McComb, OH

McComb is a Hancock County village about ten miles northwest of Findlay, with a name that arrived only after the town had already changed twice. The first settlement was Todd Town, nicknamed Toad Town for the ponds and frogs. It was laid out as Pleasantville in 1847, then renamed McComb in 1858 after Elisha Fout suggested the name of his former commander, General Alexander Macomb. That bit of name trouble is still the best way into the village: the place grew through local decisions, mail confusion, and the practical need to give a small trading center its own identity.

Railroad hopes then filled out the map. The village added new blocks as rail lines came through, passenger service replaced the old mail hack to Findlay, and a burst of natural-gas celebration lit Main Street in 1887 before the supply ran out a few years later. Today McComb Local School District serves a broad rural area, with its original 1923 school building still in use alongside later additions; the Blanchard River runs through the district's wider landscape. McComb is still a compact village, but its streets hold a full Ohio small-town sequence: trading post, renamed settlement, railroad stop, gas boom, and school-centered community.