ZIP code 43055: Newark

Drinking-water compliance

A health-based violation is a contaminant above its limit or a treatment rule not followed; monitoring, reporting and public-notice violations are paperwork. Lead is the 90th-percentile result across sampled homes, not a reading at any one tap.

Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (Envirofacts, pulled September 2026), violations and lead and copper sampling for the system that serves most of this ZIP · EPA SDWIS (Envirofacts) · EPA ECHO

Byproducts and contaminants

TTHM

35.8 µg/L yearly mean in 2019, the last year in the file (limit 80); worst yearly mean 58.3, highest single sample 119; 134 samples from 2012 to 2019

HAA5

12.7 µg/L yearly mean in the last year sampled (limit 60); worst yearly mean 25, highest sample 58.4; 132 samples

Nitrate

highest of 96 samples was 4.2 mg/L as nitrogen (2015; limit 10); 2.33 in 2019, the last year sampled. Nitrate above 10 is unsafe for infants

Arsenic

not detected in 8 samples (limit 10)

Solvents and fuels

benzene, carbon tetrachloride, 1,2-dichloroethane, trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, vinyl chloride not detected in 8 samples

Bacteria

3 of 5,093 routine tap samples (0.06%) tested positive for total coliform in 2012 to 2019, 0 of 693 in 2019; E. coli never found in the 9 tap samples tested for it. Coliform itself is a warning sign; E. coli means sewage or manure reached the water

Farm chemicals

atrazine in 11 of 27 samples, highest 6.65 µg/L (limit 3, 1 over); alachlor not detected in 27 samples

Metals

barium in 3 of 8 samples, highest 10.6 µg/L (limit 2,000); not detected: chromium in 10 samples, cadmium in 10 samples, mercury in 8 samples, selenium in 8 samples, thallium in 8 samples

EPA's file stops at 2019; Ohio EPA's Drinking Water Watch has newer results. Byproducts are judged on running yearly averages at each sampling site, so one high sample is not a violation. Nitrate and arsenic are measured where water enters the pipes.

Source: EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019 (TTHM, HAA5 and coliform from distribution-system samples of Newark City; nitrate, arsenic, radionuclides, solvents, herbicides and metals from the entry points of the same system); non-detects counted as zero

PFAS

UCMR 5

5 samples in 2023 to 2025 at the entry point to the distribution system: PFBA 9.5 ng/L

Ohio EPA 2020

1 plant tested (latest 2019-12): nothing detected for the six PFAS tested

Ohio EPA latest

1 plant sampled by Ohio EPA, most recently 2026-08 (Ohio EPA statewide sampling status map)

Firefighting foam: 4 fire departments or other holders in Licking County registered 1,455 gallons of PFAS-based AFFF foam with Ohio EPA, 790 gallons in opened containers; the state is collecting it for disposal so it is never sprayed again.

Lithium: not detected in 4 UCMR 5 samples at Newark City (the method reports from 9 µg/L). Lithium is unregulated; EPA's draft health reference level is 10 µg/L, and it occurs naturally in deep groundwater, so well systems in the northwest run highest.

PFAS are the forever chemicals from firefighting foam, plating shops and non-stick coatings. One sample above 4 ng/L is not a violation; compliance is judged on running annual averages, and systems are adding carbon filters ahead of the 2029 deadline. Results are for water leaving the plant, not your tap.

Source: EPA UCMR 5 occurrence data (final release, August 2026) and Ohio EPA statewide PFAS sampling 2019 to 2021 and its current status map, for the system that serves most of this ZIP; EPA SDWIS record OH4502314; results in nanograms per litre (parts per trillion) · Ohio EPA PFAS

Lead at the tap

Latest period

0 ppb in the sampling period ending 2023-12

Record

3 sampling periods since 2016, none above 10 ppb

Service lines

19,046 inventoried: 3 lead, 4,103 galvanized needing replacement, 2,789 unknown, 12,151 not lead (reported all required service line types)

Children: the Ohio Department of Health lists this ZIP as high-risk for childhood lead exposure, mostly from old paint and soil, so every child living here should get a blood lead test at ages 1 and 2 (Medicaid covers it, and doctors are required to order it).

Housing age: 43% of the homes here were built before 1960 and 25% before 1940, when lead service lines, lead solder and lead paint were common; 69% predate 1980 (Census ACS 2020 to 2024).

Systems sample taps in the homes most likely to have lead pipes or solder; the 90th-percentile figure means nine in ten sampled homes were at or below it. Lead comes from the service line and the house plumbing, not the source water, so a low system result does not clear an old house. The action level drops from 15 to 10 ppb in 2027, and every lead line must be replaced within ten years of that.

Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System lead and copper 90th-percentile results (Envirofacts) and EPA's service line inventory dashboard (2026 Q2), for Newark City (OH4502314), the system that serves most of this ZIP · ODH childhood lead testing · ODH high-risk ZIP list (CCBH PDF) · Ohio EPA lead and copper · H2Ohio

Fluoride and treatment

Treatment on file: corrosion control, coagulation and settling, chlorine disinfection, iron and manganese removal, ion-exchange softening, lime softening, powdered activated carbon, sand or media filtration, ultraviolet disinfection.

Measured fluoride: 0.9 mg/L on average at the plant's entry points in 2019 (in the range dentists aim for); samples ran from 0.5 to 1.02 mg/L across 8 samples in 2012 to 2019 (EPA compliance monitoring). Natural fluoride in Ohio well water runs from a trace to over 2 mg/L in parts of the northwest.

The health department counts 96.3% of Licking County residents on community water as receiving fluoridated water.

Ohio law (ORC 6109.20, 1969) makes systems serving 5,000 or more people fluoridate unless the water already carries 0.8 mg/L naturally or the community exempted itself by ordinance or referendum in the months after the law passed; smaller systems choose for themselves. The treatment list is what each system registered with EPA and can lag a plant upgrade.

Source: CDC My Water's Fluoride, fluoridation status of each system as reported by the Ohio Department of Health; EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System treatment table for Newark City (OH4502314); EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring, 2012 to 2019; Ohio Department of Health fluoridation report (DataOhio) for the county share · EPA SDWIS search

Algal toxins

Raw water

no microcystin detected at the intake

Treated water

never detected after treatment

Monitoring

269 samples from 2016 to 2026, latest 2026-08-12

Raw-water readings show what the plant has to remove; any detection at the intake triggers weekly paired raw and treated-water testing until two clean weeks, and carbon, ozone or chlorine destroys the toxin in nearly every case. The ten-day advisory levels for treated water are 0.3 µg/L for children under six and 1.6 µg/L for everyone else. Since November 2022 the bloom season runs June through November (sampling continues into early December), with treated water tested every two weeks the rest of the year; the 2016 to 2022 rule monitored year-round and stepped testing up to three days a week when raw water passed 5 µg/L.

Source: Ohio EPA public water system harmful algal bloom monitoring (HAB data and map, DrinkingWater/HAB service, fetched 2026-09-09), total microcystins by ELISA in raw and treated water, for the system that serves most of this ZIP · Ohio EPA HAB information for public water systems

Groundwater

Under the surface

sand and gravel with fine layers, part of the N Fork Licking Buried Valley Aquifer (buried valley setting); wells there yield > 500 gallons a minute, deposits > 100 ft thick

Bedrock

Cuyahoga Group, yielding 5 - 25 gpm to a well

Setting

Sand and Gravel; water table 15-30 ft down, 10+ in/yr recharge, silt loam soil (hydrogeologic setting 7D); pesticide index 193

Karst

473 karst and spring points in ODNR's inventory inside the ZIP (1 field-verified), 4.2 per square mile

Well logs

3,087 drilled wells on file (49.3 per 1,000 residents), median 132 ft deep, 15 gallons a minute median test yield, water 42 ft down

Aquifers

44% of wells in bedrock, 56% in sand, gravel and other unconsolidated material; typical well drilled 1996, 1,272 since 2000; uses: Domestic 2,647, Monitor 124

Wellhead protection

1% of this ZIP lies inside Ohio EPA source water protection areas for 19 public water systems (Valley Mobile Home Park, Wilkins Mobile Home Park, Licking County Prescott Estates); the largest, Valley Mobile Home Park, is rated low susceptibility in a buried valley setting

Geology

68% of the ZIP is a sensitive geologic setting, where thin or sandy cover leaves the aquifer open to what soaks in from the surface; nearest verified sinkhole 19 mi away (Ohio EPA and ODNR Geological Survey)

Injection wells

711 Class V injection wells on Ohio EPA's books inside this ZIP (35 active): 13 large septic, 696 cleanup injection, 2 other; these put fluids underground above or into drinking water aquifers

Urban setting

1 Ohio EPA Urban Setting Designation area touches this ZIP (REHO, Inc.): a finding that groundwater there is not used for drinking, which lets contaminated sites close without cleaning the aquifer to drinking standards

Water table

LI-4 OH monitoring well (ODNR), 5 mi away: water 21.5 ft below ground on 2026-04-27; averaged 21.9 ft in 2015 to 2019 and 21.9 ft over the latest year, about the same; range 16.9 to 24.6 ft over 3,757 readings since 2015

Nitrate risk

EPA researchers put the chance that a public water system in the Log Pond Run-North Fork Licking River subwatershed exceeds the nitrate limit at 35% if it draws on groundwater and 41% if it draws on rivers or lakes, judged from land use, geology and past results (EnviroAtlas nitrate violation index; the typical Ohio subwatershed scores 23% for groundwater and 39% for surface water)

Quality monitoring

Ohio EPA's nearest ambient groundwater monitoring well is Heath Wellfield (Licking County), 4 mi away: 230 ft deep in sand and gravel (South Fork Licking Rv aquifer); wells there yield 100 to 500 gallons a minute; sampled on the standard cycle. 18 active wells within 15 mi

Vulnerability rates how easily a spill at the surface reaches the aquifer, not whether anything has. Well logs include abandoned and replaced wells, so counts overstate wells in use; a private well owner is the only one who tests it.

Source: ODNR Division of Geological Survey, Groundwater Vulnerability (DRASTIC) map (polygon at the ZIP's population-weighted center), karst feature inventory, and the Ohio water well log database (logs inside the ZIP boundary) · ODNR Geological Survey · Ohio EPA GIS services · USGS water data

Aquifer exposure

Karst

no karst-prone bedrock under the population center; no mapped sinkhole inside the ZIP; nearest verified sinkhole 19 mi from the center

Wellhead protection

1% of the ZIP lies inside Ohio EPA source water protection areas for 19 public water systems (Valley Mobile Home Park, Wilkins Mobile Home Park, Licking County Prescott Estates); the largest, Valley Mobile Home Park, is rated low susceptibility in a buried valley setting

River intakes

6% in the 1,000-foot stream corridor zone

Vulnerability index

DRASTIC 178 (ODNR; higher means a spill at the surface reaches the aquifer more easily)

Sensitive settings are outwash plains, buried valleys, karst and shallow bedrock, mapped statewide by Ohio EPA for siting decisions. Exposure is not contamination: it says how quickly a spill, a failing tank or heavy manure would reach the water table, not whether one has.

Source: Ohio EPA Sensitive Geologic Settings and karst geology layers (geology/Geology), ODNR Geological Survey karst and spring points, Ohio EPA source water protection areas (DrinkingWater/SWAP); shares by ZIP boundary overlay, karst by a point query at the population-weighted center · Ohio EPA geology layers · Ohio EPA source water protection (SWAP) · ODNR Geological Survey

Sewage treatment

Size

2.25 million gallons a day design flow; a major facility

Compliance

6 of the last 12 quarters with a violation; currently in violation (not significant); 15 effluent limit exceedances in 3 years

Combined sewer overflows: 27 outfalls inside this ZIP, 28 within 3 miles, permitted to City of Newark Wastewater Treatment Plant. In heavy rain these release untreated sewage mixed with storm water.

Other discharge permits: 9 facilities inside this ZIP other than sewage plants hold a Clean Water Act permit (factories, water plants, quarries, package plants, storm water); 19 facility-quarters with a violation in the last three years; largest: Hanover Wwtp (0.16 MGD).

Sewage sludge: 75 farm fields covering 2,251 acres inside this ZIP are permitted for spreading treated biosolids, mostly from Newark Wwtp (1,814 acres), Heath Wwtp (189 acres), Granville Wwtp (132 acres); 1 field has drawn a complaint; 1 more retired (Ohio EPA). Biosolids carry nutrients and, increasingly under scrutiny, PFAS.

Sludge source: 1 permitted biosolids generator is inside this ZIP; nearest Heath WWTP, 2.7 mi away (a major plant); 5 within 10 miles (Ohio EPA).

State water loans: 28 projects inside this ZIP have borrowed $153.8 million from Ohio EPA's revolving loan funds since 2015 (21 sewer, storm water and runoff projects for $135.7 million; 7 drinking water projects for $18.1 million), with $15.3 million of principal forgiven. Largest: 16 North Separation - Phase 1 (Newark, 2026, $46.8 million). Below-market loans are how most Ohio treatment plants and water mains get rebuilt.

Sewer planning: 79% of it is assigned to Licking County as the designated sewage management agency under Ohio's Clean Water Act section 208 plan (generic prescriptions); 5 agencies share the ZIP. The 208 plan decides who may build and extend sewers.

Stormwater: 21% of this ZIP lies inside Ohio EPA's regulated MS4 areas, mostly the City of Newark storm sewer system (8 permit holders overlap the ZIP); the towns, townships and counties that own those storm sewers hold a stormwater permit and must control what runs off streets and parking lots (2020 to 2030 designation). 17 sites with an address in this ZIP hold their own industrial stormwater permits (Modern Welding, Anomatic Corp, Sherman Recycling Services and others) (EPA Facility Finder).

Plants inside this ZIP: City of Newark Wastewater Treatment Plant (9 MGD, major, CSO).

Where a home's sewage actually goes depends on the sewer district, and rural homes are on septic systems the county health department permits; the nearest plant is a proxy. Violations range from paperwork to raw discharges.

Source: EPA Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO), Clean Water Act NPDES facilities with a POTW component in Ohio; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center. Compliance data lag about a quarter.; other Clean Water Act permit holders inside the ZIP from the same service · EPA ECHO · EPA CSO inventory · Ohio EPA GIS services · EPA Facility Finder

Stream health

Uses failing

aquatic life 39% of the land, recreation (bacteria) 87%, fish consumption 17%, drinking-water source 0% (that use is assessed on only 17% of the ZIP)

Causes listed

bacteria (pathogens) (87%), unknown cause (17%), low oxygen (17%)

Cleanup plans

9% of the land is under a TMDL pollution budget

Watersheds here: Rocky Fork (not supporting); Log Pond Run-North Fork Licking River (not supporting).

Fish advisories (Ohio EPA): Licking River (Adjacent Summit Street (Newark) to mouth (Muskingum River)): freshwater drum one meal a month, saugeye two meals a week (mercury); Rocky Fork Licking River (Jobes Road near Davis Farms Bridge to mouth (Licking River)): smallmouth bass one meal a month (mercury); South Fork Licking River (All waters): yellow bullhead two meals a week, bluegill sunfish unrestricted (mercury). Statewide, every other fish is one meal a week because of mercury.

Nearest stream assessment (Ohio EPA): N. Fk. Licking R. At Newark @ Water Works Rd. on the North Fork Licking River, 0.9 mi away, draining 229 square miles: full attainment of its warmwater use; fish IBI 49 of 60 (2008); bug ICI 48 of 60 (2008); habitat QHEI 87.5 of 100. 15 assessed sites inside the ZIP, 9 within 3 miles, 43 within 10. Scores above about 40 (IBI), 36 (ICI) and 60 (QHEI) mean a healthy warmwater stream.

Stream designations (Ohio EPA water quality standards): 84.4 miles of designated streams cross this ZIP: 66.5 mi warmwater habitat, 16.9 mi exceptional warmwater habitat, 1 mi coldwater habitat. Nearest specially protected stream: the Lost run, 5.4 mi away, a Superior High Quality Water; 20% of the ZIP lies within a mile of such a stream, where new discharges face the strictest antidegradation review. Exceptional and coldwater streams are the state's healthiest; modified and limited-resource waters are channelized or ditched.

Proposed for 2026: the nearest reach Ohio EPA proposes to add to the antidegradation tiers is the Claylick Creek, 4.9 mi away, as Superior High Quality Water.

PFAS in the river (Ohio EPA large river survey): at Licking R. Near Newark @ St. Rt. 16 (Stadden Bridge), 4 mi away, the water carried 77.63 ng/L of total PFAS (PFOA 1.9, PFOS 1 ng/L); fish fillets held 33.72 ng/g in bluegill and 18.91 ng/g in catfish (PFOS 13 in bluegill). Drinking water limits are 4 ng/L for PFOA and PFOS; river water is not drinking water, but treatment plants that draw from it start from these numbers.

