Two “Ohios” in Michigan? Yeah, There Used to Be

There were Ohios in Michigan? To the disappointment of a handful of Big Ten fans, yeah, there were.

The first community was dubbed ‘Ohio Mill’, a settlement in Ottawa County that became official in 1868 when a post office opened up. It was re-named ‘South Blendon’ in April 1872. It was re-named after the Blendon Lumber Company , which owned most of the land.

The actual village of Blendon was first settled in 1836. Toward the late 1800s, two other offshoot settlements in the area popped up: North & South Blendon, of which ‘South’ was previously known as “Ohio Mill”.

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The second of Michigan’s ‘Ohios’ is now the community of Burt Lake, up by Indian River. Most of us know about the actual lake, but yeah, there is still a community on the west end of the lake called ‘Burt Lake’. It was settled in 1875 as the “Ohio Settlement”. Three years later the name of the village was changed to ‘Tuscarora’ since it was in the Cheboygan County township of the same name.

In the 1880s the village was briefly also known as ‘Sager’s Landing’ after storekeeper / postmaster Edwin Sager. It was eventually changed to ‘Burt Lake’ after William Burt, who  came through and surveyed the land in 1840.

So even though Michigan actually had two “Ohio” places, the names didn’t stay around for long.