Editing Genoa, Ohio (section)

==History==
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In 1835, Timothy and Cinderella Sherman, with their two-year-old son Phillip, became the first people of European descent to settle in what is now Clay Township.<ref name=History>{{cite book |title=History of Genoa, by the Class of 1928 }}</ref> Other settlers sprinkled into the [[Great Black Swamp]] and the area became known as Stony Ridge, likely due to the limestone bedrock sticking out of the ground and swamp.

Ultimately the town owes its existence to a cost-saving decision by the executives of the Toledo, Norwalk, and Cleveland Railroad. In an effort to eliminate eleven miles from the planned railroad line that was to connect Toledo and Cleveland, the railroad opted not to connect Woodville and Perrysburg on the line but instead to proceed in a straight line from Fremont to Toledo. The farmers around Stony Ridge happened to fall on this line. In 1851 work began on the line running through Stony Ridge. During the fall of 1852, iron imported from England was laid down and on December 22, 1852, the first passenger train rolled through a swampy wilderness.  Stony Ridge began to develop immediately; within two years there was a saw mill, post office, hotel, and other businesses. Settlers from the East Coast and Europe began to arrive immediately, and churches were founded. Genoa quickly became a prominent source of limestone and with its position on a railroad the area quarries began distributing "Genoa White Lime" across the region.

Stony Ridge was renamed Genoa in the spring of 1856, likely to settle confusion with another [[Stony Ridge, Ohio]], just seven miles away. That year the first Genoa school was built, which still exists as Heritage Hall.

With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 the nation-wide call for troop mobilization went out and Genoa, having a railroad station and thus a connection to the outside world, saw more than one hundred commit themselves to various regiments. The Toledo Blade remarked in 1862 that "few towns have done as well as Genoa in furnishing troops for the Union Army."

After the Civil War the community grew more rapidly, in 1868 members of the community petitioned the Ottawa County Commissioners for incorporation and on December 10, 1868, Genoa was incorporated as a village.<ref name=History/> In 1869 the village purchased the aforementioned school house and it became the village's town hall.

From 1883 to 1884 the village and Clay Township jointly constructed a new two-story town hall and opera house. After falling into disrepair by the 1970s, the town hall was added to the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 1976 and was restored with a $755,000 grant from the federal Economic Development Administration in 1978-1979. The Town Hall continues to house the village council chambers, mayor's office, and Genoa Civic Theater.