Farm chemicals (USGS estimate, 2018): farms in Licking County used about 178 metric tons of pesticide active ingredient, 258 kg per square mile, 41st of Ohio's 88 counties. Largest: glyphosate 63 t, atrazine 26 t, metolachlor 20 t, acetochlor 10 t, 2,4-D 6 t. Atrazine, the corn herbicide, is the pesticide that most often shows up in Ohio tap water after spring rains; this county used 26 t of it.

Farms (2022 Census of Agriculture): 1,532 farms work 207,389 acres of Licking County, with 32.7% of its land in cropland, 135 acres to a farm. 19,018 cattle, 53,591 hogs, 765 broilers, 89 turkeys; 46,096 acres of corn and 58,737 of soybeans. Sales $389 million, 72% from animals and animal products. Manure and fertilizer from farms like these carry the phosphorus and nitrogen behind Ohio's algae and nitrate problems; withheld figures protect individual farms.

A watershed unit fails when any sampled stream in it fails; ditches in flat farm country fail on habitat and nutrients, city creeks on bacteria and sediment. Ohio's own report is at epa.ohio.gov; the EPA link on each unit's report page has the sampling detail.

Source: EPA ATTAINS (Ohio EPA 2024 Integrated Report), watershed assessment units overlaid on the ZIP boundary in an equal-area projection; shares are of the ZIP's land area · EPA ATTAINS · Ohio integrated report · Ohio sport fish advisory · Ohio EPA advisory map

Watershed

• Licking99% of residentsDrains to the Ohio River

H2Ohio: nearest project Grosse Brothers Treatment Wetland, funded 2024, in progress, 9 mi away: Over the past few decades, harmful algal blooms have been increasing in Buckeye Lake, a primary tourist destination 30 miles east of Columbus. In collaboration ...; 0 within 5 miles, 2 within 15. H2Ohio pays for wetlands, farm practices and lead line work to cut the nutrients behind Lake Erie's algae.

Source water: 31% of this ZIP drains to the river intake of Newark City PWS and sits inside its Ohio EPA source water protection area; 6% lies in the 1,000-foot stream corridor zone where spills and runoff matter most.

Watershed grants: nearest "Salt Run Restoration Project" by Granville Township, Licking County (stream restoration, SWIF), 6.3 mi away; 1 within 10 miles (Ohio EPA project lists: Section 319 and GLRI through fiscal 2023, SWIF through 2017).

Road salt: nearest went to Granville Township Road District (equipment, 2024-2025), 5.7 mi away; 4 in Licking County. H2Ohio pays for brine makers, calibrated spreaders and covered salt barns so less chloride reaches streams and wells.

The population center sits in the Log Pond Run-North Fork Licking River subwatershed; its water runs on through Bowling Green Run-Licking River, then Dillon Lake-Licking River, then Timber Run-Licking River.

In 2015 Licking County drew about 21 million gallons a day of fresh water (USGS): 12.6 million for public supply (42% from wells, 100,000 people served at 63 gallons a person a day at home), 0.2 million for industry, 0.3 million for irrigation, 0.8 million for mining; 70,600 residents drew their own well water.

EnviroAtlas, Log Pond Run-North Fork Licking River: under 50 acres in the Conservation Reserve Program; 1,263 acres of grain crops; 54 miles of streams (2.3 per square mile); water use of 1.5 million gallons a day for homes; 40 inches of rain and snow a year; 11.5 kg of nitrogen per hectare falling from the air each year; farm nitrogen of 11.3 kg per hectare a year as manure and 12.2 kg as synthetic fertilizer; 1% of the farmland sits on drained hydric soils; potentially restorable wetlands on farmland cover 3% of the subwatershed; 12% of the land is paved or roofed; 40% of the stream banks keep natural cover (EPA EnviroAtlas national metrics, 2010s vintages).

Stream permits: 34% of this ZIP drains to streams Ohio EPA rates high quality, where a project that fills, pipes or crosses a stream needs an individual Ohio EPA 401 water quality review; 34% drains toward high-quality waters farther down and might qualify for the Army Corps' blanket nationwide permits after a field screening and 33% can use those nationwide permits outright (Ohio EPA 401 nationwide permit eligibility map).

Source: USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset (HUC-8 subbasins by resident share, HUC-12 subwatershed at the population center) · 2020 census blocks · USGS watershed boundaries · EPA EnviroAtlas · Ohio EPA 401 map · USGS county water use 2015 · ODNR H2Ohio projects · ODNR Lake Erie Coastal Management Area · Ohio EPA source water protection (SWAP) · Ohio EPA nine-element plans · Ohio EPA 319, GLRI and SWIF project lists · Ohio EPA chloride reduction grants · NOAA Lake Erie water levels

Homes and income

Household income

$63,974 median

Income spread

18% of households earn under $25,000 a year, 29% $100,000 or more and 5.9% $200,000 or more

Rent

$970 a month, median gross

Owner-occupied

61% of 24,845 occupied homes; 62% of owners carry a mortgage

Typical home built

1966

Value spread

14% of owner-occupied homes are worth under $100,000 and 4.6% $500,000 or more; income per person $34,276 a year

Moved in

the typical owner moved in in 2009, the typical renter in 2018

Median age

39.2 years

Commute

24 minutes each way on average, 16% of commuters travel 45 minutes or more, 12% work from home

Housing stock

70% single-family detached, 14% in buildings of 5 or more units, 3% mobile homes; 1.9% of homes are crowded (more than one person a room)

Vacancy

6.8% of 26,651 housing units are vacant: 3.1% for rent, 1.1% for sale, 0.9% held for seasonal or occasional use, 1.7% other, such as homes held off the market, in probate or abandoned

Owner costs

19% of owners with a mortgage and 10% of owners without one spend 30% or more of income on housing

Evictions

5.62 eviction filings a year per 100 renter households in 2016 to 2018, 3.37 ending in a judgement (about 408 filings a year; Eviction Lab)

Fair market rent

$1,120 a month for a two-bedroom (one-bedroom $930, three-bedroom $1,340): HUD's fiscal 2026 small-area fair market rent, the benchmark for housing vouchers in the Columbus metro area

Tax returns

29,080 returns for 2022 averaging $59,122 of adjusted gross income; 28% reported under $25,000 and 2% reported $200,000 or more; 17% claimed the earned income credit and 28% were filed by people 60 or older (IRS)

Subsidized housing

16 tax-credit (LIHTC) properties with 575 low-income units, newest placed in service 2014; 11 HUD-assisted multifamily properties with 708 assisted units (Section 8 and similar contracts). Housing vouchers used in private rentals are not counted

Banks

13 full-service bank branches from 10 banks inside this ZIP (FDIC); 4 credit union branches from 3 credit unions (NCUA)

Strain

42% of renters pay 30% or more of income in rent; 7.5% of households have no vehicle; the median renter spends 26.6% of income on rent; the median owner with a mortgage spends 18.2% of income on housing costs

Five-year survey averages centered on 2022; small ZIPs carry wide margins of error, and owner-estimated values run below sale prices in a rising market.

Source: Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020 to 2024 five-year estimates by ZIP Code Tabulation Area; Eviction Lab (Princeton) tract estimates 2016 to 2018, weighted to the ZIP; HUD fiscal 2026 Small Area Fair Market Rents; IRS Statistics of Income ZIP data, tax year 2022; Mapping Inequality (University of Richmond), HOLC maps 1935 to 1940; HUD eGIS open data for subsidized housing; FDIC BankFind branch locations; NCUA credit union branch list, March 2026 · Census ACS · Eviction Lab · HUD data · IRS ZIP statistics · Mapping Inequality · HUD eGIS open data · FDIC BankFind · NCUA call report data

Houses and neighborhoods

Homes

19,268 one-family houses, 582 two-family houses, 94 three-family houses, 1,392 condominiums, 416 manufactured homes, 521 farmhouses; also 300 apartment buildings and 717 other residential parcels

Age

37% built before 1950, 69% before 1978 (1978: the year lead paint was banned for housing)

Size

median living area 1,460 sq ft; median lot 0.27 acres (condominiums left out)

Value

median appraised value $173,400 (tax year 2025): the county auditor's market value for property tax, not a sale price

Sales

837 sales in the 12 months to Sep 14, 2026 (median $248,000); 4,049 sales in 5 years (median $239,000, $164 a sq ft). Counted: sales the auditor marked valid or has not yet reviewed (sales marked not valid, and unreviewed ones under $10,000, are left out), single-parcel sales of homes, one per house (its newest)

Owners

76% owner-occupied (homes receiving the owner-occupancy tax credit); 9% company-owned

Neighborhoods

0 neighborhoods and 782 subdivisions (details load below)

Show neighborhoods and houses

The houses load when you search, pick a filter or press the button (the pack for this part of the state, a few megabytes). Zoomed in on the map, each house of this ZIP draws as a dot that follows the search and filters.

Source: county auditors' appraisal records: Licking County Auditor (as of Sep 14, 2026); residential parcels placed in ZIPs by the atlas; owner names are not carried · Allen County Auditor · Ashland County Auditor · Auglaize County Auditor · Butler County Auditor · Champaign County Auditor · Clark County Auditor · Clinton County Auditor · Coshocton County Auditor · Crawford County Auditor · Fairfield County Auditor · Fayette County Auditor · Franklin County Auditor · Greene County Auditor · Guernsey County Auditor · Hardin County Auditor · Highland County Auditor · Hocking County Auditor · Holmes County Auditor · Jackson County Auditor · Knox County Auditor · Licking County Auditor · Logan County Auditor · Lorain County Auditor · Madison County Auditor · Marion County Auditor · Miami County Auditor · Montgomery County Auditor · Morrow County Auditor · Muskingum County Auditor · Perry County Auditor · Pickaway County Auditor · Richland County Auditor · Ross County Auditor · Stark County Auditor · Tuscarawas County Auditor · Union County Auditor · Wyandot County Auditor · OGRIP Ohio Statewide Parcels · Athens County subdivisions, town plats and additions (Athens County Auditor GIS) · Cincinnati Community Council Boundaries · Cincinnati Statistical Neighborhood Approximations (SNA), 2020 · Clark County recorded subdivision plats · Clermont County recorded subdivision plats · Cleveland Heights neighborhoods · Cleveland Statistical Planning Areas (SPAs) / neighborhoods · Columbus Communities · Columbus Community Planning Areas · Coshocton County subdivisions (recorded plats and town additions) · Dayton neighborhoods · Dublin Civic Associations · Franklin County recorded subdivision and condominium plats · Hamilton (Ohio) 17Strong neighborhoods · Lima neighborhood associations · Logan County subdivision and condominium plats · Madison County subdivisions (recorded plats) · Morgan County subdivision, addition and town plats · Muskingum County subdivision plats · Perry County subdivisions and town additions (recorded plat names on the county engineer's parcels) · Richland County subdivisions and condominiums (recorded plats, county GIS) · Sandusky neighborhoods · Stark County recorded allotment (subdivision) and condominium plats · Toledo neighborhood associations · Union County subdivision plats

Building permits

Mix

2,389 single-family houses, 0 units in buildings of five or more, 26 in duplexes and small buildings

Value

$750.2 million of construction at the value declared on the permits

By year

2016: 287, 2017: 263, 2018: 260, 2019: 259, 2020: 286, 2021: 359, 2022: 247, 2023: 164, 2024: 141, 2025: 149, 2026 through July: 106

Caveat

2 of the ten years had fewer than 12 months reported by the permit office; the Census Bureau estimates the missing months, so those counts are partly or wholly imputed

Survey counts are permits issued, not houses finished, and cover new residential construction only: additions, remodels, garages and commercial buildings are not in the survey. Values are the applicants' estimates. Where a city runs the building department for its township neighbours, the city's figure covers them too.

Source: Census Bureau Building Permits Survey, annual place files 2016 to 2025 (new privately owned residential units authorized), for the permit-issuing jurisdiction where most of this ZIP's residents live · Census building permits

Home prices

Five years

+64% from 2020 to 2025

Last year

+5% in 2025

Since 2000

prices stand at 2.4 times their 2000 level

Series

tracked since 1975

Zillow's typical home value here is $253K (2026-07), up 3% over the year, up 35% over five years and up 87% over ten. Typical asking rent $1,352 a month (2026-07), up 5% over the year.

On the market (Realtor.com, August 2026): median asking price $260,000 (down 3.7% in a year), $181 per square foot for a typical 1,456 sq ft listing; 123 active listings, 80 new this month; listings spend a median 35 days on the market (down 8% from a year earlier); 28% of listings have cut their price.

The index follows the same houses through repeat sales and refinance appraisals on conforming mortgages, so it measures price change rather than the price level (the Homes card has the median value). Consumer prices rose about 36% from 2015 to 2025, so a gain under 36% is a loss in real terms.

Source: Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index, annual five-digit ZIP all-transactions series (repeat sales and refinance appraisals of conforming-mortgage homes, developmental, not seasonally adjusted), latest release; Zillow Home Value Index (mid-tier, smoothed, seasonally adjusted) and Zillow Observed Rent Index by ZIP, Zillow Research · FHFA house price index · Zillow research data · Realtor.com data

Local taxes

Newark City 80% of residents

28.1 effective mills (37.4 gross); $1,964 a year on a $200,000 home. Operating 15.9, bonds 2.7, improvements 1.1, emergency 4.3, inside millage 4.1.

Licking Valley Local 11% of residents

21.0 effective mills (30.9 gross); $1,470 a year on a $200,000 home. Operating 16.4, improvements 1.0, inside millage 3.6.

Municipal income tax

Newark 1.75% (80% of residents), Hanover 1% (2% of residents); township residents outside a city or village pay none. Charged on wages and business profits where you work and, after credits, where you live.

School district income tax

Newark City 1% (80% of residents), Licking Valley Local 1% (11% of residents), North Fork Local 1% (5% of residents), Granville Exempted Village 0.75% (3% of residents). Voted by the district and collected with the state income tax.

Sales tax

7.25% combined rate in Licking County: Ohio's 5.75% plus county and transit levies.

A mill is $1 per $1,000 of taxable value, and taxable value is 35% of market value. Effective rates fall as values rise because Ohio holds most voted levies to the dollars first approved. County, municipal or township, library, park and vocational-school levies are added on the same bill and are not counted here.

Source: Ohio Department of Taxation, Aggregate Property Tax Rates by School District, tax year 2025 (composite DTE 515); weighted by the share of this ZIP's residents in each district; The Finder rate tables for municipal, school district and sales taxes, September 2026 · Ohio tax data series · The Finder

Who delivers the electricity

• AEP Ohio investor-owned89% of residentsAmerican Electric Power (AEP)
• The Energy Cooperative co-op11% of residentsBuckeye Power, Inc.

AEP Ohio outages, 2024: the average customer lost power for 272 minutes (158 minutes leaving out major storm days), about 1.1 interruptions a year.

AEP Ohio standard service offer price, 2024: 19.33 cents per kWh, about $174 a month for the average home, for the 550,768 residential customers who have not chosen a supplier; the other 788,464 pay AEP Ohio 10.75 cents per kWh for delivery plus their supplier's price (EIA-861).

AEP Ohio solar and meters, 2024: 11,606 customers run net-metered solar (158.9 MW, 11,036 of them homes); 79% of its 1,541,883 meters are two-way smart (AMI) meters, 21% drive-by automated reads (EIA-861).

The Energy Cooperative outages, 2024: the average customer lost power for 243 minutes (113 minutes leaving out major storm days), about 1.6 interruptions a year.

The Energy Cooperative residential price, 2024: 16.88 cents per kWh, about $178 a month for the average home across 25,820 residential customers (EIA-861).

The Energy Cooperative solar and meters, 2024: no net-metered solar reported under its own name (Buckeye Power, the co-ops' generation cooperative, files one Ohio net-metering row: 3,058 systems, 32.6 MW in 2024); 100% of its 27,568 meters are two-way smart (AMI) meters (EIA-861).

Energy burden: households here spend an average 3.4% of income on electricity, gas and other fuels (about $2,441 a year against $72,332 of income); the 52% of households below 80% of the area median income spend 7.1%, and 30% of households fall in groups averaging 6% or more, the usual line for a high burden (DOE LEAD Tool, 2022 update, built from 2018 to 2022 survey data).

Source: PUCO certified territories via ODOT · HIFLD retail service territories (EIA Form 861) · 2020 census blocks · outage statistics from EIA-861 Reliability, 2024 with 2023 where a utility skipped a year (SAIDI and SAIFI, IEEE 1366) · residential prices from EIA-861 Sales to Ultimate Customers, net metering and advanced meters from the EIA-861 files of the same years · DOE LEAD Tool 2022 household energy burden by tract, apportioned into ZIPs by block population · PUCO electricity · ODOT territories service · EIA-861 · DOE LEAD Tool · HIFLD retail service territories

Natural gas here

72% of the 24,845 homes here heat with utility gas.

