Springfield is a city in Clark County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is located in southwestern Ohio along the Mad River, Buck Creek, and Beaver Creek, about west of Columbus and northeast of Dayton. The city had a total population of 58,662 at the 2020 census, while the Springfield metropolitan area had 136,001 residents.
Springfield is home to Wittenberg University, a liberal arts college, and Clark State College, a community college. The Little Miami Scenic Trail, a paved rail-trail that is nearly long, extends from the Buck Creek Scenic Trail head in Springfield south to Newtown, Ohio. Buck Creek State Park and its Clarence J. Brown reservoir are located at the city limits.
Beginning around 2018, Springfield became home to a large Haitian immigrant community, estimated at 15,000 to 20,000 people by 2024. That year, false claims that Haitian immigrants were eating pets spread nationally during the presidential campaign, drawing international attention to the city.
History Before European settlement
The original pre-contact inhabitants of Springfield were the Shawnee people.
During the 18th century, the Ohio Country saw warfare, waves of migration and displacement, and imposition of claims by rivaling colonial powers France and Britain. With the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, the British became the sole European claimants of the region.
The area was home to the major Shawnee village in the region, called Peckuwe or Piqua. It belonged to the Shawnee septs (sub-clans) of Pekowi and Kispoko and had a population of about 3,000. It stood at 39° 54.5′ N, 83° 54.68′ W, less than four miles southwest of the current city of Springfield and less than six miles from its center.
During the Western theater of the American Revolutionary War, the area saw a major battle that pitted the Americans against the Shawnee and their indigenous allies. The Shawnees had formed an alliance with the British and the Lenape, the Wyandot, and the Mingo, refugees from warfare and displacements elsewhere, and had been raiding into Kentucky with the aim of driving out American settlers. On August 8, 1780, Piqua was attacked by American soldiers under the command of General George Rogers Clark. It was a ferocious battle that ended with the destruction of the Shawnee village and the exodus of its inhabitants. Clark's men spent two days burning as much as 500 acres of corn surrounding the village.
Tecumseh, the Shawnee chief and warrior who later took part in the war of resistance against the U.S. and its expansionist settlement policy, lived in Piqua from 1777 until 1780.
The Springfield area was officially ceded to the United States by the Shawnee and their indigenous allies under the Treaty of Greenville on 1795, six years before the settlement which became Springfield was founded.
Early settlement Springfield was founded in 1801 by European-American James Demint, a former teamster from Kentucky who named it for Springfield, Massachusetts. When Clark County was created in 1818 from parts of Champaign, Madison, and Greene counties, Springfield was chosen by the legislature over the village of New Boston as the county seat, winning by two votes.
Early growth in Springfield was stimulated by federal construction of the National Road, which was extended to the city in 1838. For about a decade thereafter, Springfield served as the western terminus while politicians wrangled over its future route, and it became known as the "Town at the End of the Pike". Representatives of Dayton and Eaton wanted the road to veer south after Springfield, but President Andrew Jackson, who took office in 1829, decided to push the road straight west to Richmond, Indiana.
Industrial development During the mid-and-late 19th century, the manufacturing industry began to flourish in Springfield. Industrialists included Oliver S. Kelly, James Leffel, P. P. Mast, Benjamin H. Warder, and Asa S. Bushnell, who built the self-named Bushnell Building. Springfield became known as "The Champion City", a reference to the Champion Farm Equipment brand. Champion was manufactured by the Warder, Bushnell & Glessner Company, absorbed into International Harvester in 1902.
International Harvester, a manufacturer of farm machinery and later trucks, became the leading local industry after 1856, when Springfield native William Whiteley invented a self-raking reaper and mower. In 1877, P. P. Mast started Farm & Fireside magazine to promote the products of his agricultural equipment company. His publishing company, known as Mast, Crowell, and Kirkpatrick, eventually developed as the Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, best known for publishing Collier's Weekly. International Harvester and Crowell-Collier Publishing would be the city's major employers throughout most of the next century.
In 1894, The Kelly Springfield Tire Company was founded in the city. Harry Aubrey Toulmin, Sr., patent attorney to the Wright Brothers, wrote the 1904 patent to their invention of the airplane at the Bushnell Building, eventually granted to the brothers in 1906.
At the turn of the 20th century, Springfield became known as the "Home City". It was a period of high activity by fraternal organizations, and such lodges as the Masonic Lodge, Knights of Pythias, and Odd Fellows built homes for orphans and aged members of their orders.
