Local events in Rutland
Nothing is posted for Rutland itself yet; here is what is on within 20 miles. All local events in Rutland
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Checked October 20; the events page is refreshed daily.
How Rutland began
Rutland is a small village in a wide valley along Little Leading Creek in western Meigs County, first settled in 1799 by Brewster Higley IV; by the village's own account, early settlers from Rutland, Massachusetts and Rutland, Vermont named the settlement and the surrounding township (organized 1812) for their home towns. The village itself was surveyed and platted in 1828 by Samuel Halliday and incorporated in 1913 after 73 residents petitioned for village status. It is best known as the birthplace, in 1823, of Dr. Brewster Higley VI, grandson of the founder, whose 1870s poem 'My Western Home,' written after he moved to Kansas, became the lyrics of 'Home on the Range.' The village had 427 residents at the 2020 census.
Settled 1799, platted 1828, incorporated 1913, by Brewster Higley IV (1799 settlement); surveyed and platted by Samuel Halliday (1828).
Where the name comes from
By the village's own account, the settlement and township were named for the home towns of early settlers from Rutland, Massachusetts and Rutland, Vermont; Larkin's county history instead records the settlers of 1803 as coming from Granby, Connecticut. Rutland Township was organized in 1812 out of Salisbury Township, then part of Gallia County, before becoming part of the new Meigs County in 1819.
Before the town
No site-specific written record of a named Native American village, camp, or trail inside present Rutland was found. The area lies in southeastern Ohio, within the region 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), four years before the first American settlers arrived in 1799. For county-wide Native American history.
Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Wyandot.
Timeline
- — Brewster Higley IV makes the first American settlement in what becomes Rutland Township.
- — Rutland Township is organized, partitioned out of Salisbury Township, then part of Gallia County.
- — Rutland Township becomes part of the newly formed Meigs County.
- — Dr. Brewster Higley VI, grandson of the township's founder, is born in Rutland.
- — The village of Rutland is surveyed and platted by Samuel Halliday.
- — Brewster Higley VI, by then relocated to Smith County, Kansas, writes the poem 'My Western Home,' published in the Smith County Pioneer in 1873; it later becomes the lyrics of 'Home on the Range.'
- — Rutland incorporates as a village after 73 residents petition for incorporation; the first slate of officials includes a mayor, clerk, treasurer, marshal, and six-member council.
- — Rutland High School opens, replacing the area's one-room schoolhouses.
- — Village population reaches 687, its highest recorded census count.
- — Forest Run United Methodist Church, a Gothic Revival brick church still standing at 341 Main Street (State Route 124), is built in Rutland.
- — Rutland's schools consolidate with Middleport and Pomeroy to form Meigs Local School District.
Stories
The doctor who wrote 'Home on the Range'
Rutland's best-known son was born there on November 30, 1823, the grandson of the man who had founded the settlement a generation earlier. Dr. Brewster Higley VI trained in medicine at La Porte Medical College in Indiana, graduated in 1849, and for years practiced in Ohio and Indiana, including a stint in nearby Pomeroy, before family troubles and a taste for fresh starts sent him west. In 1871 he left a difficult marriage and moved to Smith County, Kansas, to take up a homestead claim, and it was there, around 1871 or 1872, that he wrote a poem about the life he saw around him on the prairie, titled 'My Western Home.' It was published in the Smith County Pioneer in the fall of 1873 and eventually set to music; retitled 'Home on the Range,' it became one of the best-known folk songs in the country and was adopted as the official Kansas state song in 1947. Higley, who married five times over his life, died in Shawnee, Oklahoma, in 1911, far from the Meigs County valley where he was born, but the village still traces its most famous story back to that birth.
Photographs
Photo: Nyttend, public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Tim Kiser (Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Local history sources: archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · sites.google.com · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · lccdwater.com · en.wikipedia.org
Water
Groundwater wells (4 wells) The water here
- Leading Creek Conservancy District84% of residentsGroundwater wells (4 wells)
- Middleport Village16% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
Hospitals, fire stations and more
Inside Rutland's boundary: 1 fire or EMS station and 2 spill cases. Press a pin or a name for its whole record and its source.