Utility gas 72%Electricity 21%Propane or LP 5%Oil, wood, other 3%

• Columbia Gas of Ohio regulated utility100% of residents, main companyNiSource Inc.

Territories overlap here: Ohio Cumberland Gas Company, National Gas and Oil Cooperative also map service in this ZIP.

Pipes under the street: Columbia Gas of Ohio reported 20,620 miles of distribution main to PHMSA for 2025, 64% plastic and 6.6% cast iron or bare steel (the leak-prone materials); 3,271 hazardous leaks repaired in 2025.

PUCO lists 4 companies operating in Licking County: Columbia Gas of Ohio, Knox Energy Cooperative Association, Inc., National Gas and Oil Cooperative, Ohio Cumberland Gas Company.

Source: PUCO gas distribution companies by county, April 2026 · federal (EIA) territory polygons, 2016 · Census ACS 2020 to 2024 heating fuel · PUCO natural gas · HIFLD

Power plants

Nearest plant of any size: Denison Solar Array, 5.6 mi (solar, 2 MW).

1 plant within 10 miles totalling 2 MW: 1 solar (2 MW).

Solar: Denison Solar Array, 2 MW AC (2017), 10 acres, 5.3 mi away; 1 utility-scale solar farm within 15 miles.

Capacity is net summer capacity in megawatts (EIA), not output; a solar farm's 200 MW runs a quarter of the hours a gas plant's would. Small peaking engines and landfill-gas units count as plants.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration Form 860 plant inventory via HIFLD (February 2025); USGS U.S. Wind Turbine Database and U.S. Large-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Database; NRC emergency planning zones around Perry and Davis-Besse (residents inside the roughly 10-mile zone counted by 2020 census block); straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center · EIA-860 · HIFLD · USGS wind turbines · USGS solar · NRC emergency planning zones

Gas transmission pipelines

20.3 miles of transmission pipe cross this ZIP: Columbia Gas Trans Co 19.2 mi, Dominion Transmission Co 1.1 mi.

Transmission lines run at hundreds of pounds of pressure and are inspected under federal rules; the distribution mains that actually feed homes are a separate, denser network not shown here. By mileage in this EIA layer Ohio's map is dominated by Columbia Gas Transmission and East Ohio Gas's intrastate lines; Texas Eastern and the Rover and Nexus lines built for Utica shale gas are among the other large interstate systems.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration Natural Gas Interstate and Intrastate Pipelines layer (data last updated July 2025, pulled September 2026), via the ArcGIS Online copy maintained by Esri's Federal User Community; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center; lengths clipped to the ZIP boundary in an equal-area projection · EIA U.S. Energy Atlas · ArcGIS Online item

Incumbent telephone company

• Windstream Ohio99% of residentsWindstream

Source: PUCO incumbent local exchange carrier service areas · 2020 census blocks · PUCO telephone

Internet

Served, 100/20 Mbps or better 98%Underserved, 25/3 to 100/20 1%Unserved, under 25/3 1%

Fiber reaches 67% of locations, cable 94%; a year earlier 96% were served.

Of 24,845 households, 78% subscribe to cable, fiber or DSL, 10% rely on a cellular plan only, and 7% have no internet at home.

Measured by Ookla speed tests, April to June 2025: typical fixed download 369.9 Mbps, upload 142.6 Mbps, 17 ms latency, across 3,017 tests from up to 1,020 devices in 306 map tiles.

Source: FCC Broadband Data Collection, June 2024 (availability) · Census ACS 2020 to 2024 (subscriptions) · Ookla Open Data, fixed-network speed tests by tile, 2025 Q2 (measured speeds) · FCC broadband map · Ookla open data · Census ACS

Cell signal

• AT&T4G 95% · 5G 78%
• T-Mobile4G 82% · 5G 74%
• Verizon4G 100% · 5G 40%

Registered towers: 31 antenna structures registered with the FCC inside this ZIP and 17 within 3 miles of its center; the tallest inside is a 424-foot lattice tower. Only structures over 200 feet or near airports must register, so most cell sites on short poles, water towers and rooftops are not counted.

Measured mobile speeds (Ookla speed tests, April to June 2026): typical download 256.5 Mbps, upload 20.4 Mbps, latency 35 ms over 239 tests from up to 94 devices in 68 map tiles.

Coverage as the carriers report it to the FCC for outdoor use at a stationary spot, by land area rather than by residents; indoor signal and rural hollows can be worse.

Source: FCC Mobile Broadband Data Collection via Esri Living Atlas (layer last updated November 2025, i.e. the June 30, 2025 filing round), carrier-reported outdoor coverage by hexagon, summed over the ZIP's land; FCC Antenna Structure Registration database, September 2026; Ookla open data mobile tiles, 2026 Q2 · FCC broadband map · FCC antenna registration · Ookla open data

EV charging

8 public stations inside this ZIP with 17 Level 2 and 3 DC fast ports; the nearest of any kind is PNB NTT, 1.1 mi. 13 stations within 5 miles of the ZIP's population center, 4 with DC fast charging.

Networks here: ChargePoint (7), Blink (1).

Level 2 adds roughly 20 to 30 miles of range an hour; DC fast charging fills most cars in under an hour. Listings are operator-reported and lag new openings and closures.

Source: NREL Alternative Fuels Data Center via the U.S. DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics (public, open electric stations, the posts at one site merged, restricted-access sites excluded), and chargers in neighbouring states near the border; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center; station list as of May 29, 2026 · Alternative Fuels Data Center · BTS Alternative Fueling Stations (NTAD)

Public transit

67 stops inside this ZIP: Licking County Transit (67).

Only fixed-route systems that publish a GTFS feed appear; dial-a-ride and demand-response services do not, and a handful of small fixed-route systems publish no feed at all. Half a mile is roughly a ten-minute walk.

Source: USDOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Transit Map stops (National Transportation Atlas Database, 2025 vintage, fetched September 2026), plus the Springfield, Lancaster-Fairfield, Knox County Transit, WayGo and BGSU Shuttle GTFS feeds; share of 2020 census block population within half a mile of a stop · BTS National Transit Map · BTS transportation atlas · Springfield City Area Transit GTFS feed · Lancaster-Fairfield Public Transit GTFS feed · Knox County Transit GTFS feed · WayGo GTFS feed · BGSU Shuttle GTFS feed

Walkability

Street grid

56 intersections per square mile, a mix of grid and cul-de-sacs

Transit

the EPA's 2020 transit file lacks this area's bus system, so it puts nobody here within three-quarters of a mile of a stop; the Transit card finds 55% of residents within half a mile of one

Mix of uses

employment mix 0.53 and mix of homes and job types 0.52 on the EPA's 0 to 1 scales, where 1 is the most varied

Car-free households

7.5% of households have no vehicle (Census ACS 2020 to 2024)

The index scores every block group on intersection density, distance to transit and how mixed its jobs and homes are, then ranks them against the whole country. It measures the street pattern, not sidewalks, safety or hills. Here the transit third of the score sits at its minimum because the EPA held no feed for this area's buses; counting them would likely add several points to the score and could move this ZIP up a band.

Source: EPA National Walkability Index (Smart Location Database 3.0, 2021) by census block group, population-weighted to the ZIP through 2020 census blocks; car-free households from Census ACS 2020 to 2024 table B25044 (the Homes card), or, where that is missing, the Smart Location Database's own 2014 to 2018 share weighted by households · EPA walkability index · Smart Location Database · Census ACS

Rail crossings

18 with gates; railroads: Columbus & Ohio River (32). Busiest crossing: 6 trains a day reported; fastest line 30 mph.

Collisions: 4 crossing incidents reported to the FRA inside this ZIP since 2010 (1 injured), the latest in 2023; most at Cedar Street in Newark (1).

Train accidents: 10 rail equipment accidents inside this ZIP since 2010 (9 derailments); $1.2 million in damage. Latest: 2026, derailment (Columbus & Ohio River Railroad); the most common cause here is broken rail - transverse/compound fissure.

Licking County has logged 11 rail accidents since 2010, 9 of them derailments (FRA Form 54). Yard mishaps at walking speed dominate; main-line derailments are the rare, dangerous ones.

Train counts and speeds are the railroad's last inventory update. Crossings with only crossbucks rely on the driver; Ohio has averaged about 77 crossing collisions a year from 2010 to 2025 (FRA Form 57), between 64 and 87 in a year.

Source: Federal Railroad Administration, Grade Crossing Inventory (Form 71, current records); crossings whose point falls inside the ZIP boundary, closed crossings excluded; nearest crossing measured from the population-weighted center. Collisions are FRA Form 57 crossing incidents since 2010, placed by crossing id through the inventory's coordinates; train accidents are FRA Form 54 rail equipment accidents since 2010, placed by their own reported coordinates, counted one per incident rather than one per report (county totals from the same file). All three pulled from data.transportation.gov, September 2026 · FRA crossing inventory (Form 71, current) · FRA crossing incidents (Form 57) · FRA rail equipment accidents (Form 54) · FRA safety data · DOT open data

Bridges

Age

typical bridge built 1985, 7 built before 1950; oldest 1900, Trentwood Dr over Trib Of Brushy Fork

Busiest

Thornwood Crossing over Sr16, 42,950 vehicles a day (2015 count)

Owners

state 44, county 33

Rated poor

Horns Hill Rd over Trib Of North Fork River (1941, 5,757 a day); Licking Valley Rd over Rocky Fork Creek (1951, 4,171 a day) and 8 more

Ratings come from the inspection every bridge gets at least every two years; poor means deterioration that needs repair, not imminent danger. FHWA's file is a yearly snapshot with inspections through early 2025, so a bridge replaced, re-rated or closed since then still shows its old rating here; ODOT's TIMS bridge inventory carries the current one. Traffic figures are the average daily counts the bridge owners filed with the inventory; most Ohio counts date from 2015 and some are older. County engineers own most of Ohio's small bridges and ODOT the big ones.

Source: Federal Highway Administration, National Bridge Inventory 2025 (Ohio file); structures whose point falls inside the ZIP boundary; condition from NBI items 58, 59, 60 and 62 (deck, superstructure, substructure, culvert) · FHWA bridge inventory · ODOT TIMS bridge inventory (live)

Traffic

Trucks

1,889 a day on SR 16, 4% of its traffic

Driving

about 1.1M vehicle-miles a day on the 767 counted segments inside the ZIP; the typical segment carries 3,364 vehicles

Busiest local road

county road 125, 26,883 vehicles a day

Annual average daily traffic is both directions combined, averaged over the year. County, township and city roads are labelled by their route number, which ODOT uses instead of the street name. Most city streets have no count, so the busiest local road is the busiest counted one. Interchange ramps are left out of the busiest-road pick; a ZIP with nothing but ramps shows one labelled ramp and its ODOT number.

Road deaths: 21 people died in 20 crashes inside this ZIP in 2020 to 2024 (2 pedestrians, 6 motorcyclists); 5 involved a drinking driver and 5 happened in the dark; most on SR-79 FALLSBURG RD (5). That is 6.7 deaths a year per 100,000 residents against 10.6 across Ohio's ZIPs; deaths are counted where the crash happened, and many who die live elsewhere. (NHTSA FARS)

Source: ODOT traffic count segments, 2025 annual average daily traffic (ODOT TIMS); segments assigned to the ZIP holding their midpoint; NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System 2020 to 2024, crashes placed by their coordinates · ODOT TIMS traffic count segments · NHTSA FARS

Airports and trains

Nearest airfield

Licking County Regional (VTA), Newark, 4.3 mi, public use

Amtrak

Alliance station, 90.8 mi

Ohio's Amtrak stops are on the Floridian (Amtrak has temporarily combined the Capitol Limited with the Silver Star), the Lake Shore Limited and the Cardinal, all overnight trains; Cincinnati's only calls three times a week. Amtrak's Thruway bus stops, Dayton-Trotwood among them, are not counted as stations here. Airline service at Toledo and Rickenbacker is limited to a few routes; Youngstown-Warren has had no airline flights since 2018.

Source: FAA airport facilities and Amtrak stations via USDOT BTS National Transportation Atlas; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center · BTS transportation atlas

Radon in this ZIP

58% of tests at or above EPA's 4 pCi/L action level · median 5.6 · highest 271.0

A ZIP average says nothing about one house; readings next door can differ tenfold. Test yours, and fix it at 4 pCi/L or more.

Source: odh.ohio.gov radon levels by ZIP code, tests since 2010, before mitigation · ODH radon program

Flood zones

9.2% of the ZIP's land is in that floodplain, and another 0.7% is in the 0.2% (500-year) zone; 0.7% of residents live in the 0.2% zone. Zones mapped here: AE, A.

Design storms (NOAA Atlas 14): a 100-year storm here drops 6.0 inches in 24 hours (2.8 in a single hour, 4.5 in six); a 2-year storm 2.6, 10-year 3.8, 25-year 4.6, 500-year 8.1 inches in 24 hours. Storm sewers, culverts and detention ponds are sized from these numbers, and a "100-year" storm has a 1% chance every year.

Nearest river gauge: North Fork Licking River at Newark OH, 0.9 mi away, draining 227 square miles. Record flow 7,250 cubic feet a second at a stage of 4.67 ft on 2008-03-04 (USGS, 3 annual peaks, 2008 to 2010; the peak record at this gauge stopped in 2010).

209 federal flood insurance policies are in force in this ZIP, covering $36 million of buildings; 87% of them are in a mapped high-risk zone; the typical policy costs $868 a year (about 1% of households).

185 federal flood insurance claims from this ZIP since 1978, 32 since 2010, paying about $933,731 in all; the worst year was 1979 with 67 claims; 30% of claims came from outside the mapped high-risk zone.

Community status: Newark takes part in the National Flood Insurance Program; flood map effective 03/16/15. Licking County's unincorporated areas take part in the National Flood Insurance Program and earn a Community Rating System class 7 (15% off policies in the high-risk zone); flood map effective 07/31/24.

Lenders require flood insurance on mortgaged homes in the 1% zone (zones A and AE). Block centers understate narrow floodplains in rural areas, so check the FEMA map for a specific address.

Source: FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer (effective flood insurance rate maps, levee centerlines) · 2020 census block centers · ZIP land area by polygon overlay, open water excluded; NOAA Atlas 14 precipitation frequency at the ZIP center; USGS NWIS annual peak flows; OpenFEMA NFIP policies in force by reported ZIP as of September 2026, NFIP redacted claims and the Community Status Book · FEMA flood hazard layer · FEMA Map Service Center · OpenFEMA · NOAA Atlas 14 · USGS stream gauges

Natural hazard risk

• Hail89
• Winter weather78

FEMA's expected annual loss here from all hazards: $16 million a year in buildings, crops and lives.

The index blends how often a hazard strikes, what it would cost, and how vulnerable and resilient the community is. Inland flooding (rivers and heavy rain) scores 58, tornado 43, winter weather 78.

Source: FEMA National Risk Index, census tracts, December 2025 release, weighted to this ZIP by 2020 block population · FEMA National Risk Index · NRI census tract layer (ArcGIS)

Climate

Temperature

50.6°F average; typical January low 18°, July high 84°

Hot and cold days

13 days a year reach 90°F; 129 nights fall below freezing, 4 below 0°F; 32 days never climb above freezing

Rain and snow

43.4 inches of precipitation on 85 days with a tenth of an inch or more; 15 inches of snow on 7 days with an inch or more, snow on the ground 24 days

Degree days

5,921 heating, 722 cooling (base 65°F): the higher the heating number, the bigger the winter gas bill

Drought (U.S. Drought Monitor): since 2020 Licking County has spent 21 weeks in moderate drought or worse, 10 of them severe or worse (most recently 10 weeks in 2024), and 62 weeks at least abnormally dry. The worst since 2000 was extreme drought in 2024/11; 3% of all weeks since 2000 were in drought. As of 2026-09-01: no drought.

Long run (NOAA, Licking County): the average year ran 51.7 °F over 1996 to 2025 against 50.1 °F over 1901 to 1930, 1.7 °F warmer (1.7 °F warmer than 1951 to 1980); the warmest year on record was 2024 at 54.7 °F, and 2025 came in at 51.6 °F. Precipitation averaged 42.6 inches a year lately against 40.8 a century ago, 4% more; the wettest year was 2018 with 55.9 inches, and 2025 brought 40.6. More rain in bigger bursts is what strains storm sewers and septic fields.

Stations: Newark Wtr Wks (0.9 mi, temperature and precipitation and snowfall; 19 years of snowfall record). Normals are thirty-year averages, so a single winter can run far above or below them; NOAA marks this snowfall normal provisional because the station record is too short or too patchy for a standard normal, and the temperature and precipitation figures here skip stations with under 10 years.

Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020 (annual/seasonal and monthly); nearest reporting station to the ZIP's population-weighted center for each element; U.S. Drought Monitor county statistics · NOAA climate normals · NOAA climate at a glance · U.S. Drought Monitor

Air quality

Worst days

98th-percentile day 21 µg/m³ (24-hour standard 35)

Ozone

62 ppb, 4th-highest daily 8-hour reading at Heath, 3.5 mi away (standard 70)

Licking County AQI, 2025

210 good days, 34 moderate, 1 unhealthy for sensitive groups or worse of the 245 days indexed; peak 119, median 40

Licking County AQI, 2026 so far

54 good days, 7 moderate and 0 unhealthy for sensitive groups or worse in the 61 days indexed through April 30; peak 71 (Ozone)

Air toxics

30 in a million lifetime cancer risk from outdoor air toxics across Licking County (EPA AirToxScreen 2020), mostly formaldehyde (17) and carbon tetrachloride (3)

Permitted sources

12 permitted air sources inside this ZIP under the Clean Air Act (1 major, Title V), 5 synthetic minor; 4 had a violation in the last 3 years, 1 in high-priority violation now. Notable: Owens Corning Insulating Systems, LLC (major, 1 violation quarter); Shelly Materials Plant 63 (high-priority violation, 12 violation quarters); Shelly Materials - Portable Pump 49.0256 (1 violation quarter); Tectum Inc (1 violation quarter) (6 permanently closed sources also on file) (EPA ECHO)

Air standards

Licking County is a maintenance area for ozone (2008) (Columbus, OH, redesignated 2016), ozone (2015) (Columbus, OH, redesignated 2019), fine particulate (1997) (Columbus, OH, redesignated 2013), meaning it once failed that standard and must keep a plan to stay clean (EPA Green Book)

Ohio has 38 PM2.5 monitors, mostly in cities and near industry, so a rural ZIP borrows a reading from far away. 2025 includes Canadian wildfire smoke days. Air-toxics risk is EPA's modelled lifetime estimate for the county as a whole; EPA's national average is about 30 in a million, and formaldehyde, with the globally mixed carbon tetrachloride background and acetaldehyde, makes up most of it.

Source: EPA Air Quality System, 2025 annual summary files (monitor annual concentrations, county AQI) and the 2026 daily county AQI file; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center to the nearest monitor · EPA air data files · EPA AirToxScreen · EPA Green Book · EPA ECHO

Toxic and Superfund sites

11 facilities have reported toxic chemical releases or transfers to EPA's inventory from inside this ZIP, and 3 sites appear in the Superfund program's list (most assessed and never listed).

369 EPA-registered facilities of all kinds in this ZIP: 16 brownfield sites in the cleanup program (110 - 114 Union Street, Arcade Place, Clark Store 1379), 134 hazardous-waste handlers, 20 with air permits, 56 with water discharge permits.

Nearest landfill: Owens Corning Insulating Systems LLC, 0.6 mi from the center, industrial waste landfill (open); 3 landfill sites within 3 miles of the population center, 2 inside this ZIP. Ohio EPA's list includes closed and historic dumps.

State cleanup program: 15 sites inside this ZIP (American Natl Can Former; Conrail Train Derailment, Hanover - Penn Central RR; Dynacraft Golf Products and more), 13 within 3 miles of the population center; the nearest is Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp, Newark, Hollander St, 0.2 mi from the center, site assessment.

Voluntary cleanups: 3 properties inside this ZIP hold an Ohio EPA covenant not to sue after a Voluntary Action Program cleanup; 3 such properties within 3 miles of the population center, nearest Dynacraft Golf Products, Newark, 1.7 mi. These are former industrial and commercial sites certified clean enough to reuse.

Solid waste: 3 licensed waste facilities inside this ZIP (1 industrial landfill, 1 transfer station, 1 compost site); nearest Owens Corning Insulating Systems LLC (industrial landfill), 0.6 mi from the center; 4 within 5 miles of the center (Ohio EPA licences, 2026). Compost sites and transfer stations are where most of a county's trash and yard waste actually goes.

Hazardous waste (EPA ECHO): 72 active RCRA handlers inside this ZIP; 1 had a violation in the last 3 years. Notable: Smile More Laundry LLC (3 violation quarters). Nearest treatment, storage or disposal facility: Clean Harbors Recycling Services of Ohio LLC in Hebron, 7.1 mi. Handlers include every business that generates hazardous waste, from body shops to chemical plants.

Underground tanks: 27 sites with 78 registered underground storage tanks in use (250 more tanks closed over the years); 142 leaking-tank releases on record, 3 open at the time, 39 inside a drinking-water source protection area; 11 reported since 2015, the latest in 2018 (EPA UST Finder, Ohio records as of 2018-2019).

Drop-off sites: the nearest scrap tire drop-off is Goodyear Tire Center, Newark OH, 1 mi away (2 inside this ZIP); the nearest household battery drop-off is The Home Depot, Newark, 0.9 mi away (2 inside this ZIP) (Ohio EPA).

The inventory covers larger manufacturers and federal facilities that use listed chemicals; reporting means use or release, not a measured hazard to neighbours. Superfund status: on, proposed for, or deleted from the list after cleanup.

Source: EPA Facility Registry Service, Superfund (SEMS and NPL) sites and Toxics Release Inventory reporters, points inside the ZIP boundary; distance from the ZIP's population-weighted center · EPA Facility Registry · EPA Superfund sites · Ohio EPA cleanup sites · EPA UST Finder · EPA ECHO

Toxic releases

Where it went

208,699 lb to the air, 0 lb to surface water, 0 lb to land or underground injection; another 208,519 lb was shipped off site for disposal or release

Chemicals

Ammonia 187,553 lb, Formaldehyde 20,662 lb (carcinogen), Nitric acid 341 lb

Carcinogens

20,662 lb of the on-site releases were chemicals EPA lists as carcinogens

Facilities

Owens Corning Insulating Systems Llc Newark Oh Facility (Nonmetallic Mineral Product): 208,358 lb, mostly Ammonia; Tamarack Farms Dairy (Food): 250 lb, mostly Nitric acid; Anomatic Corp (Fabricated Metals): 91 lb, mostly Nitric acid

Trend

196,436 lb on site in 2020, so up 6% over four years

Pounds are what facilities report, not what reaches anyone: a ton of ammonia to the air and an ounce of mercury to a river are not the same risk. Off-site transfers go mostly to landfills and treatment plants elsewhere.

Source: EPA Toxics Release Inventory, basic data files for Ohio, reporting years 2020 to 2024 (2024 shown); facilities placed by their coordinates; dioxin rows reported in grams are left out of the pound totals · EPA TRI data files

Dams

Nearest high-hazard dam: Dawes Arboretum Lake Dam, 7.3 mi, condition satisfactory (fish and wildlife pond, 22 ft high, 72 acre-feet, built 1954, on Tributary To Dutch Fork, private owned).

Inside this ZIP: 3 dams, 0 high-hazard, 2 rated poor: Bader Lake Dam (significant hazard, condition poor); Mills Lake Dam (significant hazard, condition poor) and 1 more.

"High hazard" describes what a failure would do downstream, not the dam's shape; Ohio rates more than a third of its inventoried dams in poor condition, mostly small private lake dams. Emergency action plans are required for high-hazard dams.

Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Inventory of Dams (August 2026 release); straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center. Condition assessments come from Ohio's dam safety program. · National Inventory of Dams

Disasters on record

Strongest nearby: EF2 on 2011-04-20, 3.85 mi track.

23 federal declarations for Licking County since Ohio's first in 1956 (18 major disasters): severe storm 10, flood 4, tornado 3. Latest: Tornadoes (2024).

0 earthquakes of magnitude 2 or more within 25 miles since 1970.

Warnings since 2015 (National Weather Service, Licking County): 23 tornado warnings (2015: 2, 2017: 1, 2018: 2, 2019: 3, 2020: 3, 2024: 8, 2025: 1, 2026: 3), 210 severe thunderstorm warnings, 24 flash flood warnings, 78 flood warnings and 137 flood advisories, 11 winter storm or blizzard warnings, 27 heat warnings or advisories, 6 extreme cold or wind chill warnings, 3 snow squall warnings; 1,072 products in all.

Mitigation grants (FEMA): 9 hazard mitigation projects in Licking County since 1997, worth $1.2 million ($855,826 federal), covering 18 properties; mostly property buyouts, safe rooms, fma or crs plan. Largest: safe rooms for Licking County Ohio, $324,969 (fiscal 2006).

Mitigated properties: FEMA money has treated 4 properties in this ZIP between 2006 and 2009: 3 safe rooms built, 1 other measure. Buyouts turn repeatedly flooded lots into permanent open space.

Disaster aid to households: 602 households in this ZIP registered with FEMA after 5 declared disasters; 455 were approved for $1.5 million of housing and other-needs help. Registrations by event: severe winter storms, flooding and mudslides (2005): 347; COVID-19 pandemic (2020): 232; tornadoes (2024): 14.

226 severe weather reports for Licking County since 2016 in NOAA's Storm Events log: 130 damaging thunderstorm wind, 41 hail, 31 river and street flooding, 17 flash floods. Largest hail 2 in (Apr 2, 2025); strongest measured gust 64 mph (Mar 14, 2019); 1 death; about $2.7 million in reported damage, the costliest being flash floods on Mar 20, 2020 ($900K). Zone-wide advisories add 51 winter weather, 9 high wind, 8 winter storms.

Tornado tracks are straight lines from touchdown to lift-off; a near miss counts, a direct hit is not distinguished. Declarations include the 2020 COVID-19 emergency for every county; the latest, declared 2 May 2024 (DR-4777), covers the 14 March 2024 tornadoes in eleven counties, Indian Lake among them.

Source: NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database 1950-2025; OpenFEMA disaster declarations summaries; USGS earthquake catalog (M2+, 1970 to date); NOAA Storm Events database 2016 to 2026 by county. Distances from the ZIP's population-weighted center. · NOAA SPC tornado data · OpenFEMA · USGS earthquakes · NOAA storm events · IEM warning archive

Spills and releases

What spilled

oils and hydraulic fluid (10), diesel and fuel oil (7), unidentified material or sheen (5)

Largest

about 1,100 gallons of fuel diesel / diesel fuel (vehicle on or off road) in 2021, Newark

Reached water

3 of them reached a creek, river, ditch or storm drain (named or unnamed)

By year

2021: 3, 2022: 9, 2023: 8, 2024: 6, 2025: 4, 2026: 3

Anyone who spills more than a reportable quantity must call Ohio EPA within 30 minutes, so the log mixes a few gallons of diesel on a highway shoulder with real releases; the reported volume is the caller's first estimate. Every report in Ohio EPA's open-data layer carries coordinates; air-pollution complaints and calls where nothing was found are left out of this count.

Source: Ohio EPA Emergency Response spill reports (Spills2 open data), reports with coordinates inside the ZIP boundary, 2021 to date · Ohio EPA spills data · Ohio EPA Office of Emergency Response

Oil and gas wells

Status

445 producing, 1,348 plugged or abandoned, the rest drilled but idle, gas storage, orphan, expired permits or unknown

Injection

1 Class II injection well (brine and wastewater go down these; plugged injection wells are counted under plugged)

Orphans

196 wells in the state orphan program, unplugged with no solvent owner

Operators

Moran Ronald F (41 producing), Northwood Energy Corp (39 producing)

Ohio has drilled since 1860, so most wells here are old, shallow and plugged; unplugged orphans and injection wells are the ones that matter for groundwater. Well-head points can be a few hundred feet off for the oldest records.

Source: Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management, public well inventory (well-head points); counts inside the ZIP boundary and within 1 mile of the ZIP's population-weighted center · ODNR oil and gas · ODNR GIS services

Abandoned mines

Undermined land can subside and old workings can discharge acid mine water; ODNR's Abandoned Mine Land program funds repairs, and mine-subsidence insurance is included automatically in 26 eastern counties and offered as an option in 11 more. Maps drawn before 1977 are incomplete, so "none" means none mapped.

Quarries, pits and working mines: 3 working operations inside this ZIP in 2015 (Hanover Pit, clay; King #1, salt, gypsum, peat; Newark Materials, clay, sand & gravel); nearest R. H. Penick Co. (salt, gypsum, peat, R. H. Penick Co., Ltd., 334 tons sold), 2.5 mi away in Licking County; 2 within 3 miles, 7 within 10 (ODNR Industrial Minerals Locations, 2015, which includes surface and underground coal mines).

Source: Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Mines of Ohio (abandoned underground mine maps, coal and industrial minerals, pre-1977), overlaid on the ZIP boundary in an equal-area projection · ODNR mines of Ohio · ODNR Geological Survey

Soils and septic

Soil

Ockley-Urban land complex, 0 to 3 percent slopes; Ockley makes up 45% of the unit, 2% slope

Water

well drained; flooding none, ponding none

Septic

Very limited for a leach field under Ohio's rule

Basements

Somewhat limited for dwellings with basements

Farmland

Not prime farmland

Elevation

863 feet above sea level at the ZIP's population center; Ohio runs from 455 feet where the Ohio River leaves the state to 1,549 feet at Campbell Hill

One point stands for the ZIP; soils change field by field, and a site evaluation is what the health department goes by. "Very limited" means the standard design will not work, not that nothing will.

Source: USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, SSURGO soil survey via Soil Data Access; the map unit at the ZIP's population-weighted center and its dominant component's interpretations; Copernicus GLO-90 elevation model (via Open-Meteo) at that center · USDA Soil Data Access · Web Soil Survey · Open-Meteo elevation

Parks and public land

Dillon Recreation Area

recreation area, 1,627 acres inside the ZIP

Edwards Field/Babe Ruth Park

local park, 190 acres inside the ZIP

Nearest state park: Buckeye Lake State Park, 10.2 mi.

Protected land: 3.9% of this ZIP (2,818 acres) is in the USGS Protected Areas Database inventory of fee-owned parks, preserves and recreation land (public agencies, land trusts, and private clubs, camps and utility land, as their owners report it): 1,631 acres federal, 437 acres local, 340 acres private, 264 acres state. Largest: Dillon Recreation Area (Army Corps of Engineers), 1,631 acres; Blackhand Gorge Dedicated Nature Preserve (ODNR), 264 acres; Edwards Field/Babe Ruth Park (city), 190 acres. 3% of the ZIP is protected land open to the public.

Trails: 31.7 miles of named trails cross this ZIP: Ohio to Erie Trail (12.2 mi, statewide trail); Licking County Recreational Trail (9.7 mi, county trail); Panhandle Recreational Trail (8.1 mi, county trail); 1.6 miles more are proposed or planned (ODNR statewide trails inventory).

Open access as reported by each owner; local inventories vary, so a golf course or school field can be listed and a new park missed.

State lands nearby (ODNR facility layers): nearest boat ramp: Buckeye Lake State Park - North Shore at Buckeye Lake State Park, 10.4 mi (0 within 5 miles); fishing access: Fishing Access at Buckeye Lake State Park, 12.3 mi (0 within 5 miles); swim area: Boat Swim Area at Buckeye Lake State Park, 10.2 mi (0 within 5 miles); campground: Non-Electric Camp Sites (184-195) at Dillon State Park, 16.6 mi (0 within 5 miles).

Source: USGS Protected Areas Database of the United States 4.1 (open-access fee, designation and easement polygons), overlaid on the ZIP boundary; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center to the nearest ODNR state park · USGS PAD-US · ODNR GIS services

Wetlands

344 acres pond, 259 acres forested/shrub wetland, 163 acres emergent wetland. Largest single wetland: 34 acres of freshwater forested/shrub wetland.

Vernal pools: 9 potential high-quality vernal pools covering 9.7 acres lie inside this ZIP (Ohio EPA screening): seasonal woodland pools that dry by summer, hold no fish, and are where salamanders and fairy shrimp breed.

High-quality wetlands: nearest is Cranberry Bog NP (Ohio DNR), 13 acres, 10.3 mi away; 0 within 10 miles.

Mitigation sites: nearest North Fork Licking river, 8.4 mi away (a permittee-responsible site under an environmental covenant); 3 within 10 miles. These are wetlands and streams built or restored to replace ones filled under Clean Water Act permits.

Assessed wetland: nearest HBS Marsh, a mitigation-bank wetland (mixed emergent marsh), 10.5 mi away: no ORAM score, plant community index 26 of 100 (surveyed 2003); 0 within 10 miles. Category 3 wetlands are the state's best and hardest to fill; category 1 are degraded.

On the old maps: USGS topographic maps marked 23 acres of marsh and swamp here, under 0.1% of the ZIP (Ohio EPA's digitized topo-map wetlands).

