Fostoria

Fostoria, a city, partly in Seneca, partly in Hancock, and partly in Wood county, Ohio, U.S.A., 35 m. S. by E. of Toledo. Pop. (1890) 7070; (1900) 7730 (584 foreign-born); (1910) 9597. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, the New York, Chicago & St Louis, the Ohio Central, the Lake Erie & Western, and the Hocking Valley railways, and by two interurban electric lines. The city is situated in an agricultural region, and oil abounds in the vicinity. Among the city’s manufactures are glass, flour, planing mill products, brass and iron, carriages, barrels, incandescent lamps, carbons, wire nails and fences, automobile engines and parts, railway torpedoes and muslin underwear. The waterworks are owned and operated by the municipality. In 1832, upon the coming of the first settlers, two towns, Rome and Risdon, were laid out on the site of what is now Fostoria. A bitter rivalry arose between them, but they were finally united under one government, and the city thus formed was named in honour of Charles W. Foster, whose son Charles Foster (1828-1904), governor of the state from 1880 to 1884 and secretary of the United States treasury from 1891 to 1893, did much to promote its growth. Fostoria was chartered as a city in 1854.