Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Milan, OH

Milan is a village spanning Erie and Huron counties in northern Ohio, and the birthplace and childhood home of inventor Thomas Edison.

Milan was platted by Ebenezer Merry in 1817 on the site of Petquotting, an abandoned Moravian Indian mission village, and Merry dammed the Huron River there to power a gristmill and sawmill known as Merry's Mills.

The village was first called Beatty, then incorporated as Milan in 1833, taking its name from Milan, Italy.

The Milan Canal opened to Lake Erie navigation on July 4, 1839, and for roughly 15 years Milan thrived as one of the busiest inland ports on the Great Lakes, with its peak year of commerce in 1847.

Because the deep Milan Canal let Lake Erie schooners sail directly into town, Milan became a shipbuilding center — about 60 vessels were built there between 1840 and 1867 from local white oak.

Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan on February 11, 1847, in a small brick home that is now a museum, and he lived in the village until age seven, when his family moved to Port Huron, Michigan.

Railroads ended Milan's canal era in the 1850s, and when a flood destroyed the canal's feeder dam in 1868 the lake connection was never rebuilt — one reason Milan's Greek Revival canal-era buildings survive so intact today.

In 2002 the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Milan to its list of Distinctive Destinations for its remarkably preserved 19th-century architecture.

Milan had 1,371 residents at the 2020 census, living in roughly 500 households.

Milan shares the Edison Local Schools with neighboring Berlin Heights, and the district's high school teams are fittingly nicknamed the Edison Chargers.