Mapped from aerial photography, mostly 2004 to 2007 (the Lake Erie watersheds were re-mapped from 2021 imagery, a few areas date from 1976 to 2005 or 2014 to 2023), so small and seasonal wetlands are undercounted and ponds dug or filled since then are missing; a site delineation decides whether a lot is jurisdictional. Emergent means marsh, forested and shrub means swamp.

Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Wetlands Inventory (Ohio geodatabase), freshwater wetland and pond polygons clipped to the ZIP boundary; lakes and river channels excluded, imagery mostly 2004 to 2007 (Lake Erie basin 2021) · USFWS wetlands inventory · Ohio EPA GIS services

Land cover

Developed

21%: 1% high intensity (downtown blocks, big-box lots), 5% medium (apartments, small-lot houses), 7% low (houses on larger lots), 8.3% open space (lawns, parks, golf courses, road verges)

Farmland

33%: 14% row crops, 19% pasture and hay

Crops 2025

of 12,004 cropped acres, 44% soybeans, 41% corn, 2% wheat and small grains (plus 4% wheat followed by soybeans, counted under soybeans), 7% hay and alfalfa, 5% vegetables, orchards, fallow and other crops; 13,676 acres of pasture and grass (USDA Cropland Data Layer)

Forest

44%, plus 0.7% grass and shrub

Water and wetland

0.6% open water, 0.4% wetland

Paved and roofed

7% of the ZIP's surface is impervious; rain that lands there runs straight to a storm drain or stream instead of soaking in

Tree canopy

37% of the ZIP sits under tree canopy

Area

113.2 square miles of land

Land cover is classified from Landsat imagery at 30 metre pixels, so a house on a wooded lot can read as forest and a farm lane as open space. Stream health starts to slip once about 10% of a watershed is impervious, and is usually poor above 25%.

Source: National Land Cover Database 2021 (USGS and the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium): land cover, percent impervious surface and tree canopy at 30 m, summarised over the ZIP boundary · NLCD · USDA Cropland Data Layer · ODNR pre-settlement vegetation

People

Education

22.9% of adults 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher, 7% a graduate degree; 48.1% stopped at high school or earlier

Ages

22.6% under 18, 17.8% 65 or older

Race and origin

88.5% white, 2.6% Black, 2.6% Hispanic or Latino, 0.9% Asian, 5.3% other or two or more races

Born abroad

1.9% of residents (1,188 people); largest countries of birth: Israel (216), India (162), Mexico (116)

Veterans

8.2% of adults

Households

2.5 people per household on average; 31% of households are one person living alone, 42% married couples

Who lives here

30% of households include children, 33% someone 65 or over and 13.5% are a senior living alone; of people 15 and over, 45% are married, 33% never married, 15% divorced and 7% widowed

Poverty

15.4% of residents live below the poverty line, 20.5% of children and 9.7% of people 65 and over; the Gini index of income inequality is 0.45 (0 would mean every household earns the same, 1 that one household earns everything). County-wide, the Census Bureau's 2024 estimate is 9.2% (11.1% of children) with a median household income of $86,157 (SAIPE)

Ancestry

most often reported: German 21%, Irish 14%, English 13%

Movers

10.0% of residents lived somewhere else a year earlier, 0.6% in another state and 0.4% abroad

Language

0.1% of households speak limited English; 2.0% speak Spanish at home

Group quarters

1,272 of the 62,578 people counted here in 2020 (2.0%) lived in group quarters: 445 in nursing facilities, 315 in other group housing such as shelters, group homes and worker dormitories, 289 in college housing, 214 in prisons and jails, 9 in juvenile facilities (2020 Census)

Moving

8,781 people moved into Licking County between the returns they filed in 2022 and 2023 and 8,096 moved out (net +685, 145,795 stayed put); most arrivals came from Franklin, OH (3,838), Fairfield, OH (798), Muskingum, OH (359); most leavers went to Franklin, OH (2,621), Fairfield, OH (801), Muskingum, OH (470) (IRS)

Metro or rural

USDA rural-urban continuum code 1 of 9 for Licking County: metro - counties in metro areas of 1 million population or more

Nonprofits

274 tax-exempt organizations registered to addresses in this ZIP, 39 of them reporting $1 million or more in income; 79% are 501(c)(3) charities and 20% churches or religious groups; largest: Licking Memorial Hospital ($403 million), Licking Rural Electrification Inc ($74 million), Licking Memorial Health Professionals ($54 million) (IRS)

County growth

Licking County went from 178,501 people in April 2020 to 185,564 in July 2025 (+4.0%): 9,316 births, 9,880 deaths and a net +7,253 from migration since 2020; in 2025 alone a net 1,001 moved in from elsewhere in the U.S. and 245 arrived from abroad (Census estimates)

Since 1900

First counted in 1810 with 3,852 people and 38,846 by 1850, Licking County counted 47,070 people in 1900, 70,645 in 1950, 107,799 in 1970, 145,699 in 2000 and 178,501 in 2020; it has never been larger than today (3.9 times its 1900 size, decennial censuses)

Commuting area: USDA classes this ZIP as the core of a metropolitan area (rural-urban commuting area code 1 of 10, 2020 edition).

Race shares follow the Census categories, with Hispanic origin counted separately from race. Five-year averages centered on 2022. Moves count people on tax returns whose address changed county, so students and the very poor are undercounted.

Source: Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020 to 2024 five-year estimates by ZIP Code Tabulation Area (tables B15003, B03002, B05002, B21001, B01001, B25010, B11001, B17001, B19083, B04006, B07003, C16002, B05006, B11005, B11007, B12001); county population estimates, vintage 2025; IRS exempt organization master file; USDA rural-urban continuum codes 2023; USDA ERS rural-urban commuting area codes 2020; 2020 Census PL 94-171 redistricting file, group quarters (table P5); IRS Statistics of Income county migration, returns filed in 2022 and 2023; Census SAIPE 2024 county poverty and median income; decennial county counts from the Census Bureau report Population of States and Counties of the United States 1790 to 1990 · Census ACS · Census population estimates · IRS migration data · USDA ERS county codes · USDA ERS commuting area codes · 2020 Census redistricting data · Census SAIPE · IRS exempt organizations

Jobs and commuting

Largest employers by sector: Health care and social assistance 5,219, Education 2,755, Manufacturing 2,350. 53% of local jobs pay over $3,333 a month, and 55% of residents' jobs do.

Businesses: 1,105 establishments with 18,551 employees and $991 million a year in payroll in 2023, at least 29 of them with 100 or more workers; most common: retail (156), health care and social assistance (144), other services (129), restaurants and hotels (125) (ZIP Business Patterns).

Workplace safety (OSHA): 43 inspections of workplaces in this ZIP since 2020 (13 after complaints, 20 planned, 8 on referrals); most inspected: Modern Welding Company Of Ohio, Inc. (2), Owens Corning Fiberglass, Llc (2), Celso Funez (2). 1 worker death investigated since 2015 and 3 hospitalisations: 2017, employee is struck by overturned vehicle and is killed.

County labor market: Licking County's unemployment rate was 3.3% in July 2026 (4.6% a year earlier), with 92,638 people in the labor force and 3,011 looking for work. Employers in the county paid an average of $1,289 a week in the first quarter of 2026 (up 8.5% on the year) to 77,041 workers at 4,027 establishments, employment up 5.5%; the largest private sectors are manufacturing (12,344 jobs, $1,501 a week), transportation and warehousing (8,171 jobs, $928 a week), health care and social assistance (7,971 jobs, $1,118 a week). (BLS)

Working-age residents: 59.9% of people 16 and over here are in the labor force, and 3.4% of the civilian labor force was unemployed, averaged over 2020 to 2024 (Census ACS). Residents' most common occupations: management and business 16%, office and administrative support 12%, sales 11%; 6% are self-employed and 11% work for a government.

Federal money: in fiscal 2025 the federal government obligated $1.7 billion in contracts performed in Licking County ($9,460 a resident) and $175 million in grants ($981 a resident) and $1.0 billion in direct payments to people and organizations (USAspending; Social Security, Medicare and most benefits are not counted).

County economy: Licking County produced $8.5 billion of real GDP in 2024 (2017 dollars, up 23.5% since 2019); personal income came to $61,466 a person in 2024, 24th of Ohio's 88 counties and up 31% since 2019 before inflation (BEA).

County type (USDA ERS, 2015 codes): Licking County is a metro county with a nonspecialized economy, with none of the ERS distress flags.

How they get there: 74.7% drive alone, 9% carpool, 0.2% transit, 2.2% walk, 0.3% bike, 11.6% work from home (ACS).

Where residents work: 27% inside this ZIP; 7% in Heath (43056), 3% in Hebron (43025), 3% in Granville (43023) (shares of the 29,328 residents with an Ohio workplace).

Unemployment-insurance records tie each job to a workplace and a home address; large employers sometimes report every worker at a headquarters, which inflates a few ZIPs. Self-employment, the military, the Postal Service, most farm work and a large part of federal civilian employment are missing (federal jobs come from OPM records that omit several agencies and, in practice, most of Wright-Patterson).

Source: Census Bureau LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2023, all jobs; populated census blocks assigned to ZIP Code Tabulation Areas by interior point, workplace-only blocks by the majority ZCTA of their block group or tract; Census ZIP Code Business Patterns 2023; OSHA enforcement data via the Labor Department open data catalog; BLS county unemployment (LAUS) and wages (QCEW); Census ACS 2020 to 2024 labor force by ZIP Code Tabulation Area (B23025); USAspending federal awards by county, fiscal 2025; BEA county GDP and personal income · Census LEHD · BLS local unemployment · BLS QCEW · BEA county GDP · USAspending · OSHA enforcement data · Census ZIP Business Patterns · Census ACS · USDA ERS county typology · CDFI Fund Opportunity Zones

Upward mobility

Meaning

below the Ohio median: low-income children here mostly stayed in the lower half

Incarceration

2.38% of those children were in jail or prison on census day 2010

Coverage

69% of the ZIP's residents live in tracts with an estimate

The rank describes people born around 1980 who were children here in the 1980s and 1990s; neighbourhoods change, so it is a record of what the place did for one generation, not a forecast. Estimates for small tracts are noisy.

Source: Opportunity Atlas tract outcomes (Chetty, Friedman, Hendren, Jones and Porter, 2018; Census Bureau and IRS data for children born 1978 to 1983), population-weighted to ZIPs through 2020 census blocks · Opportunity Atlas · Opportunity Insights data

Social vulnerability

Socioeconomic status

47th percentile: poverty, unemployment, housing cost burden, no high school diploma, no health insurance

Household characteristics

64th: people 65 and over or 17 and under, disability, single-parent households, limited English

Racial and ethnic minority status

34th

Housing and transportation

57th: multi-unit and mobile homes, crowding, no vehicle, group quarters

The index ranks tracts on how much help their residents would need in a disaster or disease outbreak, using American Community Survey 2018 to 2022 figures. Ranks are within Ohio; a ZIP is the average of its tracts weighted by residents.

Source: CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index 2022, census tracts ranked among Ohio tracts, population-weighted to the ZIP through 2020 census blocks · CDC/ATSDR SVI

Community health

Weight and activity

obesity 39.6%, no leisure-time physical activity 27.0%

Chronic conditions

diabetes 14.0%, high blood pressure 37.2%, COPD 9.3%, cancer (any but non-melanoma skin cancer) 9.3%

Habits

current smoking 18.3%, binge drinking 15.2%, short sleep 37.8%

Mind

depression 27.6%, frequent mental distress 18.7%, feeling lonely 35.0%

Access

uninsured under 65 8.4%, yearly checkup 78.8%, dental visit 61.5%

Hardship

any disability 32.4%, food insecurity 14.8%

Heart and lungs

current asthma 11.5%, coronary heart disease 7.6%, stroke 3.8%, arthritis 32.0%

Keeping up

78.7% of adults with high blood pressure take medicine for it, 84.5% had a cholesterol check in 5 years

Social needs

housing insecurity 11.5%, no reliable transportation 8.2%, utility shut-off threat 8.7%, lacking emotional support 20.8%

Provider shortage

100% live in a designated primary care shortage area (score 13 of 25); none for dental; 100% live in a designated mental health shortage area (score 13 of 25) (HRSA; higher scores mean greater need)

Coverage (Census)

6.6% of residents have no health insurance (1.9% of children); 22% are on Medicaid and 48% have coverage through an employer

Disability (Census)

19.2% of residents report a disability, 37% of those 65 and over

County (County Health Rankings 2025): Licking County sits in health group 4 of 10 among U.S. counties for population health (1 is healthiest) and group 3 for community conditions. Premature death 8,469 (Ohio 9,740) years of life lost before 75 per 100,000; one primary care doctor for every 2,693 people (Ohio 1,328), one mental health provider for every 605 people (Ohio 286), one dentist for every 2,628 people (Ohio 1,535); preventable hospital stays 3,012 (Ohio 3,033) per 100,000 Medicare enrollees; injury deaths 85.8 (Ohio 100.7) and suicides 15.6 (Ohio 14.7) per 100,000; infant deaths 6.1 (Ohio 7.0) per 1,000 births; teen births 14.1 (Ohio 17.4) per 1,000 girls 15 to 19; children in poverty 11.9 (Ohio 17.5) percent; fine-particle air pollution 8.3 (Ohio 7.8) micrograms per cubic metre; no community water system in the county had a health-based drinking water violation in 2023. Drug overdoses: 27 deaths in the 12 months ending December 2025 (34 a year earlier, 80 at the highest since 2020, in the 12 months ending March 2022), about 14.7 per 100,000 residents against 20.8 statewide (CDC provisional counts).

Cancer (NCI State Cancer Profiles): Licking County records 511.9 new cancers a year per 100,000 people, age-adjusted, for 2018 to 2022 (Ohio 472.9, U.S. 448.6), about 1,152 cases a year, with the rate stable; cancer deaths 165.7 per 100,000 (Ohio 160.3, U.S. 145.4), falling. By site, per 100,000 (Ohio in parentheses): lung 71.9 (63.6), colorectal 40.2 (38.4), female breast 148.4 (133), prostate 130.5 (120.8), bladder 22.3 (21.8), leukemia 14 (13).

Medicare: 38,391 people in Licking County were on Medicare in 2025 (21% of residents): 34,329 aged 65 or over and 4,062 younger people with disabilities. 57% chose a Medicare Advantage plan, 12% also had Medicaid and 83% had Part D drug coverage; enrollment is up 8% since 2020 (CMS).

Modelled from a national telephone survey and the ZIP's demographics, so these are estimates of what residents would report, not counts of patients; small ZIPs carry wide margins.

Source: CDC PLACES, 2025 release (BRFSS 2023 and 2022, ACS 2019-2023), model-based ZCTA estimates of crude adult prevalence; County Health Rankings 2025 and CDC provisional overdose counts for the county; HRSA shortage area designations weighted to the ZIP; Census ACS 2020 to 2024 (insurance, disability); CMS Medicare Monthly Enrollment, county, 2025 · CDC PLACES · County Health Rankings · CDC overdose data · NCI cancer profiles · HRSA data

Life expectancy

Ohio's statewide figure for the same years was 77.6; the United States 78.7. Differences of a year or two between neighbouring ZIPs are within the estimates' error; differences of five or more are real and track income, smoking and access to care.

Source: CDC National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Small-area Life Expectancy Estimates Project (USALEEP), 2010-2015, census tracts weighted by 2020 block population · CDC USALEEP

Nearest hospital

213 beds · no trauma designation listed · 1 general or critical-access hospital within 10 miles, 5 within 25.

Medicare rating: ★★☆☆☆ · emergency room: yes · typical ER visit 185 minutes door to discharge (Ohio median 155)

Patients' verdict: 63% would definitely recommend it, 70% rated their stay 9 or 10 out of 10 (★★★☆☆ patient-experience rating, 595 surveys).

Outcomes: 30-day death rates after heart failure 10.3% (about the national rate), heart attack 12% (about the national rate), pneumonia 17.1% (about the national rate), July 2022 to June 2025; the patient-safety composite for serious complications (July 2022 to June 2024) is about the national value (Medicare).

Community health center: 1 inside this ZIP, nearest Lower Lights Health Newark, Newark, 3.3 mi away; 0 within 3 miles, 1 within 10. These federally funded clinics see anyone and charge on a sliding scale.

Veterans: nearest VA site is Daniel L. Kinnard VA Clinic, Newark (multi-specialty outpatient clinic), 3.7 mi away; 1 VA site within 10 miles, 2 within 25; 1 inside this ZIP.

Providers: 1,935 active health care providers list a practice address in this ZIP: 307 physicians, 103 nurse practitioners and physician assistants, 44 dentists, 353 mental health professionals, 23 pharmacies, 3 hospitals, 25 nursing or assisted-living facilities, 34 home health or hospice agencies; most common physician specialties: Family Medicine (31), Emergency Medicine (30), Anesthesiology (23) (NPPES registry, August 2026).

