The Auglaize River (Shawnee: Kathinakithiipi)[5] is a 113-mile-long (182 km)[3] tributary of the Maumee River in northwestern Ohio in the United States. It drains a primarily rural farming area in the watershed of Lake Erie. The name of the river was derived from the French term for it. The French called it "rivière à la Grande Glaize" (later spelled as "glaise", meaning river of Great Clay), referring to the soil in the area.[6]
A portage from the headwaters of the Great Miami River to the south bend of the Auglaize made it part of an important link between the watershed of the Ohio (and the Mississippi) and Lake Erie and the St. Lawrence watershed, heavily settled in pre-Columbian times.
During the days of the Ohio Country in the 18th century, the area around the river was inhabited by the Ottawa. During the mid-1790s the area near the mouth of the Auglaize surpassed Kekionga to the west as the center of Indian influence. Fort Defiance was constructed in 1794 near the confluence of the Auglaize and the Maumee by General Mad Anthony Wayne. Fort Amanda, constructed along the river southwest of Lima in 1812, was an important American outpost during the War of 1812.
^U.S. Geological Survey. Defiance East quadrangle, Ohio. 1:24,000. 7.5 Minute Series. Washington D.C.: USGS, 1988.
^ abU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National MapArchived 2012-03-29 at the Wayback Machine, accessed May 19, 2011