Racine

• Ohio's Archaic periodOhio's Archaic period ran 7,000 years. People here built dugout canoes, grew squash, buried dogs beside their dead and traded Lake Superior copper.

How Racine began

Racine is an Ohio River village in Sutton Township, Meigs County, that began as Graham Station, a small post-office town, and grew after 1822 when Lucius Cross arrived from Marietta and started a tannery, flatboat building, a store, and a flour and saw mill; hundreds of area residents found work there in the mid-1800s. At some point after that growth the settlement was renamed Racine, the name it has carried since. Locally remembered as 'the Paris of Meigs County' in its heyday, the village peaked in population in 1980 at 908 and stood at 683 residents in 2020. The Racine Lock and Dam, an Ohio River navigation and hydropower structure built between 1964 and 1971, sits on the river at the village.

Settled c. 1807, platted 1837-01-30, by P. Lallance, A. Lallance and John Wolf laid out Graham Station; George Wolfe first settler.

Where the name comes from

The village was laid out as Graham Station on January 30, 1837, and the 1891 county review says the name was changed to Racine by act of the Legislature in 1852; no source says why Racine was chosen.

Before the town

No site-specific written record of a named Native American village, camp, or trail inside present Racine was found. The village sits on the Ohio River within the area that the Treaty of Greenville (1795) recognized as already ceded to the United States by the earlier treaties of Fort McIntosh (1785) and Fort Harmar (1789); the Ohio Valley here was hunting and travel ground for the Shawnee and other nations before removal. For county-wide Native American history.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1807 — George Wolfe came from the Shenandoah valley of Virginia to the bottom lands adjoining the present village about 1807 or 1808, and his sons John and Jacob followed in 1812, building two-story brick houses.
2. 1816 — Randall Stivers, a brickmaker, arrived at Graham's Station on a raft of pine lumber from Olean, New York, and worked there two years before moving on to the coal region.
3. 1822 — Lucius Cross arrives from Marietta and gives Graham Station (later Racine) new momentum, establishing a tannery, a flatboat-building business, a store, and a mill; the settlement grows to employ hundreds of area residents in milling, tanning, and river trade.
4. 1837-01-30 — Graham Station was laid out by P. Lallance, A. Lallance and John Wolf in seventy lots.
5. 1852 — The name Graham Station was changed to Racine, by act of the Legislature, according to the 1891 county review; no reason is given.
6. 1861 — A company of Home Guards was organized at Racine.
7. 1874 — Racine Lodge No. 580, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, was chartered.
8. 1891 — Racine, the so-called Paris of Meigs County, had two flouring mills and a woolen mill, two hotels, Baptist and Methodist churches and a graded school; Andrew Donnally had been the first postmaster.
9. 1964-1971 — The Racine Lock and Dam, the ninth lock and dam on the Ohio River, is built at a cost of about $64.9 million and opens for navigation; the dam also carries a 24-megawatt American Electric Power hydroelectric plant.
10. 1980 — Village population peaks at 908 residents.
11. 2020 — Census population is 683, up slightly from 675 in 2010 after a long decline from the 1980 peak.

Stories

The Paris of Meigs County

The settlement began as Graham Station, a post office on the Ohio, and was platted on January 30, 1837, by P. and A. Lallance and John Wolf in seventy lots. Lucius Cross came from Marietta in 1822 to lands of his own, started a tannery, built flatboats to send hay to the South, opened a store and built a mill on Bowman's Run for flour and sawing, giving work to hundreds of men. In 1852 the Legislature changed the name to Racine, and by 1891 the village claimed the title of the Paris of Meigs County: it had two flouring mills, a woolen mill, two hotels and a graded school, though much of the town flooded whenever the river rose. When the county seat was moved to Pomeroy, Racine raised $4,500 toward building the new courthouse, hoping for the seat itself, but was passed over. The Racine Lock and Dam, the ninth on the Ohio, was built at the village between 1964 and 1971.

Photographs

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

Mostly private wells The water here

• Racine Village94% of residentsGroundwater wells (5 wells)
• Syracuse Village6% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Community health centers (1)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (2)

Public libraries (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 6 of 6 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 4 of 4.

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.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-08-08

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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