Dialysis: 2 centers inside this ZIP, nearest Davita Cherry Valley Dialysis, Newark, 3.3 mi away, 26 stations, Medicare ★★☆☆☆ (DaVita); 2 within 5 miles, 2 within 15.

Source: federal HIFLD hospital inventory (via FEMA) with Medicare Care Compare star ratings, emergency-service flags, median emergency department times (measure OP_18b), HCAHPS patient survey results and 30-day death rates and patient-safety composites (Complications and Deaths file; a campus with no record of its own carries its parent hospital's figures, labelled); NPPES NPI registry, August 2026 monthly file, active records by practice ZIP; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center (some listings lag closures and mergers); HRSA health center sites, CMS dialysis facilities (geocoded with the Census geocoder) and the VA facility list · CMS Care Compare data · HIFLD · HRSA data · CMS NPI files

Nursing homes

6 certified homes within 5 miles, 9 within 15; 5 inside this ZIP.

Medicare rating

★★★☆☆ overall; inspections ★★☆☆☆; staffing ★★☆☆☆

Beds

75 certified

Ownership

For profit, corporation

Penalties

no federal fines or payment denials since 2023 (CMS)

In this ZIP: ALTERCARE NEWARK NORTH INC. (3★, 75 beds); ALTERCARE NEWARK SOUTH INC. (3★, 47 beds); ARLINGTON CARE CENTER (3★, 110 beds) and 2 more.

Stars are Medicare's Care Compare ratings; a 1-star home failed inspections or is thinly staffed, and the abuse flag means a citation for harm in the past year or two. Ratings shift every quarter.

Source: Medicare Care Compare nursing home provider and penalties files (CMS), geocoded with the Census Bureau; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center · CMS Care Compare data

Crime

Violent

145 offenses: 2 murders, 16 rapes, 16 robberies, 111 aggravated assaults (2.8 per 1,000 residents; Ohio 3.2)

Property

881 offenses: 118 burglaries, 655 thefts, 95 vehicle thefts (17.1 per 1,000; Ohio 16.9)

Other

387 simple assaults, 445 vandalism reports, 154 drug offenses, 23 weapons violations

Reporting

12 months of 2024 on file; 51,394 residents served; this department covers the 80% of the ZIP's residents in its territory, the rest fall under others

Trend

violent offenses up 1% from 143 in 2023; property down 35% from 1,347

Rates cover the whole agency's territory, not this ZIP alone: a city's downtown and its quiet edges share one number. Murders, rapes and assaults are counted once per victim and other offenses once per incident, as the FBI's Crime Data Explorer does; a large department's figures can still fall somewhat short of the Explorer's, which takes in later submissions, and a sheriff's population is only the unincorporated area it serves.

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, NIBRS incident data for Ohio, 2024 (2023 for the trend): Group A offenses per reporting agency (violent = murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault; property = burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson), murders, rapes and assaults counted once per victim; the agency is the police department of the ZIP's largest local government (city, village or township) when it has one of its own, found in the FBI's 2023 and 2024 rosters or the USGS police station inventory, otherwise the sheriff of the ZIP's county; a rate needs at least six months of 2024 on file and is annualized from fewer than 12; the Ohio figures pool the 511 police departments and sheriff's offices with all 12 months on file · FBI Crime Data Explorer · USGS structures service

Police and post office

2 stations within 3 miles, 5 within 8. Inside this ZIP: Licking County Sheriff's Office; Newark Police Department.

Nearest post office: Newark Post Office, 1.1 mi; 1 inside this ZIP.

Townships without their own department are policed by the county sheriff, whose office may be at the county seat; the state highway patrol covers the roads. The inventory lists stations, not patrol zones. It also misses some departments and still lists some that have closed; the atlas adds the departments that reported at least six months of 2024 crimes to the FBI but had no station in it, and drops the closed and duplicate records it found.

Source: USGS National Map structures inventory (police stations, post offices), with closed and duplicate records dropped, wrong names corrected and departments it lacks added from OpenStreetMap and the Census Bureau geocoder (September 2026); straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center · USGS structures service · OpenStreetMap · Census Bureau geocoder

Fire and EMS

4 stations within 3 miles, 14 within 8.

Inside this ZIP: Newark Fire Department Station 2; Newark Township Fire Department; Newark Fire Department and Emergency Medical Services Station 1 and 6 more.

Source: USGS National Map structures inventory (fire and EMS stations; most Ohio records last updated 2019 to 2022), Columbus- and Cleveland-area stations checked against the cities' station lists, September 2026. Indiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania stations near the line are included; Kentucky and West Virginia stations across the Ohio River are not. Straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center. Stations open or close without the inventory always catching up. · USGS structures service · Columbus fire stations · Cleveland fire stations

Public library

2 libraries within 3 miles, 3 within 8.

Open

about 48 hours a week

Building

70,000 square feet

Licking County Library

6 buildings, serves 118K people, 1.8 visits per resident a year, 944K items lent, 1,160 programs, $6.9M annual income

Inside this ZIP: Emerson R. Miller Branch; Licking County Library.

Museums: 7 inside this ZIP (Heisey Collectors of America, Historic Hudson Community Association, Licking County Historical Society and 4 more); nearest Historic Hudson Community Association, historical society, Newark, 0.1 mi away; 7 within 5 miles, 23 within 15 (IMLS 2018 directory: museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos).

Source: Institute of Museum and Library Services, Public Libraries Survey fiscal 2024 (outlet and system files) and Museum Data Files 2018 (museums); straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center · IMLS Public Libraries Survey · IMLS Museum Data Files

Grocery access

Distance

81% of residents live more than half a mile from a supermarket, 47% more than 1 mile, 1% more than 10 miles

Without a car

14% live in a tract flagged for low income and low vehicle access; 7.5% of households have no vehicle (Census ACS 2020 to 2024)

Poverty

17.4% of residents below the poverty line

SNAP stores

4 supermarkets or superstores and 4 grocery stores inside this ZIP take SNAP, alongside 28 convenience stores, 3 farmers markets, 15 other outlets (dollar, drug and discount stores); nearest supermarket or grocery store Kroger (super store), 0.9 mi from the ZIP's center; 7 supermarkets and grocery stores within 3 miles (USDA, 2026)

SNAP households

17% of households received SNAP benefits in the past year (Census ACS 2020 to 2024)

Setting

80% of residents in urban tracts, across 20 tracts, 5 flagged

A "supermarket" here is a large grocery store, supercenter or club; dollar stores and corner groceries do not count, and stores that opened since 2019 are missing from the distance figures; the SNAP store list is current. Rural distance flags mean a long drive, not necessarily hardship.

Source: USDA Economic Research Service, Food Access Research Atlas: 2019 Large Retailer Access Map (2010 census tracts, 2019 supermarket list; ERS's name for this file since July 2026), tract values weighted into ZIPs by 2020 census block population; SNAP store counts from USDA Food and Nutrition Service retailer locations, 2026; SNAP and no-vehicle households from Census ACS 2020 to 2024 · USDA ERS Large Retailer Access Map · USDA SNAP retailers · Census ACS

History

Before the settlers

The single most important Native American site in Ohio sits inside the modern city: the Newark Earthworks, a complex of geometric enclosures the Hopewell culture built between roughly 100 BC and AD 400, moving an estimated 7 million cubic feet of earth by hand to lay out circles, squares and an octagon precisely keyed to the 18.6-year cycle of the moon's rising and setting points. It was a gathering and ceremonial place, not a residence: excavations there have turned up obsidian, marine shell, shark teeth, mica and copper carried in from a trade network reaching a thousand miles and more from central Ohio. By the time of historic-era contact the Wyandot and Shawnee used the Licking valley mainly as a hunting ground rather than a place of permanent towns; the 1881 county history, citing the estimate of U.S. geographer Thomas Hutchins for 1764, puts about three hundred Wyandot and five hundred Shawnee warriors in the wider region, and states plainly that the site of Newark itself lay outside the main trails, with only a branch trail passing through the county along the Licking River past a favorite fishing ground at the Bowling Green reservoir. The Licking River and county both take their name from salt licks on its banks that drew deer and buffalo, and later the settlers' own hunters; one early Ohio Delaware-language explanation instead derives the name from a phrase meaning 'where the flood waters recede.' The land that became Licking County lies within the vast tract the United States acquired from the Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Ottawa, and other nations by the Treaty of Greenville on August 3, 1795, whose line ran well to the north and west of the future county. In 1860 the amateur antiquarian David Wyrick, digging in the earthworks' mounds, produced inscribed stones purporting to show an ancient Hebrew presence in Ohio; they are now recognized as a hoax, but the affair shows how much fascination the earthworks already held only a generation after Newark's founding. No source-documented Native village, camp or burial ground specific to the town site itself survives in the record beyond the earthworks and the trail described above; readers looking for the fuller regional picture, including the Adena and Fort Ancient cultures and the treaty history of the wider county, should see the Licking County file.

Peoples named in the record: Hopewell culture, Wyandot, Shawnee.

• Octagon Earthworks earthwork · within the city of Newark, joined by parallel walls to an Observatory Circle · Hopewell culture, c. 100 BC - AD 400 source
• Great Circle Earthworks earthwork · in the neighboring city of Heath, immediately south of Newark, part of the same Newark Earthworks complex · Hopewell culture, c. 100 BC - AD 400 source
• Wright Earthworks earthwork · within the city of Newark; a fragment of a once-20-acre square enclosure, largely destroyed by 19th-century canal construction and development · Hopewell culture, c. 100 BC - AD 400 source
• Newark Holy Stones find site other · mounds of the Newark Earthworks complex, Newark · objects excavated June and November 1860; later exposed as a hoax source

Licking County

No county in Ohio carries a heavier concentration of Native American history than Licking County, and its record begins with stone. Flint Ridge, a vein of unusually colorful, glass-hard Vanport flint exposed along a ridge on the Licking-Muskingum county line in Hopewell Township, was quarried by Native people for more than 10,000 years; hundreds of shallow pits, some over 20 feet deep and covering more than a hundred acres, still mark the ridge. Colonel Charles Whittlesey, Dr. S. P. Hildreth (in an 1838 report to the Ohio legislature) and antiquarian Caleb Atwater (1818) independently… more

Ohio before the treaties: peoples, earthworks and cessionsstatewide

Periods

• Paleo-Indian, about 13,000 to 8,000 BC
• Archaic, about 8000 to 800 BC
• Early Woodland / Adena, about 800 BC to AD 100
• Middle Woodland / Hopewell, about 100 BC to AD 500
• Late Woodland, about AD 500 to 1000
• Late Prehistoric / Fort Ancient and Whittlesey, about AD 1000 to 1650
• Protohistoric, the Erie and the Beaver Wars, roughly 1650s
• Historic, 1700s resettlement
• Removal, roughly 1795 to 1843

Nations of the 1700s

Shawnee, Wyandot, Lenape (Delaware), Miami, Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga), Seneca (of Sandusky), Ottawa (Odawa), Erie, Ojibwe (Chippewa) / Potawatomi.

Treaties that ceded Ohio land

• Treaty of Fort McIntosh (1785): US commissioners George Rogers Clark, Richard Butler, and Arthur Lee; Wyandot, Delaware (Lenape), Ojibwe (Chippewa), and Odawa (Ottawa).
• Treaty of Fort Harmar (1789): US commissioner Arthur St. Clair (governor, Northwest Territory), with Josiah Harmar and Richard Butler; Haudenosaunee, Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, Sauk, Wyandot…
• Treaty of Greenville (1795): US commissioner Major General Anthony Wayne; twelve nations of the Western Confederacy — Wyandot, Delaware (Lenape), Shawnee, Odawa (Ottawa), Ojibwe (Chippewa),…
• Treaty of Fort Industry (1805): US Indian agent Charles Jouett; Ottawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwe (Chippewa), Wyandot, Munsee, Delaware (Lenape), and Shawnee.
• Treaty of Detroit (1807): William Hull (governor, Michigan Territory); Ottawa, Ojibwe (Chippewa), Wyandot, and Potawatomi.
• Treaty of Brownstown (1808): William Hull for the US; Ojibwe (Chippewa), Ottawa, and Potawatomi (Council of Three Fires), plus Wyandot and Shawnee.
• Treaty of Fort Meigs / Maumee Rapids (1817): US commissioners Lewis Cass and Duncan McArthur; Wyandot, Seneca, Delaware (Lenape), Shawnee, Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwe (Chippewa).
• Treaty of St. Marys (1818): US commissioners Jonathan Jennings, Lewis Cass, and Benjamin Parke; across the six agreements: Wyandot/Seneca/Shawnee/Ottawa (September 17), Wyandot again (Sept…
• Treaty of Lewistown and Treaty of Wapakoneta (1831)
• Treaty of Upper Sandusky / Wyandot (1842): The Wyandot Nation and the US government. I could not confirm the US commissioner's name from any source I opened — flagged gap.

Earthworks that survive

• Newark Earthworks (overall complex) (Licking County), Hopewell
• Great Circle Earthworks (Licking County), Hopewell
• Octagon Earthworks (Licking County), Hopewell
• Serpent Mound (Adams County), Disputed
• Fort Ancient (Warren County), Hopewell
• Hopewell Culture National Historical Park (Ross County), Hopewell
• Miamisburg Mound (Montgomery County), Adena
• Shrum Mound (Franklin County), Adena
• Fort Hill (Highland County), Hopewell
• Marietta Earthworks (Washington County), Hopewell
• Flint Ridge (Straddles the Licking–Muskingum county line; the Ohio History Connection's preserve itself sits in Hopewell Township, Licking County, about 3 miles north of Brownsville. County), Used by essentially every prehistoric culture in the region across more than 10,000 years, with especially intensive use by the Hopewell

Statewide notes researched from archive.org, delawaretribe.org, en.wikipedia.org and others; every entry carries its own links in the research file.

How Newark began

Newark, the Licking County seat, was laid out in 1802 by General William C. Schenck at the forks of the Licking River, on ground that already held the largest set of geometric earthworks the Hopewell culture built anywhere in the world 1,600 to 2,000 years earlier. Schenck named the town for his birthplace, Newark, New Jersey. The Ohio and Erie Canal broke ground nearby in 1825, the Central Ohio Railroad and later the Baltimore and Ohio's car shops made it a rail town, and glass, stove and, from 1938, fiberglass manufacturing built its economy through the twentieth century. The surviving Octagon and Great Circle Earthworks were inscribed as part of Ohio's first UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2023, the same square mile of riverbank ground where the county courthouse, a Louis Sullivan bank, and the Longaberger Company's basket-shaped headquarters also stand.

