trees chopped by hand; the timber -- oak, cottonwood, hickory, basswood, and sycamore -- was cut, split into bolts, steamed, and shaped into the hoops and staves that Paulding County's barrel trade depended on. "What piles of logs! what almost acres of staves! -- some under sheds and some in the open," Howe wrote, describing the bare winter trees standing over the camp as "largely white and hoary." It was, in his words, "a wild spot and very interesting to look upon," and around the cabins children played in the December sunlight while the surrounding forest still rang with the sound of the axe. The village's lasting name came from a different, older figure: Judge A. S. Latty, who had settled in the county wilderness in 1837, when the 108 square miles that became Emerald, Paulding, and Blue Creek townships held only two pioneer families, and who was still living in Paulding village when Howe interviewed him about those early years fifty years later.

Photographs

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

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

Facilities reporting toxic releases (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2018: 2 of 4 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 2 of 4.

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.
• Basic Audit, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-04-07
• Basic Audit, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-10-08

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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