Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Sterling. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1901Wooster sheet · 1:62,500
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Sterling.
The story so far
Sterling, in brief
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Sterling yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Sterling is an unincorporated, census-designated place in northwestern Milton Township, Wayne County, Ohio, United States with the ZIP code of 44276. The population was 432 at the 2020 census.
Its first post office opened in 1883. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 457 to 432 (-5%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Sterling in 1910
Passages that mention Sterling, cut from the printed page as they were published.
It really makes no difference to Wayne county whether the waters in the Old Mohican went from Sterling by the Rocky river, or the Cuyahoga, to Lake Erie, for all the writer claims, from original investigation, is that there is a deep and wide preglacial river bed, now filled with drift, from Loudonville, through Wayne county to Sterling, and that the channel passes exactly between the Waverly hills of the Cincinnati incline and the coal measure conglomerate, and that it carried all the waters of all Mohican's branches, together with the reversed Killbuck and Sugar creek, north to the
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Tobacco is grown in the northern part of the county, in the vicinity of Sterling and Creston. TEIE OHIO AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. Ill the spring of 1891 the State Legislature passed an act authorizing the removal of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station from its location on the lands of the Ohio State University, in Columlius, to any county in the state which would offer a donation to provide for the purchase of lands and the erection of buildings for the use of the station. Within
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (1), U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
2007
