TOLEDO, Ohio — It's a war not many have deep knowledge about: the Toledo War was fought nearly two centuries ago over land disputes involving what is now the Glass City.
"It was just some land in the, at that time-contested, border between Ohio and Michigan," said Tedd Long, a Toledo author and history expert.
Long says that the war is the foundation for the bitter rivalry between Ohio State and Michigan, and if it wasn't for its popularity, most wouldn't even know the war happened.
"It would probably just disappear from the history books if it weren't for the annual Ohio State/Michigan game," he said.
Simply put, the war's rooted dispute was over the drawn-out map lines that outlined the border between northern Ohio and southern Michigan.
Ohio's northern border has been controversial since it applied for statehood in 1802. When it was established through the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, it gave the state valuable access to Lake Erie that Michigan wanted following its statehood application three years later.
"When Michigan goes to apply for statehood, the federal government said 'well, we're gonna use what was originally laid out', and suddenly you have this strip of land called the Toledo strip that is basically in limbo," Long said. "Is it Ohio or is it Michigan?"
By April 1835, there was a war between the two that lasted over a year. There were no deaths, just tense moments.
Long says the only known instance of bloody violence happened in Toledo in July 1835, when a man was stabbed in a brawl in the now-Warehouse District by Two Stickney, the son of Benjamin Stickney, a Toledo founding father.
"The Michigan sheriff came down to actually arrest One Stickney, came into a bar, and Two Stickney defended him and stabbed him with a pen knife," Long said.
One and Two Stickney were the legal names and sons of Benjamin Stickney, named for the order in which they were born.
The war was settled in December 1836, with Michigan getting the Upper Peninsula and Ohio keeping Toledo.
If Ohio had lost, Toledo would have been part of Michigan, and also the home of the University of Michigan, as Long says although it was founded in Detroit in 1817, early university representatives chose nearly 900 acres in downtown Toledo for a potential new campus.
That was delayed and eventually canceled due to the war's end.
