Arlington, in southern Hancock County, was one of the county's earliest settlements, beginning as a farming community and later becoming a railroad crossroads. During the War of 1812, Gen. William Hull opened a trail into the area as he crossed Buck Run at Eagle Creek and led his army to the Blanchard River to establish Ft. Findlay. Robert Hurd owned extensive tracts of land there, and his sons became the first recorded settlers by building a log cabin near this site in 1834. The rich farmland and abundant water soon drew other settlers to the vicinity of Hurdtown, and when the village was formally surveyed in November 1844, its name was changed to Arlington. Its later history included a village plat of 16 lots in 1844, an Asian cholera epidemic that caused 40 deaths in 1854, the departure of town men for the Civil War in 1861, incorporation in 1892 with Jim Huff as mayor, the first newspaper, the Arlington Gazette, in 1897, the first telephone in 1900, the first high school graduation class in 1905, and a sesquicentennial celebration in 1984.