Toronto

How Toronto began

Toronto began as Newburg's Landing, platted on land Revolutionary War veteran and Indian scout Michael Myers Sr. received as an 1787 federal land grant and later sold to John Depuy, who laid out the town. When the Cleveland-Pittsburgh Railroad reached the settlement in 1856, it was renamed Sloane's Station for William B. Sloane, who had donated the land for the depot. Village voters chose a third name, Toronto, in 1881 at the suggestion of pioneer manufacturer Thomas M. Daniels and W. F. Dunsbaugh, a native of the Canadian city, and after 1880 the village grew rapidly on sewer pipe, terra cotta and fire-and-paving-brick manufacturing. Toronto incorporated as a city in 1931 and later became home to Titanium Metals Corporation of America (TIMET), the world's largest titanium metal supplier; its population peaked at 7,426 in 1940 and had fallen to 5,303 by the 2020 census.

Settled 1787 (Michael Myers Sr.'s land grant), platted as Newburg's Landing, date not precisely given in sources reviewed, incorporated 1881 (village, as Toronto); 1931 (city), by John Depuy (platting); renamed by vote of village residents in 1881.

Where the name comes from

First platted as Newburg's Landing; renamed Sloane's Station in 1856 in gratitude to William B. Sloane for donating land for the new railroad depot (Newburg was already in use for another station on the line); renamed a third time in 1881 to Toronto, at the suggestion of manufacturer Thomas M. Daniels and Toronto, Ontario native W. F. Dunsbaugh, after the Canadian city.

Before the town

No source reviewed names a specific Native American village, mound or documented encounter within present Toronto. The town's founding land was itself a federal grant to Michael Myers Sr., a Revolutionary War veteran who had served as an Indian scout -- one of several such veteran land grants across Jefferson County made shortly after Native title to the area was extinguished by the Treaty of Greenville (1795). This stretch of the Ohio River also has a broader Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga) history.

Nations recorded here: Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga), Lenape (Delaware), Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1787 — Michael Myers Sr., a Revolutionary War veteran and Indian scout, receives fractional section 25 of Township 4, Range 1 as a federal land grant; he and his brother later sell the tract to John Depuy, who lays out the town of Newburg's Landing on it.
2. 1856 — The Cleveland-Pittsburgh Railroad reaches the village; grateful for William B. Sloane's donation of land for the depot, and because a Newburg already existed on the line, residents rename the town Sloane's Station.
3. 1881 — The village incorporates under the name Toronto, chosen at the suggestion of manufacturer Thomas M. Daniels and Toronto, Ontario native W. F. Dunsbaugh.
4. 1880-1900 — Sewer pipe, terra cotta, and fire-and-paving-brick manufacturing drive rapid village growth after 1880.
5. 1919 — Sculptor Giuseppe Moretti's Toronto World War I Monument -- a classical Liberty figure flanked by a soldier and sailor -- is dedicated November 11 in a park at Third and Market Streets.
6. 1931 — Toronto incorporates as a city; Harold Smith becomes its first mayor and, at the time, the youngest mayor in Ohio.
7. 1940 — Toronto's population peaks at about 7,426.
8. 1957 — Titanium Metals Corporation of America (TIMET) arrives in Toronto, following Hancock Manufacturing (1945), as the older sewer-pipe, terra cotta, brick, glass and clay industries decline.
9. 2004 — The 1919 World War I monument is restored and rededicated as the Veterans Victory Pavilion by the Toronto Beautification Committee, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 24.

Stories

A town renamed twice before it found its name

Toronto, Ohio carried two earlier names before the one that stuck. The land was first a federal grant to Michael Myers Sr., a Revolutionary War veteran who had served as an Indian scout, and passed through his brother's hands to John Depuy, who platted a town called Newburg's Landing. When the Cleveland-Pittsburgh Railroad arrived in 1856, the settlement renamed itself Sloane's Station in gratitude to William B. Sloane, who had donated the depot land -- there was already a Newburg elsewhere on the line, forcing the change. The name that finally stuck came in 1881, not from any local feature but from admiration: manufacturer Thomas M. Daniels and W. F. Dunsbaugh, a Toronto, Ontario native living in the village, proposed naming their growing industrial town after the Canadian city, and residents agreed, making Ohio's Toronto one of only two incorporated cities in the world carrying that name.

From fire brick to titanium

Toronto's economy turned over completely twice in less than a century. After 1880 the village grew on sewer pipe, terra cotta, and fire-and-paving-brick works, drawing on the same Ohio Valley clay and coal that built Steubenville's pottery industry a few miles upstream. By the mid-twentieth century that older clay-products economy was fading, and in 1945 Hancock Manufacturing arrived, followed in 1957 by Titanium Metals Corporation of America (TIMET), which became the world's largest supplier of titanium metal and Toronto's dominant modern employer -- a complete industrial reinvention on the same riverfront ground.

Photographs

Local history sources: torontooh.gov · en.wikipedia.org · docsteach.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Every historic place in Jefferson County on the full map

Ohio River intake serving the city's water treatment plant on the riverfront in Toronto The water here

• Toronto76% of residentsOhio River
• Jefferson Co. W and S District - M24% of residentsOhio River

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (3)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Superfund sites (2)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2021: 2 of 2 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 1 of 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 Health Indicators (the Auditor of State's 17 measures; critical / cautionary / positive): 2020 1 / 4 / 12; 2021 2 / 4 / 11; 2022 1 / 2 / 14; 2023 0 / 2 / 15; 2024 2 / 1 / 13; 2025 0 / 1 / 15.
• Financial Audit, 2023, released 2025-02-20

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.

Cite this page