In 1835, an almost comical nearly-bloodless conflict known as the Toledo War erupted between the state of Ohio and the Michigan Territory. The root cause was an inaccurate geographic survey dating back to the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, which used the Mitchell Map to draw a boundary line running due east from the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan. Early surveyors failed to realize Lake Michigan extended significantly further south than depicted.
Consequently, two conflicting borders emerged: the Fulton Line favored by Michigan and the Harris Line favored by Ohio. Between these lines lay the Toledo Strip, a 468-square-mile wedge of land containing lucrative agricultural fields and the strategic mouth of the Maumee River at Maumee Bay. As both jurisdictions claimed sovereignty, Michigan Governor Stevens T.
Mason and Ohio Governor Robert Lucas dispatched armed state militias to the border. Tensions peaked when a Michigan deputy sheriff attempted to arrest an Ohio family, leading to a minor scuffle where a non-fatal knife wound marked the conflict's only bloodshed. President Andrew Jackson eventually intervened, forcing Michigan to accept a compromise: give up claims to the Toledo Strip in exchange for official statehood and the mineral-rich Upper Peninsula.
Decades later, unresolved border ambiguities in Maumee Bay prompted a formal joint re-survey between 1915 and 1917 to finalize the official state line once and for all.