North Olmsted is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. The population was 32,442 as of the 2020 census. It is a western suburb of Cleveland and part of the Cleveland metropolitan area.
At a Glance
- County: Cuyahoga County
- State: Ohio
History of North Olmsted
The land that became North Olmsted was originally part of the French colony of Canada (New France), which was ceded in 1763 to Great Britain and renamed Province of Quebec. In the late 18th century the land became part of the Connecticut Western Reserve in the Northwest Territory, then was purchased by the Connecticut Land Company in 1795.
In 1805, the vast tract of land comprising present day North Olmsted, Olmsted Falls and Olmsted Township was purchased for $30,000 by Aaron Olmsted, a wealthy sea captain. Elijah Stearns and his sons David Johnson and Alva traveled 500 miles from Vermont to Cuyahoga County to inspect the land they intended to purchase from the Olmsted estate. Elijah and Alva returned to Vermont to complete the purchase, but David remained behind, becoming North Olmsted’s first settler. It was first called Plum Creek Township, an unofficial name, in 1807 and then in 1814 surveyors called it Kingston. On April 14, 1823, the people organized into a township called Lenox. In 1909, the city of North Olmsted came into being.
In 1826, Aaron Olmsted’s son, Charles Hyde Olmsted, offered to donate books from his father’s personal collection in Connecticut, if the residents of Lenox agreed to change the name of the area to Olmsted to honor his father. These books became known as the Ox Cart Library.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article North Olmsted, Ohio, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.