Rio Grande

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How Rio Grande began

Rio Grande, formally established July 6, 1874 in Raccoon Township, grew out of a Welsh immigrant community that began settling the area in 1818 and swelled with more than 3,000 arrivals from Welsh parishes during the 1830s and 1840s; its name, oddly for a village founded by Welsh farmers, commemorates the Mexican-American War. A Free Will Baptist minister's fundraising drive led local benefactors Nehemiah and Permelia Atwood to endow Rio Grande College in 1876, which has grown into the University of Rio Grande and Rio Grande Community College on a 190-acre campus. The village is also the birthplace of Bob Evans Restaurants, founded a few miles away on the Wood family farm in 1953.

Settled 1818 (Welsh settlement of the surrounding area begins), incorporated 1874-07-06, by Welsh immigrant farming families.

Where the name comes from

The village's name commemorates the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), though it is pronounced locally "Rye-O Grand" rather than with the traditional Spanish pronunciation. No source found explains why a Welsh farming community chose to commemorate that war specifically in its name.

Before the town

No source found records a Native village, mound, trail, or treaty event specific to the Rio Grande area. The village lies within Gallia County's broader Shawnee homeland of the pre-1795 Ohio River valley.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1818 — Welsh immigrants begin settling the area around what became Rio Grande.
2. 1830s-1840s — Over 3,000 additional Welsh immigrants arrive from parishes including Tregaron and Ceredigion, cementing the area's lasting Welsh heritage; the village's flag today is identical to the flag of Wales with the village name and founding year added.
3. 1874-07-06 — The village of Rio Grande is formally established.
4. 1876-09-13 — Rio Grande College is established after Free Will Baptist minister Ira Haning persuades Nehemiah and Permelia Atwood to endow it with land and funding; Ransom Dunn serves as its first president.
5. 1953 — Bob and Jewell Evans buy the nearby Wood family farm, where Bob's homemade sausage grows into Bob Evans Farms, Inc.
6. 1989 — Rio Grande College becomes the University of Rio Grande, operating alongside Rio Grande Community College as a combined private-and-public institution.
7. 2020 — Rio Grande records a census population of 724, down from a 1990 peak of 995.

Stories

A Free Will Baptist minister builds a college in a Welsh farm town

By the 1870s, Rio Grande had grown into a settled Welsh farming community, its families still generations removed from the 1818 and 1830s-40s waves of immigrants who first cleared the land. Ira Haning, a local Free Will Baptist minister, believed the area needed a college and spent years pressing the case to anyone who would listen. He found his benefactors in Nehemiah and Permelia Atwood, a prosperous local couple; when Nehemiah died in 1869, Permelia carried the project forward alone, deeding 10 acres of land and establishing an endowment that let the college open on September 13, 1876, with Ransom Dunn serving as its first president and professor of mental and moral philosophy. Rio Grande College stayed a small denominational school for over a century before restructuring in 1989 into the University of Rio Grande, paired with the public Rio Grande Community College sharing the same 190-acre campus -- an unusual hybrid arrangement that still serves roughly 2,300 students from a village whose own population has never topped 1,000.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · bobevansgrocery.com · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org

Ten active wells drawing from the shallow Ohio River valley buried aquifer near Gallipolis in Addison Township The water here

• Rio Grande99% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (10 wells, Gallipolis/Addison Twp.)
• Gallipolis1% of residentsGroundwater wells (6 wells)
• Gallia Co. Rural Water Association0% of residentsOhio River Valley Aquifer (10 wells, Gallipolis/Addison Twp.)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Colleges (1)

High-hazard dams (1)

Public schools (1)

Museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos (1)

Police stations (2)

Public EV charging (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 Audit, 2021 to 2022, released 2024-09-17

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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