West Lafayette

How West Lafayette began

West Lafayette was laid out in 1850 by Robert Shaw and William Wheeler on the north bank of the Tuscarawas River in Lafayette Township, and grew fast after the Steubenville and Indiana Railroad (later the Pennsylvania Railroad's Panhandle Route) reached it in 1855. In the early 1900s it became known as the "Enamel Center of the World" on the strength of three enamelware plants: Lafayette Stamping and Enameling Co. (1903), Moore Enameling, and Jones Metal. On September 11, 1950 a troop train carrying the Pennsylvania National Guard's 109th Field Artillery Battalion collided with the Spirit of St. Louis passenger train at the edge of the village, killing 33 soldiers, one of the worst rail disasters in Ohio history. The village, whose National Register houses actually sit in the surrounding township rather than inside its limits, was not separately incorporated until 2016 in Census records even though it had operated as a village for well over a century.

Platted 1850, by Robert Shaw and William Wheeler.

Where the name comes from

The village and its township are named, like many places platted in the years after his 1824-25 farewell tour of the United States, for Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette; Lafayette Township itself was renamed in his honor at its 1835 organization, the year after his death, and the village founded on its river bank in 1850 took the same name with 'West' distinguishing it from other Lafayettes.

Before the town

No village-specific Native American sites or events are recorded for West Lafayette; the 1850 town site was platted on land that had already passed out of Native hands by the 1785-1808 treaty cessions covering this part of the Muskingum-Tuscarawas valley. The broader township (see T41132-COS) and Coshocton County's own file carry what is documented for this stretch of the Tuscarawas valley, including the Delaware capital of Goschachgunk a few miles downstream at present-day Coshocton.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware).

Timeline

1. 1850 — Robert Shaw and William Wheeler lay out the village of West Lafayette on 13 lots along Main Street on the Tuscarawas River.
2. 1855 — The Steubenville and Indiana Railroad is built through the new town, later folded into the Pennsylvania Railroad's Panhandle Route.
3. 1903 — Lafayette Stamping and Enameling Co. is founded, the first of three enamelware plants that earned the village the nickname 'Enamel Center of the World.'
4. 1950 — On September 11 the Spirit of St. Louis passenger train collides with a troop train carrying the Pennsylvania National Guard's 109th Field Artillery Battalion at West Lafayette, killing 33 soldiers.
5. 1950 — The West Lafayette Homecoming is established; it continues today as the Hometown Festival.
6. 1990 — A memorial with a 105mm howitzer is dedicated at the 1950 train-wreck site, also recalling the shells Moore Enamelling made in the village during World War II.
7. 2021 — A city of Coshocton waterline expansion is extended to serve West Lafayette.

Stories

The Spirit of St. Louis wreck

On the night of September 11, 1950, a special troop train was carrying men of the Pennsylvania National Guard's 109th Field Artillery Battalion east toward federal duty in the Korean War buildup. Near West Lafayette it collided with the eastbound Spirit of St. Louis, one of the Pennsylvania Railroad's named passenger trains, on the Panhandle line that had run through the village since 1855. Thirty-three soldiers were killed, making it one of the deadliest train wrecks in Ohio's history and a defining tragedy for a village of only a few thousand people. Forty years later, in 1990, the village dedicated a memorial at the site, topped with a 105mm howitzer that also nodded to the village's own World War II industry: Moore Enamelling had turned out shells for the war effort a few years before. The wreck and the memorial are still the story most West Lafayette residents point to when asked what put the village on the map.

The Enamel Center of the World

West Lafayette's small-town skyline was shaped for most of the twentieth century by enamelware. Lafayette Stamping and Enameling Co. opened in 1903, followed by Moore Enameling and by Jones Metal, and between them the three plants stamped and fired enough pots, pans, and sinks that the village earned the nickname 'Enamel Center of the World.' The industry gave the village its payroll through the Depression and both World Wars, with Moore's wartime work turning to munitions casings in the 1940s. The population figures trace the arc: from 250 residents in 1880 to a peak growth decade between 1970 and 1980, when the village grew 29.4 percent, before enamelware manufacturing nationally contracted in the later twentieth century.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Millers Acres Home Owner Association100% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)

Nursing homes (1)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (3)

Public libraries (1)

Police stations (1)

Superfund sites (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2019: 1 of 1 passed.

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, 2023 to 2024, released 2025-07-01

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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