Magnetic Springs

How Magnetic Springs began

Magnetic Springs began in 1879 when a mineral spring was discovered on J. E. Newhouse's property in Leesburg Township and he opened a bathhouse promoting the water's supposed magnetic, curative properties. The village grew almost overnight into a seasonal resort town of hotels, bathhouses and shops, helped after 1903 by a trolley line from Delaware that was later extended to Richwood. Modern medicine, including the polio vaccine, undercut the appeal of mineral-water cures, and by the early 1980s the resort hotels had all been demolished. The 1920s also brought a rowdier chapter, when bootlegging and gambling drew a Prohibition-era reputation that Mayor Mary McFadden worked to counter.

Settled c. 1864 (J. W. Hoskins built a cabin on the site and cleared land; J. E. Newhouse bought the spring site in 1872), platted 1879-11-24, incorporated 1883, by Fifty in-lots and five blocks surveyed by F. A. Gartner for J. E. Newhouse and Duncan and Matilda McLean.

Where the name comes from

Named for its springs. The county history says the water is so strongly charged with magnetic properties that a pocket knife held in the stream for a few moments will pick up a nail, and that pins cling to the blade for weeks. The post office, opened in 1880, was first named Kokosing and was renamed Magnetic Springs on January 31, 1881.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound, trail or treaty cession specific to the Magnetic Springs site is documented; the village's own history, as recorded by the village government, Wikipedia and a local historian's blog, begins entirely with the 1879 mineral-spring discovery and does not address the land's earlier history. It lies within Leesburg Township, Union County, within the wider region once used by Wyandot, Shawnee, Mingo and Miami people.

Timeline

1. 1872 — J. E. Newhouse buys the site of the springs and starts a nursery and garden selling grape vines and stock to farmers for many miles around; he later persuades the county commissioners to build a gravel pike past his land, the source of the pit where the spring was found.
2. 1879 — In April, J. E. Newhouse, digging a well to fill a fish pond in a gravel pit on his nursery land, strikes a gushing spring; neighbours with kidney troubles report relief, a bath-house is built, and fifty lots are surveyed on November 24 and 25.
3. 1880 — The post office opens May 17 as Kokosing with John A. Smith as postmaster; about a dozen houses go up in the first year, and Langstaff builds the Fountain House hotel. The office is renamed Magnetic Springs on January 31, 1881.
4. 1882 — The seasonal population reached 300 to 500, with two hotels, a bathhouse, two grocery stores, a hardware store, a jeweler, a billiard parlor, a meat market, a livery stable, a blacksmith shop and a photo gallery in business.
5. 1883 — Magnetic Springs incorporated as a village.
6. 1890 — The first census after incorporation counts 257 residents, down to 194 in 1900 and 155 in 1910.
7. 1903 — A trolley line is running between Delaware and Magnetic Springs by this year; it was later extended to Richwood.
8. 1907 — A fire destroys the heart of the town; the county history says the town had prospered until then.
9. 1908 — Rural free delivery is established in February with an 18-mile route.
10. 1914 — Four mineral springs are flowing; the town has the Park and Columbus hotels, the Sager Sanitarium and Park baths, a creamery, Methodist Episcopal and Disciples churches, a Knights of Pythias lodge, and a $15,000 brick central school under construction for three Union and two Delaware county districts.
11. 1920s — The village became known for bootlegging and gambling during Prohibition; Mayor Mary McFadden opposed the activity and pushed community improvements.
12. 1950 — The census counts 321 residents, up from 178 in 1930; the population peaks at 373 in 1990.
13. 2020 — The census counts 267 residents.
14. early 1980s — The last of the resort's hotel buildings were demolished, closing out the mineral-springs tourism era.

Stories

A dry town's wet reputation

By the 1920s, decades after its mineral-spring heyday had begun to fade, Magnetic Springs picked up a different sort of reputation: as a place where Prohibition-era bootlegging and illegal gambling operated with some open tolerance. The village's own history credits Mayor Mary McFadden with pushing back against the lawbreaking while also steering civic improvements, an early instance of a woman leading a small Ohio village government. The mix of a fading health resort and a Prohibition sideline captures a town caught between its original identity and hard economic times as the springs' popularity declined nationally with the rise of modern medicine.

From bathhouse to boomtown, and back

The whole of Magnetic Springs traces back to one discovery: mineral water found on J. E. Newhouse's farmland in 1879. Newhouse opened a bathhouse to let people try the water, marketed for its reputed magnetic, curative qualities, and the response was immediate — a dozen houses appeared within a year. By 1882 the town swelled seasonally to 300-500 visitors and residents, supporting two full hotels and a working-class scattering of shops from a jeweler to a blacksmith. A trolley line from Delaware, running by 1903 and later extended to Richwood, carried the boom into the early twentieth century. The whole enterprise depended on believing mineral water could cure what ailed you; once vaccines and modern medicine offered real cures, the tourist trade collapsed, and the hotels that once anchored the village were gone by the early 1980s.

A fish pond that struck water

J. E. Newhouse came to the future Magnetic Springs in 1872, bought the site, and ran a nursery that sold grape vines and stock to farmers for miles around. The roads were next to impassable in wet weather, so he petitioned the county commissioners for a gravel pike and offered the gravel from a bed on his own land. When the road was built he decided to turn the pit it left behind into a fish pond, and in April 1879 he sank a well sixty-eight feet deep to feed it. He found no rock and was about to give up when water gushed up and made a fountain. People came to look and drank the water; some with kidney troubles said it helped, stories spread, and Newhouse and his partner built a bath-house. By 1881 there were more than a hundred houses on the new plat, and for the first five years the floating and regular population ran from 300 to 500, a rush told in Curry's county history.

Local history sources: magneticspringsoh.gov · en.wikipedia.org · uccogs.org · archive.org

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

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Bridges rated poor (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2024: 1 of 1 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.
• Basic Audit, 2024 to 2025, released 2026-05-07

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