Utica, OH
Posted by: 
silverquill
N 40° 14.107 W 082° 26.098
17T E 377930 N 4454840
Utica, Ohio, is a small village of about 2,000, located in center of the state. It's larger and better known namesake, Utica, New York, has a population of over 62,000. This welcome sign is on Rt. 62 west bound.
Waymark Code: WMC67T
Location: Ohio, United States
Date Posted: 07/31/2011
Views: 5
From the official web page for
Utica, Ohio:
"The village of Utica (formerly called Wilmington), was founded in 1810 by Major William Robertson, seven years after Ohio became the 17th state. In 1817, when the population reached 100, the name was changed to Utica in order to obtain a post office.
The early 1900s brought the gas boom and with abundant gas, the hand blown glass business developed, making Utica the largest producer of glass in the United States. In 1900, the population was 826 and in 1917, it showed 2,500. The gas fields died out near the mid 1900s and the glass industry moved, so that in 1960 the official census showed a population of 1,839. Last census the population was 2,134.
Utica is located very near the center of Ohio in Licking county. It is 12 miles south of Mount Vernon, 12 miles north of Newark, both being on State Route 13, and 35 miles east of Columbus, the state capitol, on U.S. Route 62."
The Wikipedia article for Utica, New York offers some interesting history:
"Utica is located where it is because it was next to the shallowest spot along the Mohawk River that made it the best place for fording across. Also due to an Iroquois Indian crossroads and fording location it made trade exceedingly easy for local merchants. With a shallow spot on the river and that as already inhabited by trading partners, the location was ideal for a settlement. Utica was first settled by Europeans in 1773, on the site of Fort Schuyler which was built in 1758.
The perhaps apocryphal account of Utica's naming suggests that around a dozen citizens of the Old Fort Schuyler settlement met at the Bagg's Tavern to discuss the name of the emerging village. Unable to settle on one particular name, Erastus Clark's entrant of "Utica" was drawn from several suggestions, and the village thereafter became associated with Utica, Tunisia, the ancient Carthaginian city. Utica was incorporated as a village in 1798."
Utica, New York played important roles in various industries from textiles to steel with several waves of immigrants from Italy and Wales, among others. Suffering from the common economic slump of the so-called "rust belt" in recent decades, there is new life brought by immigrants from Bosnia and other countries where people have fled to find freedom and economic opportunity.