The original town plat of Rawson was filed on February 3, 1855, with fifty-five lots in sections 13 and 14 of Union Township, Hancock County, on the Frederick Keller and George J. Kelly farms. Residential and business buildings rose in anticipation of a rumored railroad route from Fremont toward Ohio’s western boundary, and Keller and Kelly named the village after L.Q. Rawson, president of the railroad company, hoping to encourage construction through the area. Financial troubles delayed the line and brought Rawson to a standstill, but seventeen years later the first locomotive arrived in 1872 and spurred new building. The railroad was then called the Lake Erie and Louisville, was renamed the Lake Erie and Western in 1879, and became part of the Nickel Plate Railroad in 1922. Residents believed the steam whistle of that first locomotive promised growth and prosperity, but in 1887 fire nearly destroyed the town and consumed almost every building, especially in the business district. With help from the Lake Erie and Western Railroad, which brought a hose cart and men from Findlay, the town avoided total destruction. Rawson was rebuilt with new features: the Depot was built in 1898, the Western Ohio Electric Railroad connected the town to major urban centers from 1906 to 1932, wells in Stringfellow's Grove began supplying water in 1937, and this site later became a park where the Nickel Plate Depot was relocated on June 11, 1951.