Fire and EMS stations (1)
-
Rutland Fire DepartmentRutland
- Address
- 22 Larkin Street, Rutland, OH 45775
- Coordinates
- 39.04501, -82.13115
USGS National Map structures (source) ↗ Street map and directions ↗
Source: USGS National Map structures (most Ohio records last updated 2019 to 2022), checked against the Columbus and Cleveland station lists. The department that answers a call is set by jurisdiction and mutual aid, not by distance.
Spills reported since 2021 (2)
-
Oil Crude Reached water2022-11-23 · Rutland
- Reported
- 2022-11-23
- What spilled
- Oil Crude
- Reached a waterway
- Leading Creek
- Where
- Rutland, Meigs County
- Ohio EPA district office
- SEDO
- Ohio EPA case number
- 2211EPA0001741
Ohio EPA spill reports (source) ↗ Street map and directions ↗
-
Wet Gas / Natural Gas Liquid(S)2026-07-16 · Rutland
- Reported
- 2026-07-16
- What spilled
- Wet Gas / Natural Gas Liquid(S)
- Where
- Rutland, Meigs County
- Ohio EPA district office
- SEDO
- Ohio EPA case number
- 2607EPA0001297
Ohio EPA spill reports (source) ↗ Street map and directions ↗
Source: Ohio EPA emergency response spill reports, 2021 to September 2026, one point per case where Ohio EPA placed it. A report is what the caller or responder recorded; amounts are often blank or estimated.
Its ZIP codes
Each ZIP code that touches Rutland, with the share of its residents who live here and the same headline figures as the ZIP page.
| ZIP | Share | Water | Radon | Home value | Schools | Flood |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45775 Rutland Township and Rutland | 24% | Groundwater wells (4 wells) | Too few radon tests | No homes in the parcel records | Meigs Local · 2.5 stars overall | 7.6% of residents in the 1% floodplain |
| 45760 Middleport | 3% | Municipal wellfield of three wells feeding the village's water treatment plant (recorded by EPA as WTP 2 and WTP 3 units at one site) | Too few radon tests | Median year built 1982 | Meigs Local · 2.5 stars overall | 46% of residents in the 1% floodplain |
Local government
Who holds office in Rutland, how its elections and ballot issues came out, and the state auditor's record.
Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 4 of 4 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 1.
Ballot issues
| Date | Issue | For | Against | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-05-05 | Issue: Electric Aggregation - Rutland Village | 34 | 55 | Failed (38.2% for), unofficial |
| 2021-11-02 | Issue: Rutland Village Additional Current Exp. Levy - 2mills/5yrs (2.0 mills, additional) | 50 | 46 | Passed (52.08% for) |
| 2020-11-03 | Issue: Proposed Tax Levy - Renewal - Rutland Village - Police protection - 2 mill. 5 years (2.0 mills, renewal) | 138 | 64 | Passed (68.32% for) |
| 2020-11-03 | Issue: Proposed Tax Levy - Renewal - Rutland Village - Current expenses - 2 mill. 5 years (2.0 mills, renewal) | 125 | 68 | Passed (64.77% for) |
| 2020-11-03 | Issue: Local Liquor Option - Rutland Village - Sales - Fox's Pizza | 128 | 78 | Passed (62.14% for) |
| 2020-11-03 | Issue: Local Liquor Option - Rutland Village - Sunday sales - Fox's Pizza | 108 | 97 | Passed (52.68% for) |
| 2019-11-05 | Issue: Rutland Village Add 0.2 Mill General Op Ex (0.2 mills) | 69 | 59 | Passed (53.91% for) |
Elections for office
| Date | Office | Candidates and votes |
|---|---|---|
| 2021-11-02 | Member of Council | Kimberly Willford 83, 100.0% |
| 2019-11-05 | Mayor | Michael Biggs 35, 27.56%; Tyler M. Eblin 66, 51.97%; Jack W. Peterson 26, 20.47% |
| 2019-11-05 | Council | Clifford J. Kennedy 109, 100.0% |
| 2019-11-05 | Council | Stephanie Biggs 59, 28.78%; Stephen Jenkins 64, 31.22%; Duane Weber 82, 40.0% |
Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.
