1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lima (Ohio)

LIMA, a city and the county-seat of Allen county, Ohio, U.S.A., on the Ottawa river, about 70 m. S.S.W. of Toledo, Pop. (1890) 15,981; (1900) 21,723, of whom 1457 were foreign-born and 731 were negroes; (1910 census) 30,508. It is served by the Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne & Chicago division), the Erie, the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton, the Lake Erie & Western, the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton railways, and by six interurban electric lines. Immediately N. of the city is a state asylum for the insane. Lima has a Carnegie library, a city hospital and a public park of 100 acres. Among the principal buildings are the county court house, a masonic temple, an Elks’ home and a soldiers’ and sailors’ memorial building. Lima College was conducted here from 1893 to 1908. Lima is situated in the centre of the great north-western oil-field (Trenton limestone of the Ordovician system) of Ohio, which was first developed in 1885; the product of the Lima district was 20,575,138 barrels in 1896, 15,877,730 barrels in 1902 and 6,748,676 barrels in 1908. The city is a headquarters of the Standard Oil Company, and the refining of petroleum is one of the principal industries. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $8,155,586, an increase of 31.1% over that in 1900. Lima contains railway shops of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton and the Lake Erie & Western railways. The city has a large wholesale and jobbing trade. The municipality owns and operates the water-works. Lima was laid out in 1831, and was first organized as a city under a general state law in 1842.