Elyria ( ə LEER ee ə) is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. The city is at the forks of the Black River in Northeast Ohio. The population was 52,656 at the 2020 census. Located 23 miles (37 km) southwest of Cleveland, it is part of the Cleveland metropolitan area and home to Lorain County Community College.
At a Glance
- County: Lorain County
- County seat of Lorain County
- State: Ohio
History of Elyria
The village of Elyria was founded in 1817 by Heman Ely, who built a log house, dam, gristmill, and sawmill on the village’s site along the Black River. Ely began to build more houses to accommodate European American settlers migrating to what was, at that time, within Huron County, Ohio.
By the turn of the 20th century, Elyria was a town of about 8,000. In 1908, Elyria Memorial Hospital was built. In the first half of the 20th century, the town developed some manufacturing, as well as a range of retail businesses.
In August 1967, Midway Mall was opened. It changed the local economy by attracting local businesses from the town center or causing so much competition they went out of business. Industrial restructuring meant that good jobs left the area, and poverty increased. Three major car plant closings in the area led to economic stagnation and joblessness in the 1970s and 1980s that affected numerous communities. The region was nicknamed "the Rustbelt", suggesting the decline of its former industries.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Elyria, Ohio, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.