Local Area Info: Munroe Falls, Ohio

Munroe Falls is a city in the east-central portion of Summit County, Ohio, United States, between Stow and Tallmadge. It is a suburb of Akron and is part of the Akron Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,012 at the 2010 census.

Like much of the Connecticut Western Reserve, the area that makes up present-day Munroe Falls was previously inhabited by various tribes of American Indians. When the Western Reserve began being surveyed in 1796, what is now Munroe Falls was mostly in the southern part of the survey township Town 3, Range 10 (later to be Stow Township), then a part of Washington County before being placed in the new Jefferson County the following year. In 1800, it was made part of Trumbull County, which followed the boundaries of the Western Reserve, and in 1808, the area was made part of Portage County. The first settlers in present-day Munroe Falls, a group of around 40 people including Francis Kelsey and William Stow, came in 1809. Kelsey built a sawmill on the south side of the Cuyahoga River and a gristmill was built on the north side. The initial name of the new village was Kelsey's Mills (also Kelsey Mills). The first school in Munroe Falls was built in 1816. In 1817 a wooden dam was built to provide power for both mills and the name of the village was changed to Florence. Around 1836, William and Edmund Munroe (also spelled Monroe) from Boston arrived and purchased the two mills and approximately 250 acres (101 ha) of land around them to lay out a new village, which they named Munroe Falls. The village was incorporated October 26, 1838. The Munroes had great plans for the village to become a center of commerce and an important city, but these plans never worked out. After about 10 years, which included the economic instability of the Panic of 1837, the Munroes defaulted to many of the creditors and the properties they owned were taken over by other individuals.

The Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal opened in 1840 and passed through Munroe Falls, the first boats landing on August 6 of that year arriving from New Castle, Pennsylvania. It closed around 1870. Also in 1840, Munroe Falls was made part of the new Summit County. In 1866, the old gristmill was purchased by the Cleveland Paper Company and refitted for paper manufacturing. The building burned down approximately 1–2 years later and the present factory - today owned by Sonoco Products - was built on the same site. In 1884 railroad tracks were laid in the former canal bed as part of a single line owned by the Pittsburgh and Western Railroad. These tracks were doubled in 1900 following the purchase of the railroad by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.