Yorkville

How Yorkville began

Yorkville grew up as a coal-mining community on the Ohio River in Warren Township, a mile below Tiltonville, where the 1880 county history records the New York Coal Company working a six-foot upland seam and a seven-foot vein and the 1910 county history records the Ohio & Pennsylvania Coal Company's mine producing 700 tons a day. A post office opened under the Yorkville name in 1867. In 1910 Doyle still called it 'a small hamlet'; the village reached 1,754 in the 1920 census and peaked at 1,963 in 1930. It straddles the Jefferson-Belmont county line and had 968 residents in 2020.

Settled coal-era settlement, date not found; a post office was open by 1867, incorporated date not found; a 'small hamlet' in 1910, counted as a place in the 1920 census, by not named in sources reviewed.

Where the name comes from

Name origin not stated in the sources consulted; the New York Coal Company's presence in the village makes a connection between the company name and the village name plausible but unconfirmed.

Before the town

No source names a Native village, mound or encounter within Yorkville itself, but its township, Warren, has the best-documented Native history in the county. The 1880 county history says the township 'bears traces of once being the home of the mound builders' and has several small, very beautiful mounds; the 1910 county history says the Ohio bottoms were thickly inhabited in prehistoric times, with abundant relics and numerous mounds on the river bottom, and that a plat named Highland City was laid out on November 10, 1890 just above Tiltonville beside a large prehistoric mound. Documented encounters in the township include John Carpenter's cabin of 1781, enlarged into a fort above the mouth of Short Creek, the killing of a boy, Jack Tilton, and four Indians killed above Portland around 1800; Joseph Tilton, an Indian trader, remembered Indians living in the neighborhood 'in large numbers'.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware).

• Large prehistoric mound near Highland City (mound) — Just above Tiltonville, Warren Township, about a mile above Yorkville; plat of Highland City laid out November 10, 1890 beside it, prehistoric; period not given (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1867 — A post office opens under the name Yorkville.
2. 1880 — The New York Coal Company operates mines at Yorkville working a six-foot upland coal seam and a deeper seven-foot seam 'equal to coke', producing 10,000 to 20,000 bushels of coal daily; coke is also made in the township.
3. 1906 — Warrenton drops out of the Tiltonville Methodist circuit, which now comprises Tiltonville, Hopewell, Rush Run and Yorkville.
4. c. 1910 — The mine of the Ohio & Pennsylvania Coal Company at Yorkville has a capacity of 700 tons of run-of-mine and 400 tons of screened coal a day.
5. 1910 — The county history calls Yorkville 'a small hamlet about a mile below Tiltonville, which has grown up about the mines'; George W. Tilton, born on Deep Run in 1851, keeps a general store there.
6. 1920 — The census counts 1,754 people in Yorkville.
7. 1930 — Village population peaks at 1,963.
8. 1950 — The census counts 1,854, after 1,961 in 1940.
9. 1970 — Population is 1,656, falling to 1,447 in 1980 and 1,246 in 1990.
10. 2000 — Population is 1,230, falling to 1,079 in 2010.
11. 2020 — The census counts 968 residents.

Stories

Coal under Warren Township

The Jefferson County history of 1880 describes Warren Township as lying over a seven-foot vein of coal that the author said some manufacturers rated equal to coke, with a six-foot seam in the uplands above it. The New York Coal Company worked the Yorkville mines near the Jefferson and Belmont county lines and took out 10,000 to 20,000 bushels a day; at the mouth of Rush Run the seven-foot seam was mined by a shaft about 200 feet deep, and coke was made in the township. By 1910 the Ohio & Pennsylvania Coal Company had a mine at Yorkville that could produce 700 tons of run-of-mine and 400 tons of screened coal a day, and the town had grown up around it.

Joseph Tilton's log house on watch

Yorkville sits a mile from Tiltonville, named for the Tilton family, who settled on its site in the 1780s. George Wilson Tilton, who ran a general store at Yorkville in 1910, told the county historian that his grandfather Joseph Tilton, an Indian trader and farmer who died in 1860 aged 93, owned a section running from Deep Run to Tiltonville. He and his wife were often obliged to take turns at night, watching through holes in the sides of the old log house for the Indians, who then lived in this locality in large numbers and were unfriendly. He died in 1860 in the old log house. A boy named Jack Tilton, about fourteen, was killed by Indians, and his body was found on the bank of Short Creek.

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · archive.org

Groundwater wells (2 wells) The water here

• Yorkville Village100% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Facilities reporting toxic releases (2)

Spills reported since 2021 (1)

Money issues on the ballot since 2017: 11 of 12 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 Audit, 2021 to 2022, released 2024-09-10
• Special Audit, 2016 to 2021, released 2024-08-06

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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