Aurora historical timeline

Aurora’s history follows the pattern of the Western Reserve: New England settlement, dairying, and then absorption into a metropolitan area.

The Western Reserve

This part of Ohio was claimed by Connecticut and sold to the Connecticut Land Company, which surveyed it into townships from 1796. Aurora was settled in 1799 by families from Connecticut, and the layout — a township grid with a village green and a church on it — is straight New England practice transplanted west.

Cheese

The heavy wet soils suited pasture rather than grain, and the township turned to dairying. Through the middle of the nineteenth century Aurora was a significant cheese producer, shipping to eastern markets once the railway arrived, and the trade gave the village its early prosperity and several of its surviving houses.

Geauga Lake

A picnic ground opened beside the lake at the township’s northern edge in 1887 and grew into an amusement park with a wooden coaster from 1925. It operated under successive owners for 120 years. Sea World of Ohio opened across the water in 1970. The marine park closed in 2001 and the amusement park in 2007, ending the town’s century as a resort.

The interurban

An electric interurban railway linked Cleveland, Aurora and Akron in the early twentieth century, and it was what first made the lake a mass destination — day trippers could reach the park from either city for a few cents. The interurbans were killed by the car in the 1930s, and the depot beside the old line is one of the few physical reminders.

Suburbanisation

Post-war road building put Aurora within easy reach of both Cleveland and Akron, and it grew steadily as a residential community; the outlet centre opened in 1987.