Settled 1802 (cabins built at the site this year), platted 1802, laid out by William C. Schenck; the plat was formally recorded in Fairfield County's records on March 16, 1803, incorporated 1813; by General William C. Schenck, acting for himself and as agent for partners John N. Cummins and John Burnet. source

The name. Newark was named by its founder and principal proprietor, General William C. Schenck, for his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey, when he laid out the town at the forks of the Licking River in 1802. source

Timeline33

• c. 100 BC - AD 400The Hopewell culture builds the Newark Earthworks, the largest connected set of geometric earthen enclosures known anywhere, covering more than four square miles of what is now Newark and Heath. source
• 1764U.S. geographer Thomas Hutchins estimates about three hundred Wyandot and five hundred Shawnee warriors in the wider region that includes the future Licking County, which the 1881 county history describes as used mainly as a hunting ground rather than settled with permanent towns. source
• 1795The Treaty of Greenville, signed August 3, cedes a large area of Ohio, including the land that becomes Licking County, to the United States. source
• 1802General William C. Schenck lays out the town of Newark at the forks of the Licking River, and settlers including Adam Hatfield, Samuel Elliott and others build the first cabins there the same year. source
• 1803Schenck's plat and description of the town of Newark is sworn before a Fairfield County justice and recorded on March 16. source
• 1808The Ohio legislature establishes Licking County on January 30, organized March 1, with Newark as the county seat. source
• 1809 or 1810Licking County's first courthouse, a one- or two-story log building on the public square, is erected; it serves until about 1815. source
• 1813Newark is incorporated. source
• 1820Benjamin Briggs founds the Newark Advocate, the city's first newspaper, which is still publishing a century later. source
• 1825On July 4, ground is broken for the Ohio and Erie Canal at Licking Summit near Newark; Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York, the guest of honor, turns the first spadeful of earth before a crowd of thousands. source
• 1832Licking County's third courthouse, a two-story brick building with an ungainly wooden third story on stone pillars, replaces the decaying second courthouse on the same public square. source
• 1851John Clem, later famous as the Civil War drummer boy 'Johnny Shiloh,' the youngest noncommissioned officer in U.S. Army history, is born in Newark on August 13. source
• 1852The Central Ohio Railroad begins running trains between Zanesville and Newark on January 19, the city's first rail connection. source
• 1853The Central Ohio Railroad extends service from Newark west to Columbus. source
• 1860David Wyrick excavates the inscribed 'Keystone' in June and the 'Decalogue Stone' in November from mounds of the Newark Earthworks; both are later identified as a hoax rather than evidence of an ancient Hebrew presence. source
• 1873The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad builds heavy car shops at Newark, once described as the most extensive in the western United States, making the city a division headquarters with a 12-track yard and a 25-stall roundhouse. source
• 1874Licking County's third courthouse burns. source
• 1876Construction begins on the present Licking County Courthouse; in March, while still unfinished, its upper stories catch fire from a defective flue and burn to the second story before the fire is put out, damaging county records. source
• 1883James Moser and, from 1885, partner Joseph Wehrle begin making cast-iron stoves at a former machine works in Newark, the start of what becomes the Wehrle Stove Company. source
• 1886The privately owned Newark Water Company begins operating a pumping station and distribution system, drawing water from local wells filtered through wood tubs. source
• 1895A. H. Heisey founds the A. H. Heisey Company glass works in Newark, which becomes one of the country's leading makers of fine pressed and blown tableware. source
• 1905The City of Newark builds its own municipal pumping station and distribution system, drawing water from the North Fork of the Licking River. source
• 1910The city buys out the privately owned Newark Water Company and merges its system with the municipal plant. source
• 1910On July 8, a mob storms the Licking County jail and lynches Carl Etherington, a 17-year-old Anti-Saloon League agent who had shot and killed a man during a raid on illegal Newark saloons; Ohio Governor Judson Harmon removes Newark's mayor from office afterward. source
• 1914-1915Chicago architect Louis Sullivan designs the Home Building Association bank at 1 North Third Street, built in 1914 and opened August 25, 1915; it is one of only eight banks Sullivan designed. source
• 1922Newark's water plant becomes the first municipal waterworks in the country to remove settled sludge by mechanical clarifiers, adding softening and filtration the same year. source
• 1925Aviator Jerrie Mock, who in 1964 becomes the first woman to fly solo around the world, is born in Newark on November 22. source
• 1938Owens-Illinois and Corning Glass spin off their joint glass-fiber research as the Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation, opening the new company's first manufacturing plant in Newark; the Newark plant remains one of the company's oldest and largest. source
• 1957The Heisey Glass Company closes after 62 years; the Imperial Glass Company later buys its molds. source
• 1997The Longaberger Company opens its seven-story, basket-shaped corporate headquarters along State Route 16 in Newark, built to resemble the company's Medium Market Basket. source
• 2004Newark's water treatment plant adopts ultraviolet disinfection, becoming one of the first plants in the United States, and the first in Ohio, to disinfect drinking water with UV light. source
• 2023On September 19, UNESCO inscribes the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, including Newark's Octagon Earthworks and the Great Circle Earthworks in neighboring Heath, as Ohio's first World Heritage Site. source
• 2025The Moundbuilders Country Club, which had leased and golfed on the Octagon Earthworks since 1910, vacates the site on January 1 following a 2022 Ohio Supreme Court ruling allowing the Ohio History Connection to acquire the lease by eminent domain, restoring full public access. source

Stories

A Basketful at a Time

Roughly two thousand years ago, people of the Hopewell culture began laying out enormous geometric shapes in earth on the flat ground where the North and South forks of the Licking River meet. Working without wheelbarrows, draft animals or writing, they moved an estimated 7 million cubic feet of soil, dug and carried it seems basket by basket, to raise walls in a giant octagon, two great circles and a near-perfect square, connected by parallel embankments across a stretch of land more than four square miles. There is no evidence of an elite class that commanded this labor; houses and grave goods look similar across Hopewell society, so archaeologists believe many communities cooperated to build and periodically gather at the site, bringing with them obsidian, mica, marine shell, shark teeth and copper carried in from trade networks a thousand miles and more away. By the time American surveyors reached central Ohio, canal builders, farmers and the growing town of Newark had already erased nine-tenths of the complex; what is left, about 206 acres split among the Octagon, the Great Circle and the Wright Earthworks fragment, is still the largest connected set of geometric earthworks known anywhere in the world. source

The Octagon and the Moon

For more than a century after the Ohio militia stopped using the Octagon Earthworks as a training ground in 1908, the walls of one of the most sophisticated ancient structures in North America doubled as a country-club golf course. That arrangement obscured, but never erased, what two Earlham College professors, astronomer Ray Hively and philosopher Robert Horn, worked out in 1982: that the Octagon's walls and gateways were engineered so that the moon, at the northernmost point of its 18.6-year rise-and-set cycle, appears to rise directly through the passage linking the Observatory Circle to the Octagon, a feat of surveying precision that later analysis judged twice as accurate as the famous solstice alignment at Stonehenge. The Moundbuilders Country Club held its lease until a 2022 Ohio Supreme Court ruling let the Ohio History Connection acquire it by eminent domain; the club played its last round and departed on January 1, 2025, and the following September the Octagon and its neighbor the Great Circle were inscribed, together with sites in Ross and Warren counties, as Ohio's first UNESCO World Heritage Site. source

The Newark Holy Stones

In 1860 a Newark surveyor and self-taught antiquarian named David Wyrick, convinced that the mound-building people were connected to the Lost Tribes of Israel, dug in the earthworks and came up with proof, or so he believed: a small inscribed 'Keystone' bearing Hebrew phrases including 'Holy of Holies,' found in June, and in November a sandstone box holding a tablet carved with a miniature Ten Commandments in Hebrew, the 'Decalogue Stone.' The find caused a sensation, offering apparent evidence that ancient Israelites, not just prehistoric Indians, had built the wonders on Newark's outskirts. It did not hold up: contemporary Hebrew scholars judged the lettering 'not antique,' Wyrick's own sketches of the stones contained dozens of errors, and the script itself turned out to be a later form of Hebrew inconsistent with a Lost Tribes origin centuries earlier. The stones survive today, not as evidence of ancient Israelites but as a case study in archaeological hoaxes, on display at the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum in nearby Coshocton. source

Governor Clinton Turns the First Spadeful

Before the Ohio and Erie Canal, Licking County farmers had no good way to get produce to market; the 1881 county history recalls eggs selling at four cents a dozen and flour at a dollar a hundredweight for lack of an outlet. The state's canal commissioners chose Licking Summit, just outside Newark, as the place to begin digging, and invited dignitaries from across Ohio and beyond to a groundbreaking on July 4, 1825. Three days of rain before the event turned the woods to mud and ruined the caterer's profits, but the Fourth dawned clear, and Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York, the man who had championed the Erie Canal in his own state, was handed a spade and threw out the first shovelful of earth to the cheers of a crowd so large that a cavalry company had to be posted around the speakers' stand. Governor Morrow of Ohio and a young army captain took their turns after him, and the antiquarian Caleb Atwater, watching the horses stamp at flies in front of the podium, remarked afterward that it was only fitting, since horses could not read the speeches and the rest of the crowd could. source

A Courthouse Twice Undone by Fire

Licking County has built four courthouses on the same public square in Newark, and fire cuts through the story of nearly all of them. The first, a log building put up around 1809, gave way about 1815 to a two-story brick building with offices in each corner; that one, judged too small and poorly built, was replaced around 1832 by a larger brick structure whose builders added a purely decorative, structurally useless wooden third story propped on stone pillars. That third courthouse burned in 1874, and the county began building its fourth and present courthouse in 1876 at a cost of about $190,000. Even the new building did not escape unscathed: in March 1876, before it was finished, a defective heating flue set the still-unroofed upper stories ablaze, burning down to the second floor and damaging records in the recorder's and auditor's offices before the fire was extinguished. The damaged upper floors were rebuilt at a further cost of forty to fifty thousand dollars, producing the Second Empire courthouse, with its mansard roof and gilded clock tower, that still stands on the square today. source

Sullivan's Jewel Box on Third Street

In 1914 the Home Building Association Company hired the Chicago architect Louis Sullivan, already famous for skyscrapers and for coining the phrase 'form follows function,' to design its new bank on a narrow lot at Third and Main streets. Sullivan gave Newark one of only eight small-town 'jewel box' banks he designed late in his career, an unusually tall two-story building for the type, faced in gray-green terra cotta with his signature intertwined foliage ornament, winged lions over the entrance, and his own name worked into a tile mosaic above the door. It opened for business on August 25, 1915, and outlasted the bank itself, serving over the decades as a butcher shop, a jewelry store and an ice cream parlor before Newark businessman Stephen Jones bought it in 2007 to save it from demolition and later donated it to the Licking County Foundation for restoration. source

The Lynching of Carl Etherington

In January 1909 Licking County voted itself dry under Ohio's new local-option law, but Newark's saloons kept pouring, reportedly with local officials paid off to look the other way. On July 8, 1910, the Anti-Saloon League sent in roughly twenty special agents, sworn in by the mayor of Granville, to raid three Newark saloons; the raid collapsed into a riot as saloon patrons attacked the agents. One agent, 17-year-old Carl Etherington, was chased more than two miles by a mob that included a former police captain, William Howard; when Howard beat him, Etherington shot Howard in what he said was self-defense and was arrested. Howard died of the wound that evening, and as the news spread a crowd that grew to thousands gathered outside the county jail, broke in, dragged Etherington to the public square, beat him and hanged him from a telegraph pole. Ohio's governor removed Newark's mayor from office for failing to prevent the lynching, the state indicted 39 people, including 15 on murder charges, for the mob's actions, and Newark did not formally commemorate what had happened until a historical marker went up at the old jail in 2017. source

Stoves, Glass and Fiberglass

Newark built much of its economy on furnaces. In 1883 James Moser opened an iron foundry at an abandoned machine works on the east side; by 1890 his partner Joseph Wehrle's sons controlled it outright as the Wehrle Stove Company, which grew, by its own later account, into the nation's largest stove maker, running two miles of private railroad track and, at its peak, over two thousand employees. A dozen years after Wehrle started, in 1895, A. H. Heisey opened a glass works elsewhere in the city that became one of the country's most admired makers of fine pressed and blown tableware, a reputation that outlived the factory itself, which closed in 1957; collectors founded the National Heisey Glass Museum in Newark's Veterans Park in 1974. The city's furnace tradition continued into the fiberglass age: when Owens-Illinois and Corning Glass spun off their shared glass-fiber research in 1938 as the new Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation, they built its first factory in Newark, a plant the company still calls its flagship, the oldest and among the largest it operates. source

The Basket That Ate a Cornfield

In 1997 the Longaberger Company, which had built its fortune selling handwoven maple baskets through home shows, opened a corporate headquarters along State Route 16 outside Newark shaped like its own Medium Market Basket, right down to two 150-ton steel handles arched over the glass roof and heated in winter so they would not ice over. The 180,000-square-foot building, wider at the top than the bottom in imitation of a real basket, became one of Ohio's best-known examples of novelty architecture, a piece of corporate showmanship built at the company's peak, when it employed more than 8,000 people and rang up a billion dollars a year in sales. The company's fortunes fell as fast as they had risen: it vacated the building in 2016 and folded a subsidiary into bankruptcy in 2018. Investors have cycled through the empty basket ever since, one pair paying $1.2 million for it in 2017 and, as of a 2026 listing at $8.5 million, offering it for sale on one condition: whatever it becomes next, they say, 'it's got to stay a basket.' source

Not found: The batch's National Register hints for Newark's 43023-zip entries (Avery-Hunter House, A. A. Bancroft House, Bryn Mawr, Buxton Inn) turned out on checking to be Granville addresses, not Newark, and are omitted here; likewise the 43056-zip GNIS historical names (Central City, Idlewild Park) and the Ohio Canal Groundbreaking Site NRHP listing belong administratively to Heath and are not repeated as Newark's own, though the canal groundbreaking event itself is told here since it happened at Licking Summit immediately outside Newark and shaped the city directly. The widely reported statewide Great Flood of 1913 clearly reached the Licking River, which runs through Newark, but no source opened in this pass gave Newark-specific damage, so it is left out of the timeline rather than assumed. Wehrle Stove Company's peak output is given differently in different secondary sources (roughly 600 stoves a day and over 2,200 workers in one account, 1,400 stoves a day in another); the more detailed, directly sourced figure is used here. One general Wikipedia summary of Newark's history gives 1857 for a Central Ohio Railroad connection to Columbus, which conflicts with the railroad's own, more detailed Wikipedia article (extension to Columbus in 1853, full Bellaire-Columbus line open by November 1854); the more detailed and internally consistent account is used. No source-specific Native American village, camp or burial site within the town of Newark itself, apart from the earthworks and the trail noted above, could be found; broader county-level Native history should be sought in the Licking County file. (confidence high)

Licking County

Licking County was organized out of Fairfield County by an act of the Ohio General Assembly passed January 30, 1808, effective March 1, 1808, and named for the Licking River and the salt licks along it that had drawn game, Native travelers and, in 1798, the county's first white settlers. Its seat, Newark, was platted in 1802 by General William C. Schenck at the forks of the Licking, and the county grew around the Ohio and Erie Canal (broken ground at Licking Summit on July 4, 1825), the National Road, its railroads, and industries in glass, stoves, baskets and fiberglass. Licking County holds the richest concentration of Native American earthworks anywhere in Ohio: the Hopewell culture's Newark Earthworks, the largest set of geometric earthen enclosures ever built, whose surviving Octagon and Great Circle were inscribed, together with Flint Ridge's ten-thousand-year-old flint quarries and Granville's Alligator effigy mound nearby, into a landscape that in September 2023 became part of Ohio's first UNESCO World Heritage Site. The county has since drawn Denison University, the Dawes Arboretum, Owens Corning's fiberglass works, and, in the twenty-first century, Intel's multi-billion-dollar chip campus on its western edge near New Albany.

Settled 1798 (Elias Hughes and John Ratliff settle on the Bowling Green, on the Licking River in present Madison Township, the first permanent white settlement in the county), platted 1802 (Newark platted by Gen. William C. Schenck at the forks of the Licking River; the plat was recorded at the Fairfield County recorder's office on March 16, 1803), incorporated 1808-01-30 (act passed by the Ohio General Assembly); 1808-03-01 (effective date, county organized out of Fairfield County); by Ohio General Assembly; first officers, 1808: William Wilson, president judge of the court of common pleas; Alexander Holmes, Timothy Rose and James Taylor, associate judges; Samuel Bancroft, clerk; John Stadden, sheriff; Elias Gilman, treasurer; Archibald Wilson, Elisha Wells and Israel Wells, commissioners. source

The name. Licking County and its river take their name from the salt licks along the Licking's banks, which drew game and, by the 1770s, Native travelers and white explorers alike; Rev. David Jones's 1773 journal already calls the stream 'Salt Lick Creek.' Some scholars offer an alternate origin, deriving 'Licking' from a Lenape (Delaware) phrase meaning roughly 'where the flood waters recede.' Either way, the name predated the county by decades and was simply carried over when the legislature organized it in 1808.

The county seat. Newark was platted in 1802 by Gen. William C. Schenck, a Warren County surveyor who came to the forks of the Licking to survey military-district land and, finding the spot promising, laid out a town and named it for his birthplace, Newark, New Jersey; the plat was recorded in March 1803, while the area was still part of Fairfield County. When Licking County organized in 1808, commissioners James Dunlap, Isaac Cook and James Armstrong selected Newark as permanent county seat over its only rival, Granville; the first court, held that year, convened in the house of Levi Hays, four miles west of Newark, because no courthouse yet existed - and the grand jury, finding no room indoors, held its inquest under a tree.

