My property, that was once part of the Portage Quarry, has been owned by multiple people throughout the years. The land was first obtained by Sargent John Shade from the United States back in 1835. Since Sargent John the property has been owned by 13 other owners with the current owner being ABP LTD, who bought the property back in 2009. Throughout the years the types of owners have bounced around from first being owned by regular people throughout the 1800’s. To companies that owned the land for the resources that were available, like Shell Oil Company, who extracted oil or natural gas, or the Maumee Stone Company, who mined the rock from the quarry that is there today. Finally, with the current owners, ABP LTD, who wanted to rezone the land …show more content…
This entire area, that was the Great Black Swamp was an untouched wilderness, that people saw as basically “Hell”. The people that lived near the swamp didn’t want to deal with it. They saw it as a burden. Till they saw the land as a commodity in the 1800’s, which led to a drastic change in the landscape. Once the inhabitants started to move into the swamp, taking and using the resources that the swamp provided. The land had changed drastically, with more and more people moving into the swamp as the years went on. We can learn from this drastic change in the environment by looking at this property and comparing it to the rest of the area. That was once the Great Black Swamp. Through maps of the area, and the people that owned the property, that eventually became a quarry, the land was changed because the owners saw this property as a …show more content…
Maps show different details about how a landscape once was and is today. Looking at and comparing different maps allow a better understanding on why and how the land was used by the inhabitants that occupied the land. In the map, Society for the Diffusion of General Knowledge,1833, shows that wood county was almost all swamp. With their not being really any sign of development within the swamp at first. There were very little roads and towns throughout the area. Except Portage, where the property was located. The map, Agriculture, 1872, shows how the area that the Portage Quarry was in was used for agriculture, mainly wheat. In roughly 40 years the area changed drastically, from being a swamp to being developed into farmland due to the people that inhabited the land. This map also showed how more towns and railroads were made as people moved into the area and needed a way to trade their produce. The map Oil and Gas Fields, 1888, shows that where the Portage Quarry was, there was an abundance of natural gas, which show why Shell Oil co. purchased the property in the 1920’s to 1940’s, which gives strong evidence that this property was look at as a commodity. Finally, the last map USGS-Bowling Green, 1901, shows how the land around the Portage Quarry property drastically changed in the last 80 years. Going from an uninhabitable swamp to a developed area containing