That same year, A.B. Graham, then the superintendent of schools for Springfield Township in Clark County, established a "Boys' and Girls' Agricultural Club". About 85 children, 10 to 15 years of age, attended the first meeting on January 15, 1902, in Springfield, in the basement of the Clark County Courthouse. This was the start of what would soon be called the "4-H Club"; it expanded to become a nationwide organization at a time when agriculture was a mainstay of the economy in many regions. The first projects included food preservation, gardening, and elementary agriculture. Today, a historical marker exists at the Clark County courthouse, and the Library of Congress officially recognized the birthplace in 2023.
On March 7, 1904, over a thousand white residents formed a lynch mob, stormed the jail, and removed prisoner Richard Dixon, a black man accused of killing police officer Charles B. Collis. Dixon was shot to death and then hanged from a pole on the corner of Fountain and Main Street, where the mob shot his body numerous times. From there, the mob rioted through the town, destroying and burning much of the black area. The Ohio National Guard was called out to quell the riot, but none of the rioters were ever charged. The events were covered by national newspapers and provoked outrage. On February 26, 1906, an altercation between a white man and a black man resulted in another riot that had to be put down by the Ohio National Guard. The rioters burned down much of the Levee, a predominantly black neighborhood located in a flood-prone area near the river. Nearly 100 people were left homeless. The final riot took place in 1921. The New York Times reported that 14 people were killed during the unrest.
From 1916 to 1926, 10 automobile companies operated in Springfield. Among them were the Bramwell, Brenning, Foos, Frayer-Miller, Kelly Steam, Russell-Springfield, and Westcott. The Westcott, known as "the car built to last", was a six-cylinder four-door sedan manufactured by Burton J. Westcott of the Westcott Motor Car Company.
In 1908, Westcott and his wife Orpha commissioned architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design their home at 1340 East High Street. The Westcott House, a sprawling two-story stucco and concrete house, has all the features of Wright's "prairie style", including horizontal lines, low-pitched roof, and broad eaves. Wright became world-renowned, and this is his only prairie-style house in the state of Ohio. In 2000, the property was purchased by the Chicago-based Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. As part of a prearranged plan, the house was sold to the Westcott House Foundation, a newly formed group that managed an extensive 5-year, $5.8 million restoration, completed in October 2005. The house is now open to the public for guided tours.
Late 20th century to present Crowell-Collier Publishing, a longtime pillar of local employment, closed its magazines in 1957 and sold its Springfield printing plant. The city population peaked at more than 82,000 in the 1960 census.
In 1966, Robert C. Henry was appointed by the city commission as mayor, making him the first black mayor of an Ohio city.
In 1983, Newsweek called Springfield one of America's "dream cities". But the issue, which marked the magazine's 50th anniversary issue, concluded that "The American Dream" was in decline.
The decline in manufacturing and other blue-collar industries in the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries hit Springfield especially hard. In 2011, Gallup called Springfield the "unhappiest city" in the country. Its 27% decrease in median income between 1999 and 2014 was the largest of any metropolitan area in the country. By 2020, the population had declined to 58,662, down more than one-quarter from its peak.
By the mid-2010s, city leaders began revitalization of the downtown area, including residential housing, a parking garage and demolition of decayed structures. New downtown structures built since 2000 include the Ohio Valley Surgical Hospital, Springfield Regional Medical Center, Mother Stewart's Brewing Company, and the Chiller Ice Arena. As of 2018, the economic recovery enjoyed by larger cities since the Great Recession had not included Springfield, despite efforts by local politicians and business organizations.
In 2021, the Upper Valley Mall, which had operated as the city's retail hub since 1971, permanently closed.
Immigrant influx In 2014, the city began the "Welcome Springfield" initiative to attract immigrants in an attempt to improve the local economy. About four years later, Haitian immigrants fleeing their country's deepening crisis began to arrive.
By 2024, an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Haitian immigrants had settled in the city. The vast majority later received temporary protected status, which allows them to work without the fear of deportation, due to the crisis in Haiti. Many were drawn by jobs with Springfield's growing manufacturing sector, which includes companies such as Topre, Silfex, and McGregor Metal.
The influx of Haitians triggered an increase in anti-immigrant sentiment among existing residents. In August 2023, tensions were aggravated when an improperly licensed Haitian driver crashed into a school bus, killing one child and injuring 23 others. In mid-2024, local politicians asked for federal assistance to fund an unexpected increased use of city services and to help with housing issues caused by the population increase. Community organizations have hired significant numbers of Haitian Creole translators.
National attention
In 2024, the city drew international attention over baseless claims about local Haitian immigrants, leading to dozens of bomb threats that forced school evacuations, government office closures, and other disruptions. On August 26, police received a report of Haitians stealing geese, for which neither law enforcement officials nor the Ohio Department of Natural Resources found any evidence or suspects. Soon thereafter, a rumor about Haitian immigrants abducting and eating pets in Springfield went viral. Springfield authorities debunked the rumor.