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Writer's pictureTedd Long

The Mighty Maumee

The heart and soul of Toledo runs straight through town on its way out to Lake Erie.


Formed at Fort Wayne, Indiana by the confluence of the St. Joseph and St. Marys rivers, the Maumee River meanders northeast for about 140 miles through fairly flat agricultural lands in Indiana and Ohio before flowing into the Maumee Bay of Lake Erie here at Toledo.

The Maumee has the largest watershed of any Great Lakes river with 8,316 square miles.

In addition to its source tributaries, the Maumee's principal tributaries are the Auglaize River and the Tiffin River, which join it at Defiance from the south and north, respectively. The Maumee watershed is often referred to as Ohio’s breadbasket; its made up of two-thirds farmland, mostly corn and soybeans.


Ever wonder why we have a Miami street in East Toledo along the Maumee River?  Believe it or not, for the historian "Maumee River" and "Miami of the Lake" are synonymous. At a very early date the river was known as the Miami, observers of the eighteenth century called it the "Miami of the Lake" or the "Miami of Lake Erie" in order to distinguish the Maumee River from the Miami River of the Ohio.  After the treaty of Greenville was signed, the term Maumee replaced Miami.

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