There is a Limaland Motorsports Raceway. A Limaland Teens for Christ. Limaland Spring Fling 5k. A few references to it. Do they mean the Greater Lima area or is this defined more regionally?
This link has a regional map that goes south to St. Mary's and north to Ottawa. Ottawa I'd say is in Findlay's orbit as they shop at the west side Findlay Wal-Mart. Benton Ridge is part of Liberty-Benton schools and Findlay Liberty Benton High School. U.S. Route 30 corridor looks to be about the northern edge of Limaland under any definition.
http://www.ohiodtr.com/trackhtms/limaland.htmWhen I was growing up in Ohio's Great Northwest the Lima News used the term "Limaland" to describe its home delivery area. Basically it was Allen, Putnam, Van Wert, Mercer, Auglaize, Hardin and the southwestern part of Hancock counties.
Lima has claim to a 6 county region with a central city population of 36,659? I've always given them Allen County with its 102,351 pop. At one time the Lima MSA included Van Wert, Putnam and Auglaize. Van Wert and Putnam left the MSA in 1983 and Auglaize in 2003. Hardin county was never part of Lima's MSA.
Working against the regionalism concept is a strong county identification in that part of the state. Those who live there know where are the towns in their county are but are very unfamiliar with the next county over. Each county has a county seat where everything revolves around.
As an example there is a Findlay-Tiffin CSA that is a triangle with Fostoria shared between counties. Fostoria's economy is very heavily linked to Findlay. It looks like an exclave of a blue collar neighborhood in Findlay and many workers make the 12 mile ride into Findlay from Fostoria. Fostoria is a weird situation where it has county seat level size but isn't a county seat though it has 20,000 people within a 3 mile radius of town.
With Tiffin though its 25 miles from Findlay, has 2 universities, half an hour closer to Cleveland so it the linkage is questionable and its a county seat which gives it more power. Though the regional shopping area is on the east side of Findlay built to also serve Fostoria and Tiffin the community itself doesn't lean east. It leans north towards the communities in between Findlay and Toledo and plays in athletic conference with Toledo schools. Tiffin city limits and points east are the outer regions of Northeast Ohio along with communities like Sandusky and Norwalk.
For entertainment there is regional travel between county seats. Each of these towns has a notable restaurant or a theater that depending who's performing people will travel 30 to 40 miles to see. Van Wert I believe has a theater so people from Lima may road trip to Van Wert more than those from Van Wert going to see a show in Lima. A shared regional identity I don't know about that.
What they had back then were three very large employers -- the Ford engine plant, an oil refinery (now owned by Husky), and the Lima correctional facility. They also had the only TV station primarily serving the six-county area (stations in Fort Wayne provided some coverage but they were focused primarily on Indiana) and still have the only two. The employment picture has changed over the years but I imagine there's still a lot of reliance on Lima TV for information in the six-county area. Local papers are shuttering and the consolidation of local radio by Clear Channel (aka ihatelocalradio) means less local news and information on the small town radio stations and their websites up there.
Lima has one NBC station which all the communities do pick up, including Findlay to the north. Lima Senior like Findlay High is now playing sports now in a Toledo based conference.
Findlay (6 Toledo)
Ottawa (6 Toledo, 5 Ft. Wayne)
Columbus Grove (6 Toledo, 5 Ft. Wayne)
Bluffton (6 Toledo)
Beverdam (3 Toledo)
Delphos (5 Ft. Wayne)
Lima (5 Ft. Wayne)
Ada (2 Toledo, 1 Columbus)
Kenton (3 Columbus)
Wapakoneta (4 Dayton, 1 Ft. Wayne)
St. Mary's (4 Dayton, 5 Ft. Wayne)
Celina (4 Dayton, 5 Ft. Wayne)
Van Wert (5 Ft. Wayne)
Hardin County where Ada and Kenton are located is the dividing line between the Toledo and Columbus TV markets. Putnam county is covered by Toledo and Ft. Wayne. Auglaize is into the Dayton TV market. Only most of Allen county with Lima proper and Van Wert county aren't picked up by an Ohio media market.
Hancock County with Findlay has passed Allen County in total payroll with 2.1 billion to 1.95 billion for Lima. Hancock has 26.7% with bachelor's or better while in Allen its only 17.6%. Definitely peer cities at this point though Findlay is content with second city status in the Toledo market. Findlay's draw is its county and a 5 mile radius around it, which happens to include some decent sized towns. Local mall used to be attack of the high school jacket with 30 different towns represented anytime you walked in there, including places in Hardin and Putnam counties. Findlay has become more regional since the 80's cutting into Lima's turf.
You can see it in the population shift too. Findlay like Lima also has sprawled out into the township so its roughly tripled in size since WWII while Lima even counting the sprawl is up only 25% over the same time.
1950
Lima 50,246
Findlay 23,835
2019
Lima 36,659
Findlay 41,225
Zip Code Pop
Lima 61,828
Findlay 57,553
Regional Population
Lima (Cridersville & Elida) 86,138
Findlay (North Baltimore & Fostoria) 86,520
Surprisingly close in regional size. Athens by zip is a lot bigger with 34,000 residents in 45701 as of 2010.
Last Edited: 9/19/2020 9:00:47 PM by TWT