Murray City

How Murray City began

Murray City was platted in 1873 by John Murray Brown, of Somerset, Ohio, who saw opportunity in the coal seams of the Hocking Valley coalfield and named the town for himself; he built a hotel there in 1875. The village was incorporated in 1891 and, as mining companies opened shafts around it, grew into one of the largest coal towns in the Hocking Valley, its population exceeding 2,000 at its peak in the early 20th century with hotels, saloons, churches, and a rail depot. It was caught up in the Hocking Valley coal strike of 1884-1885, one of the largest labor conflicts in Ohio history. When the major mines closed in 1937, the town's economy and population collapsed, and it has remained a small village of a few hundred people since.

Platted 1873, incorporated 1891, by John Murray Brown.

Where the name comes from

Named for John Murray Brown, the original landowner and founder, who built a hotel on the site in 1875.

Before the town

No source found documents a Native village, trail, mound, or treaty event specific to the Murray City site; the ground it sits on was opened for coal mining well after Ohio's Native nations had been forced out. Hocking County as a whole was hunted and lived in by the Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), and Wyandot through the 1600s and 1700s, and the Adena culture (roughly 500 BC to AD 100) built burial mounds elsewhere along the Hocking River and Salt Creek. Nothing site-specific to Murray City itself was found.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Wyandot, Adena culture.

Timeline

1. 1873 — John Murray Brown platted the town of Murray City on land opened for coal mining in the Hocking Valley coalfield.
2. 1875 — Brown built a hotel in the new town.
3. 1884-1885 — Murray City's miners, along with those of Nelsonville, New Straitsville, Carbon Hill, Buchtel, Longstreth, and Shawnee, joined the Hocking Valley coal strike after operators cut the tonnage rate from 70 to 60 cents; the strike idled about 3,000 miners at 46 mines and ended in March 1885 with the National Guard called in and no wage victory for the miners.
4. 1891 — Murray City was incorporated as a village.
5. 1910 — The village supported an Independent Order of Odd Fellows hall, photographed for a Kraemer Art Co. postcard.
6. early 1900s — Murray City's population peaked as one of the largest coal towns in the Hocking Valley, supporting a hotel, saloons, churches, and a train depot.
7. 1937 — Major coal-mine closures triggered a steep economic and population decline that continued for decades.

Stories

The largest mines in the world, by their own advertising

Murray City's coal companies did not undersell themselves: their mines were advertised as the largest in the world, and the claim pulled in workers from well beyond Ohio looking for steady wages. Two shafts anchored the town's economy. Greendale's Coal Mine No. 7 worked the ground north of the village near Salem's Hollow, and Sunday Creek Coal Company's Mine No. 5 sat directly beneath what is now Murray City Park. At its peak in the early twentieth century the village held a hotel, saloons, churches, a rail depot, and enough people to be counted among the largest coal towns in the Hocking Valley. A coal miner named John Holt kept a diary of that daily working life, one of the few firsthand accounts to survive from the town's boom years.

A boomtown born into a strike

Seven years before Murray City was incorporated, its miners were drawn into the largest labor fight the Hocking Valley had yet seen. In June 1884 the region's mine operators, freshly consolidated into a syndicate, cut the tonnage rate paid to miners from seventy cents to sixty. The Ohio Miners' Amalgamated Association walked out on June 23, and roughly 3,000 miners across 46 mines in Nelsonville, Murray City, New Straitsville, Carbon Hill, Buchtel, Longstreth, and Shawnee stayed off the job for the better part of a year. Operators answered by importing strikebreakers under armed Pinkerton guard, and violence followed. Governor George Hoadly eventually sent in the Ohio National Guard. The strike collapsed in March 1885 without a wage victory, but it pushed the state legislature to outlaw the practice of forcing miners to buy everything at company stores. Murray City men who lived through it went on to join the Knights of Labor and, later, the United Mine Workers of America.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · hocking.ohgenweb.org · remarkableohio.org · hocking.ohgenweb.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Six wells (4 MGD combined) in a sand-and-gravel aquifer in the Hocking River Buried Valley aquifer system, Dover Township, Athens County (2025 CCR). Ohio EPA's May 2012 source water assessment rates the source highly susceptible to contamination (thin clay cover, aquifer less than 20 ft deep). The water here

• Murray City Village100% of residentsHocking River Buried Valley Aquifer (wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Police stations (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2016: 9 of 9 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 2025-08-28

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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