a compendium of facts about Ohio history
by Dan Chabek
Bowling Green
Bowling Green, the Wood County seat, was built on a slightly elevated plateau and received its name because of the levelness of the land.
History writer Maria Ewing said this about the town in an article she wrote in 1903:
"There is a touch of romance in the naming of Bowling Green shown by a grizzled old mail carrier who had carried mails between Kentucky and Tennessee in 1802.
Thirty-seven years later he was on the line between Findlay and Bellefontaine. A little settlement farther on drew up a petition for a post office, but could think of no appropriate name.
The postman, happening to ride up, learned of the difficulty and, seizing a glass of cider, he waved it from north to south, shouting, 'Here's to Bowling Green!' A green clearing in the forest, made by an Army encampment in 1812, made the Kentucky name all the more fitting."
Ewing referred to the appellation as a Kentucky one, in that the Bluegrass State also has a town named Bowling Green.
When Ohio's Wood County, which ranks among the most fertile in the Buckeye State, was formed from old Indian Territory in 1820, it was named for the chivalrous Colonel Wood, a distinguished engineering officer in the War of 1812.
© 1997 Dan Chabek
