Kent, Ohio

Kent, Ohio
Kent is the largest city in Portage County in the U.S. state of Ohio. It is part of the Akron Metropolitan Statistical Area and the larger Cleveland–Akron–Canton Combined Statistical Area. The population was 28,904 in the 2010 Census and slightly higher in the 2014 estimate. Part of the Connecticut Western Reserve, it was settled in 1805 as a mill town along the Cuyahoga River and later named Franklin Mills. In the 1830s and 1840s, the village was on the route of the Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal. Franklin Mills was an active stop on the Underground Railroad before the Civil War. The city was renamed in 1864 for Marvin Kent, who secured the maintenance yards of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad (depot pictured) for Franklin Mills. Today Kent is a college town best known as the home of the main campus of Kent State University, founded in 1910, and as the site of the 1970 Kent State shootings. While historically a manufacturing center, the city's largest economic sector is now education. Many Kentites and Kent State alumni have risen to prominence in business, sports, and the arts.