The Toledo Strip was a 468-square-mile wedge of land containing the strategically vital mouth of the Maumee River and the burgeoning port city of Toledo. When Congress drafted the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, boundaries were defined using the Mitchell Map, which inaccurately placed the southern tip of Lake Michigan significantly further north than it actually was. When Ohio drafted its state constitution in 1802, it adjusted its northern border to secure Toledo.
However, when Michigan prepared for statehood in the 1830s, it relied on the original boundary text, placing Toledo squarely within Michigan territory. The dispute escalated into the 'Toledo War' in 1835. Michigan Territorial Governor Stevens T.
Mason and Ohio Governor Robert Lucas both passed laws criminalizing the other state's authority in the strip and deployed armed state militias to the border. The bloodless conflict saw arrest warrants issued, border skirmishes, and a single minor stabbing of a sheriff's deputy named Two Stickney. President Andrew Jackson stepped in, favoring Ohio because of its crucial electoral votes in the upcoming 1836 presidential election.
Michigan was forced to cede the Toledo Strip in exchange for immediate statehood and the Upper Peninsula, a region then thought worthless but later discovered to hold vast timber and copper wealth.