Do you know of West Chester ???

This page is an orphan - a placeholder until we can discover more about West Chester. 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 West Chester.<1>

Our source wasn't clear whether West Chester 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 West Chester would be found somewhere in Ottawa County, Michigan.

Communities Also Named West Chester ...

We found seven communities that share the name West Chester.

Within Michigan, the name West Chester is unique.

Beyond Michigan, we know of another seven communities that are located throughout in the United States.

Communities Elsewhere In North America ...
- Iowa
  - Washington County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Iowa community of West Chester [Washington County].
- Ohio
  - Butler County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Ohio community of West Chester [Butler County].
  - Tuscarawas County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Ohio community of West Chester [Tuscarawas County].
- Pennsylvania
  - Chester County
  - Please visit our profile page for the Pennsylvania community of West Chester [Chester County].
- South Carolina
  - Chester 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 South Carolina community of West Chester [Chester County].
  - Richland County
  - Please visit our profile page for the South Carolina community of West Chester [Richland County].
- Virginia
  - Roanoke City
  - Please visit our profile page for the Virginia community of West Chester [Roanoke City].

Miscellaneous References and Mentions for West Chester ...

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

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 Rock Creek to see Pete ... Rock 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 West Chester 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.