Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Butler, OH

Butler is a village in Richland County — not Butler County — located along the Clear Fork of the Mohican River in the Mansfield metropolitan area.

Before white settlement, the Butler site was a Delaware Indian hunting ground known as Helltown, chosen for its plentiful game and fertile farmland; Joseph Craig, who received a presidential land grant in 1823, was the area's first settler.

The town was laid out on January 12, 1848 by Daniel Spohn under the name Independence, and in its early days it was nicknamed 'Spohntown' and 'Squeelgut.'

The name was changed in the 1870s to Butler, honoring Mexican-American War hero General William Butler, and the change became official in 1891 to match the post office.

Butler was incorporated in 1877, with J. M. McLaughlin as its first mayor.

The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad reached Butler in 1853 and was long noted as the only railroad in the United States that entered and left a town from the same direction — from the west.

Butler had 941 residents at the 2020 census, a figure that has stayed remarkably steady for decades, hovering between about 920 and 980 people in every census since 1960.

The 2010 census counted 933 people living in 362 households in Butler.

Butler Elementary School stands in the village, while Clear Fork Middle School and Clear Fork High School of the Clear Fork Valley Local School District sit just outside neighboring Bellville.

Butler covers about 1.15 square miles and uses ZIP code 44822.