Do you know of Ottawa ???

This page is an orphan - a placeholder until we can discover more about Ottawa. When we encounter a name that is new to us, we add it to our Gazetteer with the hope that we'll discover more information in the future. Such is the case with Ottawa.<1>

Our source wasn't clear whether Ottawa was a community, a post office or a post office located in a community and having the same name.<2> While we don't have its location, we believe that Ottawa would be found somewhere in Ottawa County, Michigan.

Communities Also Named Ottawa ...

We found fifteen communities that share the name Ottawa.

There is one other community in Michigan which is also named Ottawa.

Beyond Michigan, we know of another fourteen communities that are located throughout in the United States and Canada. Of these fourteen communities, fourteen are located in the United States and three are in Canada.

Communities Located In Michigan ...
- Monroe County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Michigan community of Ottawa [Monroe County].

Communities Elsewhere In North America ...
- Illinois
  - La Salle County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Illinois community of Ottawa [La Salle County].
- Iowa
  - Clarke County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Iowa community of Ottawa [Clarke County].
  - Polk County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Iowa community of Ottawa [Polk County].
- Kansas
  - Douglas County
  - We found mention of this community, but have little information.<3> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the Kansas community of Ottawa [Douglas County].
  - Franklin County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Kansas community of Ottawa [Franklin County].
- Kentucky
  - Rockcastle County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Kentucky community of Ottawa [Rockcastle County].
- Minnesota
  - Le Sueur County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Minnesota community of Ottawa [Le Sueur County].
- North Dakota
  - Griggs County
  - We found mention of this community, but have little information.<3> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the North Dakota community of Ottawa [Griggs County].
- Ohio
  - Putnam County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Ohio community of Ottawa [Putnam County].
- Oklahoma
  - Ottawa County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Oklahoma community of Ottawa [Ottawa County].
- Ontario
  - Please visit our profile page for the Ontario community of Ottawa.
- Pennsylvania
  - Montour County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Pennsylvania community of Ottawa [Montour County].
- West Virginia
  - Boone County
  - Please visit our profile page for the West Virginia community of Ottawa [Boone County].
- Wisconsin
  - Waukesha County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Wisconsin community of Ottawa [Waukesha County].

Miscellaneous References and Mentions for Ottawa ...

We've created the following list to keep track of the sources that proved useful in adding to our knowledge about Ottawa:

Along The Tracks, A Directory of Named Places on Michigan Railroads
Written by: Meints, Graydon M.
Published by Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University - 1987
(Available from Amazon.com)

More Orphans in Ottawa County ...

Can you help?

As we explained above, when we encounter a name that might be a community or a post office we add it to our Gazetteer. If we have little information to go with the name, we call them Orphans. Below are Orphans that we believe to be located in Ottawa County.

Footnotes ...

<1>	This entry could have originated in error. It might be that a source had a misprint, was simply wrong or we made a transcription error while referencing it. Many of the documents we reference are from the 1800s and the early 1900s, with some easier to read than others.
<2>	Part of the difficulty in identifying whether a name is a post office or a community lies with how Post Offices were named. We've prepared an article with our understanding of how post offices were named: Naming of Post Offices.
<3>	If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer as a placeholder. As we find more information about that community, it will be added to our Gazetteer. Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Bird Creek to see Pete ... Bird Creek is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name. Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time. Also keep in mind that Ottawa could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.