New Weston

How New Weston began

New Weston was founded in the 1880s in Allen Township, northern Darke County, during construction of a railroad line by a predecessor of the Cincinnati, Jackson and Mackinaw Railroad -- one of the last communities established in the county. It is known today far beyond its small population for neighboring Eldora Speedway, a half-mile dirt track built in 1954 by Versailles-born bandleader Earl Baltes, who ran it for fifty years before selling to driver Tony Stewart in 2004.

Platted 1880s, by railroad development (predecessor of the Cincinnati, Jackson and Mackinaw Railroad).

Where the name comes from

Name origin not confirmed in the sources checked.

Before the town

No Native American village or site specific to present-day New Weston is documented in the sources checked. The village sits in Allen Township in northern Darke County, part of the broader Miami and Shawnee homeland ceded under the 1795 Treaty of Greenville.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Miami.

Timeline

1. 1880s — New Weston is founded during construction of a railroad line through Allen Township, one of the last communities established in Darke County.
2. 1910 — Population peaks at 258 residents.
3. 1914 — New Weston has a town hall, post office, telephone exchange, public school, United Brethren church, elevator, depot, livery, lodge and stores, and lies on the line between sections 3 and 10, four miles north of Rossburg.
4. 1920 — Population is 232.
5. 1950 — Population falls to 136, the lowest of the census years to that date.
6. 1954 — Earl Baltes, a bandleader born in nearby Versailles with no racing background, builds a quarter-mile dirt track near New Weston that becomes Eldora Speedway, after having earlier bought the Eldora Ballroom for weekly dances.
7. 1958 — Eldora Speedway is expanded to its present half-mile length.
8. 1962 — The United States Auto Club's sprint cars race at Eldora for the first time, beginning the track's rise to national prominence.
9. 2004 — Earl Baltes sells Eldora Speedway to NASCAR driver Tony Stewart after fifty years as sole owner and operator.
10. 2020 — New Weston has 124 residents.

Stories

From dance hall to dirt track

Earl Baltes had no background in auto racing when he bought the Eldora Ballroom near New Weston in the early 1950s, planning nothing more ambitious than weekly dances and live music. A chance visit to a race at nearby New Bremen Speedway changed his plans: struck by the size and enthusiasm of the crowd, Baltes decided to build his own track on the ballroom's grounds. The quarter-mile oval he opened in 1954 grew in stages -- three-eighths of a mile by 1956, a half-mile by 1958 -- and by 1962, when the United States Auto Club brought its sprint cars to race there, Eldora Speedway was on its way to becoming one of dirt-track racing's most famous venues, eventually drawing NASCAR and World of Outlaws events to a patch of farmland outside a village of barely more than a hundred people. Baltes ran the track himself for half a century before selling it in 2004 to driver Tony Stewart, who still owns it today.

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

No water-system data is linked to New Weston's ZIP codes yet.

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, released 2025-08-26

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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