Mentor-On-The-Lake

How Mentor-On-The-Lake began

Mentor-on-the-Lake lies on the Lake Erie shore of old Mentor Township, the township where, according to Howe's history, two families were living in the summer of 1799, the first settlement in what became Lake County. Early settlers along this shore included Charles and Clark Parker, who settled at Hopkins' Point in 1804, and Daniel and Benjamin Hopkins, who took up five hundred acres on the lake shore in 1810. In 1916 an Episcopal chapel was moved to the Girls' Friendly Society's Holliday House at Salida Beach, a summer place on this shore. In 1924, 33 voters petitioned Mentor Township's trustees for a village government, which began October 22, 1924; the village passed 5,000 residents and became a city on February 12, 1971, and is now a mostly residential lakefront suburb of Cleveland.

Incorporated October 22, 1924 (village, by 33-voter petition); city status February 12, 1971.

Where the name comes from

The name joins that of the parent township, Mentor, with the village's position on Lake Erie. The 1878 county history records that Mentor Township, surveyed in 1796, was drawn in sixteen tracts but does not explain the name Mentor itself.

Before the town

No Native American village, trail or site inside Mentor-on-the-Lake is recorded in the sources consulted, including the Mentor Township chapter of the 1878 county history. The city lies within the land ceded under the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.

Timeline

1. 1796 — John Milton Holley surveys Mentor Township, township ten, and divides it into sixteen tracts drawn by different owners.
2. 1799 — Two families are living in Mentor in the summer, which Howe's history calls the first settlement in present Lake County.
3. 1800 — Jared Ward, Moses Parks and Hosmer and Ebenezer Merry are the families in Mentor Township in the spring; Ebenezer Merry and his bride arrive on horseback on May 26.
4. 1804 — Surveyor Charles Parker and his brother Clark settle at Hopkins' Point on the Mentor lakeshore.
5. 1810 — Daniel Hopkins and his father Benjamin take up five hundred acres on the lake shore in Mentor Township, the tract afterward called Hopkins' Point.
6. 1916 — Bishop William A. Leonard moves the Church of the Transfiguration seven miles from the top of Little Mountain to the Girls' Friendly Society's Holliday House at Salida Beach off Lakeshore Boulevard; the society disbands around 1925 and the chapel is moved again.
7. 1924 — Thirty-three voters petition Mentor Township trustees to create a separate village government; the village of Mentor-on-the-Lake begins operating October 22.
8. 1970 — The U.S. Census records the village's population above 5,000.
9. 1971 — Mentor-on-the-Lake achieves city status on February 12.
10. 1998 — The Mentor library branch at Andrews and Salida roads opens near city hall.

Stories

A lakeshore chapel at Salida Beach

In 1916 Bishop William A. Leonard of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio decided to move a small chapel, built in 1892 as the Church of the Transfiguration on top of Little Mountain, down to the lake. It was carried seven miles to the grounds of the Holliday House of the Girls' Friendly Society on Salida Beach off Lakeshore Boulevard, a summer recreational place connected with Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland. The chapel's Munich stained glass went with it. The society disbanded around 1925, and services were then often held on the porch of Hollycroft, the Mentor home of Helen and James R. Garfield, until the chapel was moved once more by horse and wagon to the East Branch of the Chagrin River in Kirtland Hills, where it was rededicated as St. Hubert's Chapel in 1929. Its years at Salida Beach fall in the same period in which the lakeshore families petitioned for their own village in 1924.

Local history sources: mentoronthelake.gov · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · web.archive.org

Lake Erie, drawn through Aqua Ohio's shoreline treatment plant on Twilight Drive in Mentor-on-the-Lake The water here

• Aqua Ohio - Mentor100% of residentsLake Erie

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (1)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Who holds office

Roster as of 2026-01-23: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2023: 1 of 1 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 Health Indicators (the Auditor of State's 17 measures; critical / cautionary / positive): 2020 1 / 3 / 13; 2021 0 / 3 / 14; 2022 0 / 1 / 16; 2023 0 / 2 / 15; 2024 0 / 3 / 14; 2025 1 / 1 / 15.
• Financial Audit, 2025, released 2026-08-11
• Financial Audit, 2024, released 2025-10-21
• Financial Audit, 2023, released 2024-12-03

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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