Mecca Township, Trumbull County

• Mosquito Creek LakeBuilt 1944 · 7,850 acres

How Mecca Township, Trumbull County began

Mecca Township, one of Trumbull County's later settlements, was first settled about 1811 by Joseph Dawson, who came from Poland Township and built the first cabin about one and three-quarters miles north of East Mecca; his family was the township's only one for nearly two years, until his father-in-law John Rose arrived about 1813. Settlement west of Mosquito Creek did not begin until 1820, when Joseph Buttles became the sole resident of what became West Mecca for roughly eight years. The township organized in 1821, taking its name -- for reasons no source explains -- from the city of Mecca on the Arabian Peninsula, unusual among its Connecticut-named neighbors. Its most distinctive chapter came in 1859-61, when oil speculation swept the township's southwest corner: a well on William H. Jeffries's lot at West Mecca, operated by Bonnell, Woods & Jordan, touched off a genuine boomtown first named 'Dixie' and then 'Oil Diggins,' complete with hotels, gambling and fistfights, before the wells ran dry and the town vanished almost as fast as it had appeared.

Settled c. 1811 (Joseph Dawson, first settler, east of Mosquito Creek); 1820 (Joseph Buttles, first settler west of the creek), incorporated 1821, by Joseph Dawson, first settler, c. 1811.

Where the name comes from

Mecca Township is named after the city of Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia; the 1882 county history does not explain why this particular Western Reserve township, unlike most of its neighbors, took a name from outside the Connecticut-New England naming tradition. It is the only Mecca Township in Ohio.

Before the town

No Native village, camp or treaty event specific to Mecca Township is recorded in the sources we reviewed. The township lies in northeastern Trumbull County within the wider region the county's 1882 history describes as Delaware-occupied hunting ground used seasonally by Seneca and Mingo bands through the 1700s, but no source found names a site inside the township's present boundaries.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Seneca, Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga).

Timeline

1. c. 1811 — Joseph Dawson, from Poland Township, becomes the township's first settler, building its first cabin about one and three-quarters miles north of East Mecca; his family is the only one in the township for nearly two years.
2. c. 1813 — John Rose, Dawson's father-in-law, also from Poland Township, settles north of Dawson and becomes a permanent resident; descendants remain in the township three generations later.
3. 1819 — Fourteen families are recorded living in the township, all on the east side of Mosquito Creek.
4. 1820 — Joseph Buttles becomes the first settler west of Mosquito Creek, remaining the sole resident of what becomes West Mecca for about eight years.
5. 1821 — Mecca Township organizes, taking its name from the city of Mecca.
6. 1859-1861 — Oil speculation sweeps the township after a well on William H. Jeffries's lot at West Mecca, operated by Bonnell, Woods & Jordan, appears to strike a large deposit; a boomtown named 'Dixie,' later 'Oil Diggins,' grows up in the township's south with hotels, groceries and gambling before the wells run dry and speculators depart, many for the just-starting Civil War.
7. 1866-05 — An 'Oil Diggins' post office opens to serve the settlement.
8. 1867 — J.F. Klumpp & Co. establishes a lumber and plow-beam manufacturing business in Mecca, eventually owning about 1,600 acres of timber land and producing up to 100,000 plow-beams and two million feet of sawed lumber in a year.
9. early 2000s — Only one structure from the oil-boom era reportedly still stands, a restaurant in West Mecca.
10. 2020 — The census records 2,319 residents in Mecca Township, which borders Mosquito Lake to the west.

Stories

Oil Diggins

Settlers had known for decades that oil lay under parts of Mecca Township -- it showed up as a scum on standing water and in springs, and one farmer named Phillips had quietly collected and sold small quantities of it as a lubricant. Landowners mostly kept quiet about it, since oil in a well was thought to spoil the water and make the land harder to sell. That changed in 1859-61, when word of Mecca's oil reached outside speculators. A well sunk on William H. Jeffries's lot at West Mecca, operated by the firm of Bonnell, Woods & Jordan, was thought to have struck a vast deposit, and speculators poured in from across the country to lease land; building lots that had been worthless jumped to city prices, and a new town, first called 'Dixie' and then 'Oil Diggins,' sprang up in the township's south, complete with hotels, groceries, shanties, gambling, drunkenness and fights -- 'the less said of its morals and behavior during those days the better,' the 1882 county history remarks dryly. The boom collapsed almost as fast as it had risen: every well proved to exhaust itself after a period of pumping, the speculative bubble burst, and many of the disappointed adventurers left for the just-beginning Civil War instead. By 1882 the oil business continued on a smaller, steadier scale using portable machinery, but Dixie itself, the book notes, was already 'gone from off the earth.'

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Cortland City100% of residentsGroundwater wells (7 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (1)

Shale and injection wells (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-08-24: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2015: 9 of 9 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.

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 2025-05-27

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