Welcome To Village of Antwerp, Ohio

The Village of Antwerp was laid out in 1841 by General Horatio N. Curtis and surveyed by W. Wilshire Riley. The name Antwerp was selected because it was not listed in any post office directory in the country published at that time. During the mid-1800s, completion of the Wabash & Erie Canal helped spur settlement here. The business portion of the town initially was located along the Wabash & Erie Canal, and served by hotels, warehouses, wharves, and other businesses.

Just east of Antwerp, Ohio, the Six Mile Reservoir served to maintain the water level in the Wabash & Erie Canal. The reservoir, about 2,000 acres in size, had been built in 1840 by damming and diking the Six Mile Creek, and that is where it goes its name.

The Wabash & Erie Canal was completed in 1843 and the Miami & Erie Canal in 1845, but they only operated for about ten years before the railroads took over as the preferred means of transportation. The last boat on the Wabash & Erie Canal that docked in Indiana was in the town of Huntington in 1874, but other sections in that state had shut down even earlier. The section through Fort Wayne, Indiana, had been sold in 1870, and filled in so the Pennsylvania Railroad could lay tracks.

Once its water source had been cut off in Indiana, the Six Mile Reservoir became a mosquito-breeding ground for the spread of “ague,” a term for what was later recognized as malaria. An effort was made to have the State of Ohio legally abandon and drain the reservoir, but the bill failed to pass.