Verona

How Verona began

Verona grew up around a railroad depot. When the Greenville and Miami Railway was built through the area in the early 1850s, the depot was placed on higher ground inside Preble County because the ground where the tracks crossed the county line was swampy. On June 21, 1853, J. Karr, R. Calhoun and two men recorded only as Reed and Leisure platted a village of fifty-three lots around the depot and named it Verona; the railway kept calling its stop West Baltimore and both names stayed in use until the post office moved to the Verona side on December 5, 1899. Verona was incorporated as a village in 1911. It lies partly in Preble and partly in Montgomery County, and its population peaked at 593 in 1970 and was 403 at the 2020 census.

Platted 1853-06-21, incorporated 1911, by J. Karr, R. Calhoun, Reed and Leisure.

Where the name comes from

The village's founders named their 1853 plat Verona; the Greenville and Miami Railway, which had already named the adjacent depot West Baltimore, refused to adopt the new name, and the two names coexisted for over four decades until the post office moved to the Verona side in 1899.

Before the town

No mound, village, trail or treaty site specific to Verona is recorded.

Nations recorded here: Miami, Shawnee.

Timeline

1. 1850 — The United Brethren organize a society in Verona about this year, meeting in the cooper shop; in 1855 they build a brick church just east of the county line on land donated by Peter Snyder, a Baptist, with Rev. Downey as pastor.
2. 1852 — A rival village, West Baltimore, was already platted just across the county line in Montgomery County as the Greenville and Miami Railway approached.
3. 1853-06-21 — J. Karr, R. Calhoun, Reed and Leisure platted a 53-lot village on the Preble County side of the new railroad depot and named it Verona; the railway kept the depot's existing name, West Baltimore.
4. 1864 — David Werts and two or three others move the Werts grist mill from Pyrmont to Verona, the community turning out with wagons and teams so that the village should have a mill; Perry Werts's family has owned it since 1890.
5. 1880 — Verona's population was recorded at 221.
6. 1881 — Verona, 'or West Baltimore, as it is more commonly called,' has about 275 inhabitants on the Dayton and Union railroad, and the business of David Werts, with interests in the sawmill and store, is the largest in the township.
7. 1882 — The townspeople build a two-room brick schoolhouse; until then the children had attended the township school about a mile west of the village.
8. 1883 — The Methodist Episcopal church is organized with twelve members, after a petition begun by William Frye, and builds a frame church at the west edge of town on the east bank of Swamp Creek at a cost of about $1,600, much of the work donated by the members.
9. 1892 — Knights of Pythias Lodge No. 544 is organized February 22 with twenty-seven charter members and P. D. Werts as first chancellor commander; it builds its own two-story frame hall in 1909 at about $5,000.
10. 1899-12-05 — The post office serving the depot relocated to the Verona side, ending decades of dual naming.
11. 1905 — Verona Grange No. 1630 is organized April 1 with sixteen charter members and D. E. Hoffman as first master, after the Junior Order of United American Mechanics lodge No. 151 had formed in 1902 in Shivadecker's blacksmith shop.
12. 1906 — The United Brethren build their present brick church at a cost of about $4,500, after a parsonage in 1904; the congregation numbers about 220 with a Sunday school of over 300.
13. 1911 — Verona is incorporated as a village, the latest incorporated in Preble County, with about five hundred people and E. M. McGriff as first mayor; it is served by the Dayton and Union railroad and the Dayton and Greenville interurban line.
14. 1915 — Verona has a bank, five tobacco warehouses, a grain elevator, a mill, a hotel and about two dozen shops, is installing street and commercial electric lights bought from Greenville, and plans to pave Main Street, three-quarters of a mile long, with bituminous macadam.
15. 1950 — The census counts 426 residents, up from 346 in 1940.
16. 1970 — Verona's population peaked at 593.
17. 2020 — Verona's population stood at 403, an 18.4 percent decline from 2010.

Stories

Why the depot had two names for forty-six years

When the Greenville and Miami Railway was built through the area in the early 1850s, the depot was placed farther northwest on higher ground, inside Preble County, because the ground where the railway crossed the county line was swampy. J. Karr, R. Calhoun, Reed and Leisure (the last two recorded only by surname) laid out a village of fifty-three lots around the depot on June 21, 1853 and named it Verona. The railway had already named the depot West Baltimore and refused to change it to Verona, and the Railway Express Company allowed both names when it opened an office there. The post office moved to the Verona side on December 5, 1899.

The mill that came by wagon

In 1864 the people of Verona, then still mostly called West Baltimore, decided they ought to have a grist mill of their own. David Werts and two or three other men bought the mill at Pyrmont and had it moved to Verona, and the 1915 county history says the people of the community turned out with wagons and teams to help haul it. It stood in town for the next half-century, passing in 1890 to Perry Werts, the son, whose family still owned it when the history was written. By then it had a capacity of fifty barrels, had been converted to steam, and was having electricity installed as its motive power. Werts was also the village's leading business family: David had the store and sawmill that made his business the largest in the township in 1881, and P. D. Werts was first chancellor commander of the Knights of Pythias lodge.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · sites.google.com · villageofverona.com · archive.org · archive.org

Groundwater wells (3 wells) The water here

• Verona, Village Of93% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Lewisburg Village7% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (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, 2022 to 2023, released 2025-06-05

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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