Williams Center is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in southeastern Center Township, Williams County,

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It lies at the intersection of State Routes 2 and

576 __NOTOC__ Year 576 ( DLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 576 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe ...

. The headwaters of the Little Lick Creek, a subsidiary of the

Maumee River The Maumee River (pronounced ) (; ) is a river running in the Midwestern United States from northeastern Indiana into northwestern Ohio and Lake Erie. It is formed at the confluence of the St. Joseph River (Maumee River), St. Joseph and St. Mar ...

through Lick Creek and the Tiffin River, are located around Williams Center. It is located 4¼ miles (6¾ km) southwest of

Bryan Bryan may refer to: Places in the United States * Bryan, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Bryan, Kentucky, an unincorporated community * Bryan, Ohio, a city * Bryan, Texas, a city * Bryan, Wyoming, a ghost town * Bryan County, Georgia * ...

, the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of Williams County.

History

Williams Center was originally called Centre, and under the latter name was

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...

ted in 1836, and so named on account of its location being near the

geographical center In geography, the centroid of the two-dimensional shape of a region of the Earth's surface (projected radially to sea level or onto a geoid surface) is known as its geographic centre or geographical centre or (less commonly) gravitational centre. I ...

of (what was then a larger) Williams County. A post office was established at Williams Center in 1839, and remained in operation until 1903. Despite its small size, the community has two separate Methodist churches. Before the merger that created the

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant Christian denomination, denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was ...

in 1968, one (now named "Asbury") was a part of The Methodist Church, while the other (now named "Calvary") was a part of the

Evangelical United Brethren Church The Evangelical United Brethren Church (EUB) was a North American Protestant denomination from 1946 to 1968 with Arminian theology, roots in the Mennonite and German Reformed communities, and close ties to Methodism. It was formed by the merg ...

. The latter congregation, founded in 1842, now worships in a former Lutheran church building; the previous Calvary structure burned in 1947, and the members obtained the abandoned Emmanuel Lutheran Church and relocated it in order to use it in Williams Center.Maynard, Kevin M. ''Williams County''. Charleston: Arcadia, 2008, 87.

References

Unincorporated communities in Williams County, Ohio Unincorporated communities in Ohio {{WilliamsCountyOH-geo-stub