Lyons

• The Toledo WarThe 1835-36 Ohio-Michigan boundary dispute over the Toledo Strip: a bad map, a 3 a.m. court, one stabbing, no deaths, and the Upper Peninsula trade.

How Lyons began

Lyons began in 1850 as 'Morey's Corners,' named for founder Jinks Morey, when a plank road reached the site in northern Royalton Township; a post office under the name Lyons opened in 1837, well before the village itself incorporated in 1900. Morey also founded the First Universalist Church of Lyons, now recognized as the oldest non-residential structure in Royalton Township.

Settled 1850, when a plank road reached the site, incorporated 1900, by Jinks Morey.

Where the name comes from

Originally called Morey's Corners, honoring founder Jinks Morey; a post office under the name Lyons had already opened in 1837, and the village eventually took that name rather than its founder's.

Before the town

No Native village, mound or trail specific to Lyons is recorded. The village sits in Royalton Township, inside the tract ceded at the 1807 Treaty of Detroit, not far from the site of the Battle of Phillips Corners, the Toledo War's only armed clash.

Timeline

1. 1807-11-17 — The Treaty of Detroit cedes the tract of northwest Ohio that includes the future village's land.
2. 1835-04-26 — The Battle of Phillips Corners, the only armed clash of the Toledo War, occurs nearby within Royalton Township.
3. 1837 — A post office called Lyons begins operating.
4. 1838 — Jenks Morey, who comes from Mentor, Ohio, settles on section 9 where most of Lyons now stands; he keeps the first hotel in the township and the place becomes Morey's Corners.
5. 1850 — Jinks Morey's settlement, first called Morey's Corners, begins when a plank road is completed to the site.
6. 1850 — The village starts as Morey's Corners when the plank road from Toledo to Morenci is built; Elias Richardson, a director of the Plank Road Company, builds eleven miles of it, and Morey's hotel is its landmark.
7. 1862 — The Universalist church, the first in the township, is built at Lyons; the Disciples of Christ build a brick church in 1877.
8. 1869-10-15 — Royalton Union Lodge No. 434, F. & A. M., is organized; Lyons Lodge No. 622, I.O.O.F., follows on May 4, 1876.
9. 1887 — Lyons has a dry goods store, a drug store, a hotel, three blacksmith shops, a cheese factory, a brick and tile factory, a grist and saw mill with shingle and planing machines, and two churches.
10. 1897-12-21 — Voters reject incorporation, 44 to 33; a second election on June 26, 1900 carries it, 84 to 79.
11. 1900 — Lyons incorporates as an Ohio village.
12. 1900-09-18 — The first council meets in the Cannon Building, with E. E. Milliken as mayor; in January 1901 the council grants the Toledo and Western Railway a franchise to run an electric line along the old plank road at a five-cent fare.
13. 1910 — Lyons is first counted separately in the census, at 408 people; the 1920 preliminary count is 329.
14. 2010 — The census counts 562 people in Lyons; 602 in 2020.

Stories

A Founder's Corners, Renamed

Jinks Morey got the honor first: when a plank road reached his settlement in 1850, it took his own name, Morey's Corners, the ordinary way pioneer crossroads were christened across northwest Ohio. But the village never kept it. A post office called Lyons had already been operating in the area since 1837, thirteen years before Morey's road-side settlement even existed, and when the town finally incorporated in 1900, it was the post office's older name that stuck rather than its founder's newer one. Morey's other legacy fared better: the First Universalist Church of Lyons, which he founded, survives today as the oldest non-residential structure standing anywhere in Royalton Township -- a longer-lived monument, as it turned out, than the name of the man who built it.

Morey's Corners and the plank road

Lyons began as a hotel at a crossroads. Jenks Morey, who came from Mentor in 1838 and settled on section 9, kept the first hotel in Royalton Township, and when the Toledo to Morenci plank road was built in 1850 his land lay along it. Elias Richardson, one of the road's directors, built eleven miles of the roadway himself, and the place took the name Morey's Corners. For a while Phillips Corners, the old election ground a short way off, looked likely to outdo it, but the post office at the new place settled the question. The village clerk in 1920, W. S. Egnew, remembered riding down to town on horseback and coming back with two jugs of whisky slung across the saddle like pistol holsters. The plank road later carried an electric line: in 1901 the council gave the Toledo and Western Railway a franchise to run along it for a five-cent fare through the village.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Lyons Village100% of residentsMaumee River (via Napoleon pipeline) + Big Ditch/Stucky Ditch, in reservoirs

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2015: 7 of 7 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 2024-12-31

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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