Timeline23

• 1798Elias Hughes and John Ratliff, with their families, become the first permanent white settlers in the future county, squatting on the Bowling Green on the Licking River. source
• 1801/1802Welsh emigrants buy 2,000 acres in future Granville Township and build the first Welsh Hills cabins in 1802, the year Gen. William C. Schenck plats Newark at the forks of the Licking. source
• 1804-1805Massachusetts subscribers form the Licking Land Company on April 23, 1804, to settle a colony in Ohio; its advance party reaches Granville on November 2, 1805, and 45 families arrive by winter. source
• 1807Wyandot residents sell their village of Raccoontown, on Raccoon Creek near Johnstown, to settlers and abandon it; a remnant Wyandot presence on the Brushy Fork persists until 1812. source
• 1825-07-04Ground is broken for the Ohio and Erie Canal at Licking Summit, with Governor DeWitt Clinton turning the first spadeful; a dike built there through 1830 creates the reservoir later named Buckeye Lake. source
• 1828The Black Hand petroglyph at the Licking Narrows is destroyed when its rock face is blasted away to build the canal towpath. source
• 1831-12-13Classes begin at the Granville Literary and Theological Institution, chartered by Ohio Baptists; it becomes Granville College in 1845 and Denison University in 1853. source
• 1832-1834The National Road is surveyed and built across the county's northern townships; the town of Carthage (later Etna) is laid out on its line in 1832 and the road is finished to that point by 1833-34. source
• 1855/1857Newark is connected by rail on the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (April 1855) and, westward to Columbus, on the Central Ohio Railroad (April 1857). source
• 1860David Wyrick finds the inscribed 'Keystone' near Newark in June and the 'Decalogue Stone' in a burial mound that November, artifacts later shown to be a forgery known as the Newark Holy Stones. source
• 1883/1885James Moser founds an iron foundry in East Newark that, with Joseph Wehrle's 1885 partnership, becomes the Wehrle stove works, later one of the city's largest employers. source
• 1894The state renames the Licking Summit Reservoir 'Buckeye Lake' and begins developing it as a recreational resort. source
• 1895The A. H. Heisey Glass Company begins operations in Newark, a business that runs until 1957. source
• 1910The Octagon Earthworks are leased to the newly formed Moundbuilders Country Club, which builds a golf course over the ancient enclosure. source
• 1913-03The regional Great Flood of 1913 swells the Licking River and floods Newark and the surrounding valley, part of a disaster that struck rivers across Ohio between March 23 and 26. source
• 1929-06-01Beman and Bertie Dawes formally establish the Dawes Arboretum near Newark, built out from their 140-acre 'Daweswood' farm. source
• 1938Owens Corning Fiberglas Corporation is formed from a joint venture of Owens-Illinois and Corning Glass Works; its Case Avenue plant in Newark becomes one of the company's first fiberglass manufacturing sites. source
• 1962The Air Force guidance and metrology facility in Heath is formally named Newark Air Force Station; redesignated Newark Air Force Base in 1987, it continues today as an Air Force metrology and calibration center. source
• 1975Black Hand Gorge, on the Licking River east of Newark, becomes an Ohio State Nature Preserve. source
• 2022-01-21Intel announces an initial investment of more than $28 billion to build two computer-chip factories on nearly 1,000 acres in Licking County near New Albany. source
• 2022-12-07The Ohio Supreme Court rules that Ohio History Connection may use eminent domain to reclaim the Octagon Earthworks from the Moundbuilders Country Club. source
• 2023-09-19UNESCO inscribes the Octagon and Great Circle Earthworks, with six other Hopewell-culture sites, as the 'Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks' - Ohio's first World Heritage Site. source
• 2025-01-01The Octagon Earthworks open to full, unrestricted public access for the first time since 1910, after the Moundbuilders Country Club's departure. source

County stories

The Canal's First Spadeful

On July 4, 1825, thousands converged on a muddy field at Licking Summit, four miles south of Newark, to watch the state break ground on the Ohio and Erie Canal, under booths hastily built in the woods after days of rain. New York Governor DeWitt Clinton, builder of the Erie Canal, took the ceremonial spade first and raised the first shovelful of earth to wild cheering; Ohio's own Governor Jeremiah Morrow followed, then a militia captain from Chillicothe wheeled the full barrow to the bank himself while the crowd, by one account, shouted itself hoarse and wept. Antiquarian Caleb Atwater, watching cavalry horses stamp at the flies before the speakers' stand, remarked that it was just as well to put the horses there, 'for they cannot read, and we can.' Laborers who dug the canal afterward earned eight dollars for twenty-six days' work, sunrise to sunset, and drew regular rations of whiskey until commissioners Micajah Williams and Alfred Kelley, alarmed at the toll of four daily 'jiggers' apiece, ordered contractors to stop supplying it or forfeit their pay. source

The Welsh of the Hills

In 1801, Thomas Phillips and Theophilus Rees, two Welsh-born men of means living among fellow Welsh emigrants in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, sent scouts to inspect 2,000 acres of Ohio land they were considering, sight unseen, in what became northeastern Granville Township. Satisfied, they bought the tract from a Welsh land dealer in Philadelphia, and in 1801 and 1802 a small vanguard - David Lewis, David Thomas, Rees himself, his son-in-law Simon James, and a frontiersman named Jimmy Johnson picked up along the road near Wheeling - built the first cabins on what settlers called the Welsh Hills. Rees, a scholar who never fully mastered English, became the settlement's patriarch, walking to services in nearby Granville after the New England colony arrived there in 1805 until his countrymen organized the Welsh Hills church in 1808. More Welsh families followed, planting a community whose language lingered in the hills for a generation and whose place names still mark the townships around Granville today. source

Flint Ridge, the Great Indian Quarry

Long before any county existed here, Native toolmakers were digging into a ridge of glassy, rainbow-colored chert running some eight miles along the Licking-Muskingum line, leaving hundreds of pits, some cut twenty feet into the rock, across more than a hundred acres. Colonel Charles Whittlesey, examining the ridge in the nineteenth century, found the old pits still holding water and surrounded by rejected, flawed stone, discarded by workers who kept only the clearest pieces for knives and arrowheads; Dr. S. P. Hildreth, reporting to the Ohio legislature in 1838, and Caleb Atwater, writing as early as 1818, both marveled at the scale of the digging and agreed it could only have been done to reach fresh, workable stone beneath the weathered surface. No one studying the ridge in the 1800s could say what tools the ancient quarriers had used, or how long the work went on; archaeology has since shown the answer was more than 10,000 years, with Hopewell-era artisans especially prizing the ridge's flint and carrying it into a trade network reaching Kansas City and the Gulf of Mexico. The state protected the ridge as Flint Ridge State Memorial in 1933, and a museum today stands built directly over one of the ancient pits. source

The Octagon and the Moon

For more than a century, most visitors to the Octagon Earthworks in Newark saw it as a golf course rather than a monument: the Moundbuilders Country Club leased the enclosure in 1910 and built its links across the fifty-acre octagon and its Observatory Circle, renewing the lease in 1997 through 2078. Yet in 1982, Earlham College researchers Ray Hively and Robert Horn showed that the earthwork's walls and gateways were laid out to track all eight rise and set points of the moon across its 18.6-year cycle, the extreme northern moonrise aligning, from the Observatory Mound, within half a degree of the earthwork's own center - a feat one researcher found twice as precise as the solstice alignments at Stonehenge. As Ohio History Connection worked toward UNESCO recognition, it moved to buy out the club's lease through eminent domain, a fight the Ohio Supreme Court settled in the History Connection's favor on December 7, 2022, comparing the site to Stonehenge or Machu Picchu. After further appeals failed, the sides settled in August 2024, the golfers departed, and on January 1, 2025, anyone could walk the full octagon and watch, unobstructed, for the moonrise its builders once tracked so precisely. source

The Newark Holy Stones

In June 1860, David Wyrick, a Newark surveyor convinced that American Indians descended from the lost tribes of Israel, announced he had found a small stone near the city's earthworks bearing Hebrew inscriptions reading 'Holy of Holies' and 'King of the Earth.' That November, digging inside a burial vault south of town, he produced a far more elaborate find: a sandstone box holding a smaller stone carved with a robed, turbaned figure labeled Moses and a compressed Hebrew rendering of the Ten Commandments. The finds seemed, to those who wanted to believe it, to settle a heated debate of the era over whether all races of humanity shared one common origin. The case did not hold up: scholar Abraham Geiger told the New York Times within weeks that the lettering looked distinctly modern, and later researchers, comparing Wyrick's published copies against the stones, counted dozens of transcription errors too large to be innocent. Ohio Historical Society curator Bradley Lepper traced the Decalogue Stone's central image to an 1849 illustrated volume on the ruins of Nineveh circulating in Ohio at the time, evidence, he argues, that someone manufactured the stones and planted them to be found. The stones are on display today at the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum in Coshocton, a lesson in how a genuine archaeological landscape could be pressed into a story its builders never told. source

Black Hand Gorge, Erased for a Canal

Early hunters and settlers who pushed through the dark half-mile gorge where the Licking cuts through sixty-foot sandstone cliffs east of Newark called it Black Hand Narrows, for a carving on an overhanging rock: a human hand and wrist, roughly double life size, thumb and fingers spread and pointing east, chiseled into the stone and darkened by weather. N. N. Hill's 1881 county history, drawing on early travelers' memories, describes the carving as a landmark everyone in the valley once knew - and records its loss: when the Ohio Canal turned the Narrows into a slack-water channel, engineers blasted away the very rock bearing the hand to make room for the towpath, a destruction Hill calls 'much to be regretted' even as he treats it as simply the price of progress. Other carvings nearby survived that first round only to be dynamited in 1890 for an electric interurban line. Nothing of the petroglyph remains today, but the gorge, protected since 1975 as Black Hand Gorge State Nature Preserve, still runs for miles along the Licking, a reminder of what nineteenth-century Ohio was willing to destroy for transportation. source

Buckeye Lake's Resort Years

The reservoir canal engineers diked into being between 1826 and 1830 to feed the Ohio and Erie Canal outlived the canal traffic it was built for by decades. In 1894 the state renamed it 'Buckeye Lake' and began developing it for recreation; interurban trolleys brought excursionists starting in 1902, and by the 1910s promoters called it 'Ohio's Inland Seashore' and the 'Atlantic City of the Middle West,' with hotels, a skating rink and amusement rides crowding its shore. The park came into its own in 1931 with the Dips, a wooden roller coaster anchoring a resort drawing as many as 50,000 visitors a day by the 1940s to its Crystal Pool and dance-hall bands. The Dips wrecked in 1958, and the park closed for good in 1970. The lake remained, becoming an Ohio state park in 1949 and, after a 2015 inspection found its dam unsound, the subject of a $107 million reconstruction finished under budget in November 2018 - proof the old canal reservoir outlasted its own resort heyday. source

Sources: archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · american-rails.com · newarkohio.gov · ohiohistory.org · industrialartifacts.net · encyclopedia.com · buyinsulationproductstore.com · courthouses.co · commons.wikimedia.org · courtnewsohio.gov · nps.gov · publications.newberry.org · newsroom.intel.com and 3 more. Researched 2026-09-15 by sonnet; every entry above links its own page. · Ohio History Connection · Internet Archive (county histories) · Wikimedia Commons · Remarkable Ohio (historical markers)

Historic places

• Cedar Hill Cemetery Buildings (building)
• Courthouse Center (building)
• Evans--Holton--Owens House (building)
• and 15 more

Place names (USGS): 15 named communities (Highwater, Chatham, Ben, Rock Haven Park, Rocky Fork and more); 14 named streams end here (Cedar Run, Log Pond Run, Long Run, North Fork Licking River and more); 2 named lakes or reservoirs (Lake Kennedy (historical), Newark Low Head Reservoir (historical)); 1 named summit (Coshocton Hill); 7 valleys, 1 spring, 1 island. Federal maps carry these names; the communities include hamlets and crossroads that never incorporated.

Listing recognizes significance and brings review of federally funded projects; it does not restrict a private owner. Historic districts count once, at their center.

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places spatial data (point file); listings whose point falls inside the ZIP boundary · National Register data · USGS GNIS

School district

• Newark City80% of residentsCity school district
• Licking Valley Local11% of residentsLocal school district
• North Fork Local5% of residentsLocal school district
• Granville Exempted Village3% of residentsExempted village school district

ZIP codes and school districts do not share boundaries, so this ZIP is split between them.

21 public schools inside this ZIP: Ben Franklin Elementary School (4 stars); Career and Technology Educational Centers; Carson Elementary School (3 stars); Cherry Valley Elementary School (3.5 stars) and 17 more. Nearest to the population center: Newark High School (2.5 stars), 0.7 mi; 2 within a mile, 16 within 3.

7 private schools inside this ZIP with 744 students in kindergarten through 12th grade (5 religious): St. Francis De Sales School (271 students, Catholic); Newark Catholic High School (207 students, Catholic); Blessed Sacrament School (161 students, Catholic) and 4 more (NCES Private School Survey 2023-24; the survey's student counts, here and per school, exclude prekindergarten).

Enrolled here: 8,809 students attend the 19 public schools inside this ZIP with 2023-24 enrollment on file; 1 of them is a charter school (189 students), 16.4 students per teacher. 61% of the 7,818 students at the 15 schools reporting it qualify for free or reduced-price meals (4 did not report); 1 school use the community eligibility provision, which counts every student. 2 online schools with 329 students statewide list an office here. (NCES)

Enrollment: 10,443 residents attend kindergarten through 12th grade, 10% of them at private schools; 3,031 are in college or graduate school (Census ACS 2020 to 2024).

Money, fiscal 2023: Newark City took in $108 million, 40% from the state, 42% local and 18% federal, and spent $14,646 per pupil on day-to-day operations for 5,907 students, 60% of it on instruction; capital outlay $14.2 million (Census school finance survey via NCES).

Child poverty: the Census Bureau's 2024 estimate puts 17% of Newark City's school-age children below the poverty line (1,290 of 7,840 aged 5 to 17; SAIPE).

Source: Ohio school district boundaries (OGRIP, 2014 edition, via ODOT) · 2020 census blocks · public school locations from NCES EDGE, 2024-25 · enrollment and meals from the NCES Common Core of Data 2023-24 · private schools from the NCES Private School Survey 2023-24 · district finances from the Census F-33 survey, fiscal 2023 · child poverty from Census SAIPE 2024 · ODOT GIS · NCES EDGE · NCES Common Core of Data · NCES private schools · Census SAIPE · Census school finances (F-33)

School report card

Components

achievement 3 stars, progress 2 stars, gap closing 2 stars, early literacy 3 stars, graduation 1 star, college and career readiness 1 star

Achievement

performance index 72.8% of ODE's maximum score for the year (the average of the top 2% of district scores, not the highest score possible) (score 79.9, 77.9 the year before)

Graduation

80.7% of the class of 2024 graduated in four years; 31.3% of that class (graduates or not) showed college, career, workforce or military readiness

Spending

$11,891 per pupil in 2023-24 against $12,759 statewide

Teachers

average salary $66,853, 14 years of experience, 56.7% with a master's degree, 7.9% in their first years of teaching

Enrollment

5,620 students in 2024-25

Three stars means the district meets state standards, five that it significantly exceeds them, one that it needs significant support. Achievement stars follow family income closely; the progress component (growth from year to year) is the fairer measure of teaching. Charter and private schools are not in the district figures.

Source: Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, 2024-2025 School Report Cards (district overview, achievement, expenditures per pupil and educator files), for the district where most of this ZIP's residents live · Ohio school report cards

Colleges

Central Ohio Technical College is a public community or technical college with 4,349 students over the 2023-24 year; published tuition and fees $5,136 a year in state, $7,896 out of state; 24% of a 194-student entering class graduated (all programs, within 150% of normal time).

5 institutions within 10 miles, 13 within 25. Inside this ZIP: Career and Technology Education Centers of Licking County; Central Ohio Technical College; Ohio State University-Newark Campus.

Next nearest: Ohio State University-Newark Campus (1.9 mi).

Universities, community colleges, career schools and private colleges all count; branch campuses appear only where IPEDS lists them separately. Graduation rates follow first-time full-time students for 150% of normal time.

Source: NCES IPEDS 2024 directory, 12-month enrollment 2023-24, tuition and fees 2023-24 and graduation rates for the 2017 entering cohort at four-year institutions and the 2020 cohort at two-year ones; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center · NCES IPEDS

Local government

• Newark (city)80% of residentsCity
• Newton Township, Licking County4% of residentsTownship
• Madison Township, Licking County4% of residentsTownship
• Newark Township, Licking County3% of residentsTownship
• Mary Ann Township, Licking County3% of residentsTownship
• Hanover (village)2% of residentsVillage

ZIP codes and municipal and township boundaries do not share boundaries, so this ZIP is split between them.

Ohio EPA grants 2025: 3 grants worth $41,274 went to Licking County Health Department, Licking County Recycling, City of Newark in this ZIP (1 litter cleanup, 1 recycling, 1 mosquito control).

Source: ODOT municipal corporation and township boundaries · 2020 census blocks · Ohio EPA grants awarded in 2025 (OEPA_Achievements map service) · Auditor of State unauditable entities list · ODOT GIS · Auditor of State · Ohio EPA grants (OEPA_Achievements)

Who represents this ZIP

U.S. Senate: Bernie Moreno (R), Jon Husted (R)

• Troy Balderson RU.S. House OH-12Zanesville · since 2018 · site
• Tim Schaffer ROhio Senate 20Lancaster · since 2019 · site
• Thaddeus J. Claggett ROhio House 68 · 84%Newark · since 2022 · site
• Kevin D. Miller R 69 · 16%Newark · since 2021 · site

District lines cut through this ZIP, so more than one member serves its residents; the share is by 2020 population.

Source: ODOT district boundaries · members from the U.S. House, Ohio Senate and Ohio House directories, September 2026 · U.S. House · Ohio Senate · Ohio House · ODOT GIS