Auditor of State record
- Fiscal emergency: declared 2022-03-29, still in effect. source
- Financial Audit, 2021 to 2022, released 2024-07-23
The county
Meigs County: 12 ZIP codes, 16 cities, villages and townships, 20,189 people.
Nearby places
Rain and snow
How much has actually fallen on Rutland, day by day, from 1890 to now. Daily totals, not averages.
- rain, last 30 days
- 1.30 in
- 2026-09-30 to 2026-10-29
- rain so far in 2026
- 45.3 in
- 8.3 in above normal for the date
- snow so far in 2026
- 14.6 in
- a normal year brings 16.5 in
- a normal year
- 43.8 in
- average of 30 years, 1991-2020
| Month | Rain (in) | Snow (in) | Days counted |
|---|---|---|---|
| October 2026 | 1.30 | — | 29 |
| September 2026 | 9.82 | — | 30 |
| August 2026 | 9.00 | — | 31 |
| July 2026 | 3.62 | — | 31 |
| June 2026 | 4.89 | — | 30 |
| May 2026 | 5.92 | — | 31 |
| April 2026 | 2.23 | — | 30 |
| March 2026 | 5.45 | 3.2 | 31 |
| February 2026 | 0.92 | 4.9 | 28 |
| January 2026 | 2.13 | 6.5 | 31 |
| December 2025 | 1.79 | 8.0 | 31 |
| November 2025 | 3.04 | 0.6 | 30 |
| Wettest year | 1890 — 63.1 in |
|---|---|
| Driest year | 1930 — 24.9 in |
| Snowiest year | 1910 — 49.1 in |
| Wettest day on record | 9 September 2004 — 4.41 in |
| Heaviest snowfall in a day | 17 January 1994 — 15.11 in |
| Deepest snow on the ground | 27 November 1950 — 19.99 in |
Estimated, not measured. No rain gauge has ever stood inside Rutland, so every figure here is worked out from the gauges around it - the nearest ones weighted most. Treat them as close estimates rather than readings.
49,846 days of records, 1890-01-01 to 2026-10-29. Source: NOAA NCEI GHCN-Daily, 3,240 gauges in and around Ohio. A day is "gauged" when a gauge standing inside the boundary reported it, and the value is the mean of those gauges. Otherwise it is interpolated by inverse distance from every gauge reporting within 50 miles. Nothing is carried forward, back-filled or smoothed. Against NOAA nClimDiv county monthly precipitation over 136,848 complete county-months (checked 2026-10-31): correlation 0.9515, median absolute difference 0.217 in a month. Built 2026-10-31 from the Cracked Buckeye precipitation archive. Snow is the softer number — snowfall is measured by hand with a ruler, no agency publishes a gridded county snowfall series, and blowing snow defeats every observer.
Quick answers
What county is Rutland, Ohio in?
Rutland is a village in Meigs County, Ohio, with 427 residents.
When was Rutland, Ohio founded?
Rutland was settled 1799; laid out 1828; incorporated 1913. Founders on record: Brewster Higley IV (1799 settlement); surveyed and platted by Samuel Halliday (1828). Source
How did Rutland, Ohio get its name?
By the village's own account, the settlement and township were named for the home towns of early settlers from Rutland, Massachusetts and Rutland, Vermont; Larkin's county history instead records the settlers of 1803 as coming from Granby, Connecticut. Source
What ZIP code is Rutland, Ohio?
Rutland is served by ZIP codes 45775 and 45760; 45775 holds the largest share of its residents.
Where does Rutland, Ohio get its water?
The main water source for Rutland (Leading Creek Conservancy District): Groundwater wells (4 wells).
Cite this page
Cite this page as:
Cracked Buckeye, "Rutland, Meigs County", https://crackedbuckeye.com/place/rutland/, built 2026-10-31, accessed [date].
How to cite · Report a correction · Built 2026-10-31
