St Marys City

St Marys City Municipal Water Report Info

St. Marys was legally established in 1823, incorporated in 1834, and achieved city status in 1904. Judge Stacy Taylor became the first mayor after the 1834 incorporation. The town's first millionaire, Lemon Gray Neely, donated land for a new school, requesting it be named "Memorial" to honor his late spouse. St. Marys Memorial High School opened in 1924, graduating its first class in 1925.

Before European settlement, Native Americans utilized the St. Marys River as a crucial travel route. With relatively short portages, they could journey from Lake Erie all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Prior to Grand Lake St. Marys' construction (which drained approximately half the stream's watershed), the waterway could accommodate large flat-bottom boats. General Anthony Wayne's army supplies traveled this river route, and before the Miami and Erie Canal, all supplies entering western Ohio came via this waterway.

St. Marys began as a trading post established by renegades Simon and James Girty, earning it the name "Girtystown" until its official establishment in 1823. In 1794, General Wayne built a fort and expelled James Girty, who had been associated with hostile raids. Charles Murray became the first European settler shortly after. Later, General Harrison ordered construction of Fort Barbee, considered Ohio's most strategically important military post at that time.

Grand Lake St. Marys was constructed between 1837-1845 as a reservoir for the Miami and Erie Canal. Built before mechanized equipment, approximately 1,700 workers (mostly Irish and German immigrants) labored from sunrise to sunset for 30 cents daily plus a portion of whiskey (believed to help combat malaria). The completed 17,500-acre reservoir cost $600,000 and was, for many years, the world's largest artificial water body. It remains the largest artificial lake built entirely without machinery.

The lake features 52 miles of shoreline and measures roughly nine miles long by three miles wide. Its completion dramatically reduced transportation costs - freight rates dropped from $1.00 per bushel of wheat per 100 miles to just 15 cents per ton over the same distance. The canal thrived until railroads (including the Norfolk and Western Railway built through St. Marys in the late 1860s) eventually supplanted it.

In 1888-1889, oil was discovered in the area, launching a boom that saw numerous wells drilled, including some within Grand Lake St. Marys itself. The lake served as the division point between northern and southern canal waterways - water flowing east eventually reached Lake Erie and the Great Lakes, while water flowing south and west joined the Ohio River and Mississippi River systems.

From 1845 until 1915, the lake provided some of the area's most colorful history. In 1915, when no longer needed for the canal, the Ohio General Assembly dedicated the lake and adjacent state-owned lands for public use as parks and recreation areas. Today, Grand Lake St. Marys State Park welcomes approximately 700,000 visitors annually, making it one of Ohio's busiest tourist destinations.