Germantown is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States. The population was 5,796 at the 2020 census. A part of the Dayton metropolitan area, Germantown was founded by German Americans from Pennsylvania and was once home to a cigar industry.
At a Glance
- County: Montgomery County
- State: Ohio
History of Germantown
Germantown was established in 1804 by German speaking settlers from Berks County, Pennsylvania. Philip Gunckel, the only member of the group who spoke English, is recognized as Germantown’s founder, who chose the site for a grist mill and laid out the original town plan in 1814. The Gunckel Town Plan, maintaining many of its original 19th and early 20th century buildings, has been recognized as a Historic District and has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Germantown underwent many economic changes as distilleries and the cigar industry both came and went. In 1847, the Mudlick Distillery was established and, with an output of 30 barrels of whiskey a day, was considered the largest in the country for many years. At one time, the municipality housed up to 12 cigar warehouses and five factories, with the tobacco industry employing many residents up until the 1970s.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Germantown, Ohio, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.