In 1800, before Ohio became a state, the government of the Northwest Territory passed an Act “to provide for the recording of Town Plats.”  The law required that individuals who laid out towns within the territory create a map or plat of the town and record it in the county recorder’s office in the county where the proposed town be established.  Subsequent legislation after Ohio statehood expanded upon the original legislation to include additions to towns and the subdivision of property already included in a town plat.   

   Currently, Ohio Revised Code section 711.04, last revised in 1955, requires that after a plat of a subdivision is completed, “it shall be certified by the surveyor and acknowledge by the owner before an officer authorized to take the acknowledgment of deeds” and afterwards “recorded in the office of the county recorder.”  Section 317.08 of the Revised Code requires that the county recorder keep “plats and maps of town lots, [and] of the subdivision of town lots…”.  A function that the county recorder has done since 1800.