Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Ontario, OH

Ontario, in Richland County, was founded by Hiram Cook and platted in December 1834 on the western edge of the Allegheny Plateau, just west of Mansfield; it was named after Ontario County, New York, the founder's home.

Ontario's original settlement merged almost immediately with neighboring New Castle, another tiny settlement laid out the same month along the Mansfield and Bucyrus road, now State Route 309.

The historic Lincoln Highway, America's first transcontinental road, reached Ontario in 1913, and the route later became U.S. Route 30.

General Motors built a large Fisher Body stamping plant nearby in 1956, and on June 25, 1958, residents voted to incorporate Ontario as a village largely so the new GM plant would sit inside its boundaries.

Ontario officially became a city on April 30, 2001, after its population passed 5,300.

The GM stamping plant, later called the Mansfield-Ontario Metal Center, closed in June 2010 following General Motors' 2009 bankruptcy, ending more than five decades of auto manufacturing in Ontario.

Ontario reinvented itself as a major regional retail hub anchored by the Richland Mall, drawing a shopping population of more than 150,000 people from across North-Central Ohio.

Ontario had 6,656 residents at the 2020 census, living in 2,778 households.

When Ontario High School was built in 1960, it was unusually advanced for its era, with an indoor swimming pool, a theater, three shops, and high-tech classrooms and laboratories.

The Ontario Local School District enrolls about 1,820 students across its elementary, middle, and high schools.