Payne

How Payne began

Payne was platted in 1872 as Flatrock City by W. C. Hedges of Tiffin along the line of the 'Continental' railroad then being graded, and was renamed Malottville after additions made in 1878 by James Malott and Peter Lehman. Its active growth began in 1882 with the Nickel Plate railroad, and it was incorporated in 1883 under the name Payne, the name of a post office that had existed in the neighborhood since 1858 and, according to Wikipedia, of Ohio senator Henry B. Payne. The 1892 county atlas places it in both Harrison and Benton townships, the larger part in Harrison, and by 1890 it had 1,146 residents and stave, hoop and lumber factories. It has held roughly 1,000 to 1,600 residents since the early twentieth century and today is served by the Wayne Trace Local School District and a branch of the Paulding County Library.

Platted 1872, incorporated 1883, by W. C. Hedges of Tiffin, surveyed by county surveyor Noah Ely.

Where the name comes from

Originally laid out as Flatrock City in 1872, for nearby Flat Rock Creek, before being renamed Payne in honor of Henry B. Payne (1810-1896), an Ohio US senator.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound, or treaty site specific to Payne is documented in the sources checked. The village sits in Benton Township, in the southeast of the county, away from the documented Ottawa Oquanoxa Reserve on the Auglaize River in Brown Township.

Timeline

1. 1858 — A post office named Payne opens at the house of Adam Snellenberger, the first postmaster, on the mail route from Paulding to Monroeville, Indiana.
2. 1872 — The community is laid out under the name Flatrock City.
3. 1874-05-14 — Advertisements in the Paulding Democrat call the place 'Flatrock City' and promote a new grocery and a store paying cash for staves, hoop-poles and black-ash hoops.
4. 1878 — James Malott and Peter Lehman make additions to the village, and the name changes from Flatrock to Malottville.
5. 1881 — Payne's first large factory, the stave and lumber company of N. E. Prentice & Co., begins operations; in 1881 the name of the village of Malottville is changed to Payne to match the post office.
6. 1882 — The Nickel Plate railroad is completed through the village, marking the start of its active growth; General W. H. Gibson of Tiffin makes an addition and builds several business rooms.
7. 1883 — Payne is incorporated as a village under that name.
8. 1885 — A frame school house with six departments is completed at a cost of about $3,500.
9. 1887-09-15 — A fire on the night of September 15 sweeps away an entire block of frame buildings on the south side of Merrin Street; brick blocks replace them, and a fire department of about forty members is organized that spring with a hand engine bought at Seneca Falls, New York.
10. 1888 — Henry Howe describes Payne, eight miles southwest of Paulding village on the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, as home to its own newspaper (the Review, Republican, edited by W. J. Johnson) and several manufacturers: N. E. Prentice's flour mill (9 hands), P. H. Hyman's lumber and stave works (18 hands), the Payne Hoop Co. (41 hands, the village's largest employer), H. F. Schnelker & Co.'s stave works (24 hands), Jacob Ream's lumber and flooring mill (10 hands), and Miller & Zind's wagon shop (3 hands); school census that year counts 354 pupils, capital invested in manufacturing totals $60,000, and the annual product is valued at $65,000.
11. 1890 — The census gives Payne 1,146 residents, up from forty or fifty in 1880.
12. 1891-03-11 — A fire about 1 a.m. destroys five frame business houses at Laura and Merrin streets, including a saloon, barber shop, photographer's gallery, a doctor's office and a meat market.
13. 1900 — By this era the village, renamed Payne for Ohio senator Henry B. Payne, has a public school photographed for a postcard later held by the Columbus Metropolitan Library.
14. 1930 — Payne's population peaks at 1,614 before falling sharply the following decade.
15. 1940 — Population falls to 984, down from the 1930 peak.
16. 2020 — The census records 1,192 residents.

Stories

From Flatrock City to a town of 1,146

In 1880 Payne was half a dozen houses and forty or fifty people; by the census of 1890 it had 1,146. W. C. Hedges of Tiffin platted it in 1872 as Flatrock City, with the surveying done by county surveyor Noah Ely, and in May 1874 the Paulding Democrat carried advertisements from its first grocery and a store that paid cash for staves, hoop-poles and black-ash hoops. After James Malott and Peter Lehman added to it in 1878 it was called Malottville, but the growth came with the Nickel Plate in 1882. Factories drove it: N. E. Prentice & Co. shipped more than 2,300,000 pail staves and 68,000 pail covers in a single year, the Payne Hoop Company could turn out 30,000 elm hoops a day, and lumber and stave mills filled out the rest. The village was incorporated in 1883, burned in 1887 and again in 1891, and rebuilt in brick each time.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Payne Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (1)

Private schools (1)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2020: 6 of 7 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 6 of 7.

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 2024-10-15

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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