Lucas

• Charles Mill LakeBuilt 1936 · 1,350 acres

• Louis Bromfield1896-1956Mansfield-born Pulitzer Prize novelist who came home to rebuild worn-out farmlan...

How Lucas began

Lucas sits on the Rocky Fork of the Mohican River seven miles southeast of Mansfield, a mill town from its earliest years. John Tucker laid out the village in 1836 as agent for his brother David Tucker, who owned the land, and the site already had at least two grist mills operating on the Rocky Fork since 1820. The village grew as a small milling and farming center served later by the Pennsylvania Railroad, and its name is remembered locally in three different, unresolved stories -- for Ohio governor Robert Lucas, for a Lucas who was a large landowner, or for the Tucker family's mother's maiden name. In recent decades Lucas has drawn visitors for a single tree at its edge, made famous by the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption.

Settled 1820 (first mills on the Rocky Fork), platted 1836, by John Tucker, acting as agent for his brother and landowner David Tucker.

Where the name comes from

The 1880 county history says the village was named in honor of Gov. Lucas of Ohio. Wikipedia reports that local tradition also offers the governor's brother as a landowner, or the maiden name of the Tucker brothers' mother, and none of these could be confirmed from a primary source.

Before the town

Pipe's Cliff, a ledge of rocks about a hundred feet high in the southern part of Monroe Township, near the center of Section 28, lies a few miles from the village and was named for Capt. Pipe, the Lenape (Delaware) chieftain, who is said to have buried the hatchet at the Treaty of Greenville and to have told a Lucas resident late in his life that he was about a hundred years old. The 1880 county history repeats a tradition that Capt. Brodhead's scouting party fired on Indians seated on the rocks and killed Pipe's sister there, and says there is a doubt about it. On the summit it describes a rock six feet across and two feet high resembling a rude altar, where tradition held that Pipe came each year to make a sacrifice for his murdered sister, and a detached pillar called Onalaska's Tower. It says the valleys of the Clear Fork, Black Fork and Switzer's Run were thoroughly occupied and appreciated by the Indians. No Native site was found at the Lucas townsite itself.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot.

• Pipe's Cliff (other) — Section 28, southern Monroe Township, near Lucas, historic period; traditions of Capt. Pipe (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1812 — Gen. Brooks encamped on the site of Lucas on his way to the seat of war, cleared a little patch of ground and cut the first road, according to the 1880 county history.
2. 1817-02-11 — Monroe Township, in which Lucas stands, was organized out of the north half of Worthington Township; its people had settled along the Rocky Fork near the site of Lucas.
3. 1820 — Peter Zerby erects the first grist mill on the Rocky Fork near where the Pennsylvania Railroad later crosses the stream (the Octorora mills); Reinhart Oldfield builds a second grist mill on the Rocky Fork between the Zerby mill and the future village the same year.
4. 1830 — A Baptist church was organized in a schoolhouse by Rev. James Johnson, and in 1838 its members built a frame church, which was later sold.
5. 1836 — John Tucker lays out the village of Lucas as agent for his brother David Tucker, owner of the land.
6. 1836 — The first lots in Lucas were sold at auction; James King built the first house, which also held the first store, and the frame Monroe House hotel, standing in 1880, was probably the second building.
7. 1846 — Lutherans and German Reformed built a union frame church on the hill; the Lutherans built the village's only church, a brick one, in 1872.
8. 1877 — A three-story brick schoolhouse costing about $6,000 was built, with school on the lower two floors and the Odd Fellows above, replacing a frame school erected after incorporation.
9. 1880 — The census counted 381 residents; the village was about half a mile long along one street, with three blacksmith shops, one hotel, four doctors and three stores.
10. 1900 — The census counted 306 residents, down from 347 in 1890.
11. 1950 — The census counted 573 residents, a gain of about 200 from 1940.
12. 2011 — The maple tree at the edge of Lucas known from the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption is bisected by a lightning strike.
13. 2020 — The U.S. Census records Lucas's population at 589, down from a peak of 771 in 1970.

Stories

Mills on the Rocky Fork before there was a village

Lucas did not begin as a plat on paper; it began as a stretch of the Rocky Fork good for turning a mill wheel. In 1820, sixteen years before anyone laid out streets, Peter Zerby built a grist mill on the stream near the spot where the Pennsylvania Railroad would later cross it, and Reinhart Oldfield built a second mill a little upstream, toward where the village would grow up. Farmers in the surrounding township had somewhere to grind their wheat and corn before Lucas had a name of its own. When John Tucker finally platted the village in 1836 for his brother David, the mill sites were already established landmarks on the map he was drawing.

A tree becomes a landmark, then a casualty

For years after the 1994 release of The Shawshank Redemption, which filmed several scenes in and around Mansfield and Richland County, fans made a point of finding the lone tree standing in a field at the edge of Lucas that appears in the film. The tree became a small, informal pilgrimage site, photographed from the roadside by visitors who otherwise had no reason to pass through the village. In 2011 a lightning strike split the tree, and photographs taken afterward, including one now on Wikimedia Commons, show the trunk cleaved in two -- a landmark that outlasted its fame turned briefly into local news of its own.

Pipe's Cliff

South of Lucas, in Monroe Township, a ledge of rocks rises above the lovely valley of Switzer's Run. It was named for Capt. Pipe, the Delaware chieftain who had long been an enemy of the whites until, finding resistance useless, he signed the Treaty of Greenville and kept his word, refusing the British in the War of 1812 with the words that he had been told not to take up the hatchet again while the trees grow and the water runs. Mrs. Swigart of Lucas, then eighty-three, remembered him well and said he had told her he was about a hundred. A tradition held that a scouting party under Capt. Brodhead came upon Indians seated on the rocks and killed Pipe's sister, and the county historian was doubtful of the story. Still, on the summit, forty feet across, stands a rock six feet in diameter and two feet high like a rude altar, where Pipe was said to come each year to offer a sacrifice for his sister, and a detached pillar below was named Onalaska's Tower. Nearby are the Dragon's Mouth, a cavern, the Hanging Rock, the Porch and the Frowning Cliff.

Photographs

Local history sources: sites.rootsweb.com · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · richlandcountyhistory.com · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Lucas Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (4)

Public libraries (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2023 to 2024, released 2026-04-21

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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