Milan

Milan, village, Erie and Huron counties, northern Ohio, U.S., on the Huron River, about 12 miles (19 km) southeast of Sandusky. In 1804 Moravian missionaries established an Indian village called Pequotting on the site. Settlers from Connecticut arrived a few years later, and the village was laid out in 1816 by Ebenezer Merry and named for Milan, Italy. A canal was dug (1832–39) connecting the village to Lake Erie via the Huron River, and the community became a busy wheat-shipping and shipbuilding centre. The village’s refusal, however, to allow the Lake Shore and Michigan Railroad a right-of-way marked its decline as a commercial centre. Milan, now a quiet, rustic community, is the birthplace of the inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847); the redbrick house on Edison Drive where he spent the first seven years of his life is preserved as a museum. The Milan Historical Museum is a complex of buildings including the Sayles House (1843), a blacksmith’s shop, and a doll and toy museum. A scenic bicycle path now runs along the former canal route and connects Milan with the town of Huron. Pop. (2000) 1,445; (2010) 1,367.