Collins, OH

Collins is a Huron County census-designated place in central Townsend Township, a patch of northern Ohio settled around farms, roads, and small hamlets. The place includes Collins and East Townsend, with the Collins post office serving the surrounding countryside. U.S. Route 20 runs along the southern edge of the community, linking it east to Wakeman and west to Norwalk, the county seat. Hartland Center Road ties the northern hamlet of Collins to the township's central crossroads. Local accounts give the name several possible origins, including a railroad official and Collinsville, Connecticut.

Townsend Township took its name from Kneeland Townsend, a large landowner from New Haven, Connecticut. George Miller is generally recognized as the first settler, arriving in 1811. The first schoolhouse appeared around 1818, a sawmill followed in 1820, and the first post office opened in 1833 or 1834. Those dates give Collins its shape: a rural center with township history folded into it. Cemeteries, churches, Route 20, and the two hamlets keep that older settlement pattern visible across the fields.