Genoa, OH

Genoa is an Ottawa County village that began as Stony Station before taking its present name in 1857 and incorporating in 1868. The name was chosen for the Italian city because the Ohio community was surrounded by water, a local bit of naming logic that still appears in the village’s history. Genoa’s Opera Hall, completed in 1886, hosted council meetings, church suppers, plays, and school commencements; it is now on the National Register and is described by the village as Ottawa County’s oldest free-standing municipal building. Main Street was a corduroy road before it was paved in 1913, and the 600 block remains in an Ohio historic register. Genoa is an old village with an opera hall, a preserved main street, and the kind of road history you can still see under the present grid.