History.— The Maumee River was one of the most important routes for travel by the Indians and the white traders. Going by canoe to a point near Fort Wayne, Ind., a portag-e of a few miles .enabled them to reach .the head waters of the Wabash, which they. followed to the Ohio and thence to the Mississippi. An other important route was up the Maumee and the Auglaize, a southern tnbutary, thence by portage to the headwaters of the Great Miami, which reaches the Ohio just below Cincinnati. An important Indian trail also crossed the river at the rapids above the city, by which hunting parties went to Kentucky. A few French Can adian hunters and trappers settled, in the 18th century, at points within the present site of Toledo; but there is no reliable account of the earliest sporadic settlement of Americans on the city plat. In 1805 a treaty was made be tween the United States and the Indians, at a stockade, named Fort Necessity, which stood oh a high clay bluff' at the junction of Swan Creek and the Maumee, By this the red men yielded title to the aFire Lands n ranted to the citizens of Groton and New London, Conn., in recompense for the burning of these towns by the British in the Revolution. In 1817 a com pany of speculators laid out a town at the tltouth of Swan Creek, called Port Lawrence. Very few settlers came, however, and the ham let languished. In 1832 another settlement, named Vistula, was begun by Major Stickney, for many years Indian agent, a mile further down the river, at the foot of what is now Lagrange street. This spurred the owners of
the land at Port Lawrence to new efforts, and a brisk rivalry sprang up between the two villages. The two were wisely consolidated' in 1833. A public the citizens of both was held to determine the name of the united town; and, at the suggestion of Willard J. Daniels, the name of Toledo was adopted. He had been reading a history of Spain, and urged the name of the old Moorish capital for the reasons that there was no town of that name in America, that it has a pleasant sound and is easily pro nounced. Toledo was incorporated as a city in 1846, • The town had slow growth until the opening of'the 'Wabash and Erie Canal, from Toledo to the fertile Wabash Valley in Indiana, in 1843, and of the branch from Defiance south to Cin cinnati, called the Miami and Erie Canal, which was opened to traffic in 1845. In 1846 these two canals brought to Toledo products valued at $3,000,000, while those going 'from Toledo to points on both aggregated nearly $5,000,000. The first railroad to reach Toledo was called the Erie and Kalamazoo, which was opened from Toledo to Adrian, Mich., in 1836, the cars being drawn by horses. The next year a loco motive was put on the line, and a contract for carrying the mails was obtained from the gov ernment. The road was sold by the sheriff in 1842, and its line is now,part of the great New York Central system.
Population.— The population (1840) was 1222'; (1860) 13,768; (1880) 50,137; (1900) 131,822; (19I0) 168,497; (1918) est. 262,000.