West Lafayette, OH

West Lafayette was platted in 1850 by Robert Shaw and William Wheeler on a level plain in the Tuscarawas River valley. The village grew with the Steubenville and Indiana Railroad, built through town in 1855, and the railroad line still gives East Railroad Street its name. West Lafayette sits two miles south of U.S. 36 and Ohio 93 and seven miles west of Interstate 77, with forested hills and agricultural valleys surrounding the village.

The current local map is compact and easy to name. The West Lafayette Branch of the Coshocton County District Library operates at 601 East Main Street, and Ridgewood Local School District has its administrative and school buildings in the village. Village offices meet beside the railroad street, while Main Street carries local shopping and services. The village's small scale keeps those older transportation and civic pieces close together. West Lafayette is a Coshocton County village where a railroad plain, a river valley, a library branch, and a school district still fit inside a one-square-mile map.