The bronze statue of "The Indian Maiden" on Frost Parkway near Miami Street, marks the site of Fort Ball, a military depot of the
War of 1812. During a fighting engagement of that war, Erastus Bowe sighted the location where Tiffin later developed. In 1817, he returned to the site and built the Pan Yan Tavern on the North
Sandusky River. Its name was likely derived from
Penn Yan, New York. Early homesteaders followed soon after Bowe, and the settlement of Oakley sprang up around the Pan Yan on the north side of the river. The chief road of the area followed the path of the stagecoaches through Oakley, which was called Fort Ball after 1824. In 1821, Josiah Hedges purchased a piece of land on the south bank of the river opposite Oakley and founded another settlement. He named this village in honor of
Edward Tiffin, first governor of Ohio and later a member of the
United States Senate who had helped gain statehood for the Ohio Territory in 1803. Tiffin was incorporated by an act of the Ohio Legislature on March 7, 1835. In March 1850, Fort Ball was absorbed by Tiffin. In 1824, with the establishment of Seneca County by the Ohio Legislature, Tiffin was designated as the county seat. The county was named after the
Seneca people, the westernmost of the
Iroquois League of
Six Nations who dominated the territory for centuries. The discovery of natural gas in the vicinity in 1888 gave new momentum to the city's industrial development. Various companies were founded in or moved to the city during this period, including
Webster Industries, Inc.,
American Standard Companies, Tiffin Glass Works, and the Hanson Clutch and Machinery Company. Now known as Tiffin Parts, it has been operating at the same site since the 1920s and is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places. In the spring of 1913, the Upper Mississippi and Ohio River valleys were ravaged by
Great Flood of 1913. During a three-day period, Tiffin sustained more than $1,000,000 in property loss, with 46 houses and 2 factories swept away, 10 factories damaged, 69 places of business heavily damaged, 6 bridges within the corporate limits destroyed, and 19 deaths. Ballreich's Bros., a potato chip company, has operated in Tiffin since 1920. While the company's retail market is Northern Ohio, its products have a reputation that extends beyond its local retail market; these are available for shipping anywhere via the company's website. The company was acquired by a group of local investors in 2019. In 1884, Tiffin St. Paul's United Methodist Church was the first church in the world to be lit by
Thomas Edison's
light bulbs, and the second public building in the United States to be wired for electricity, preceded by the
Edison Hotel in
Sunbury, Pennsylvania in 1883. Tiffin is the home of the historic Ritz Theatre, built in 1928 as a
vaudeville house; it is in the Italian Renaissance style. The Ritz Theatre received extensive renovation and restoration in 1998. On
November 10, 2002, an F3 tornado hit southeast Tiffin, destroying several homes outside city limits. A new Mercy Hospital of Tiffin was built and opened in July 2008. In 2022, Tiffin City Council elected the city's first female mayor, Dawn Iannantuono, a Democrat, following the resignation of former Mayor Aaron Montz, a Republican. Iannantuono, who previously served on Tiffin City Council and the Tiffin City Board of Education, was the 50th mayor of the City of Tiffin. She decided not to seek another term as mayor, and was succeeded by small business owner and former educator Lee Wilkinson, also a Democrat, who defeated Republican John Spahr in the 2023 general election. As of 2023, the estimated population of Tiffin is 17,706 people. ==Geography==