Orwell sits in the southwest corner of Ashtabula County, far enough from Lake Erie that the lake has nothing to do with daily life here. The village has had a post office since 1826 and took its name from Orwell, Vermont, the hometown of one of the early settlers. Main Street carries U.S. Route 322 straight through the middle of town, with State Route 45 crossing north and south, and that intersection is the reason Orwell exists as a commercial center at all.

It’s a small village with a disproportionate amount of business on its main drag. Drive East Main from one end to the other and you’ll pass a Chevy dealership, a used car lot, a tire shop, a bakery outlet, several pizza places and a country store, which is more commerce per block than most towns this size manage.

South County

Locals call this end of the county South County, and it’s a real distinction, not just a figure of speech. The northern half of Ashtabula County orients toward the lake — tourism, the harbor, the wineries, the beaches. South County orients toward the land. Orwell, Windsor, Colebrook, Rome, Hartsgrove and New Lyme are farm townships, and the businesses here reflect that: equipment and implement dealers, lumber and sawmills, feed and farm supply, excavating, welding, construction trades, livestock hauling.

Orwell anchors the Grand Valley Local School District, whose elementary, middle and high schools share one campus on Grand Valley Avenue. The teams are the Mustangs. More useful for understanding the area is the district’s footprint — 122 square miles spanning seven townships, which gives you a sense of how thinly settled South County actually is.

The Part the Census Doesn’t Capture

Here’s a number that tells you more about this area than any population figure: within those same 122 square miles, there are roughly fifteen Amish schools.

The Middlefield settlement just west in Geauga County is one of the largest Amish communities in the world, and it doesn’t stop at the county line. It extends east into Orwell, Windsor and Colebrook, and it has for decades. If you drive Route 45 or the township roads south of town, you’ll share the road with buggies, you’ll pass hand-lettered signs at the ends of driveways, and you’ll notice how many of the farms are worked without tractors.

That reshapes the local business landscape in ways worth knowing about. A great many of South County’s trades and producers are Amish-owned — furniture and cabinet shops, sawmills and pallet mills, harness and leather work, greenhouses and produce stands, bulk food stores, roofing and framing crews, buggy repair, blacksmithing, small engine work. Much of it is excellent and much of it is considerably cheaper than what you’d pay elsewhere.

It is also, for the most part, invisible online. No website. Often no email, sometimes no phone, occasionally just a voicemail box at the end of a shared phone shanty. Word of mouth and a sign at the road is the entire marketing operation, which works fine if you already live here and poorly if you don’t. That gap is a lot of the reason a local directory for this county is worth building.

Main Street Businesses

Midway Chevrolet

Midway Chevrolet has been the new car presence in Orwell for years, sitting at 320 East Main Street. For a dealership in a village this size, it pulls from a wide radius — Mentor, Andover, Jefferson, Cortland, Middlefield, Chardon, Warren, Champion and Kinsman are all a reasonable drive, and plenty of South County buyers would rather deal with a lot they can walk into than drive to a metro dealership. New and used Chevy cars and trucks, with the service department that comes with a franchise store.

Reel’s Auto Sales

Up the road at 547 East Main, Reel’s Auto Sales has been in business since 1999 and has moved more than 5,000 vehicles in that time. They stock a wide range, generally from about $3,500 up to $25,000, which covers everything from a first car for a Grand Valley senior to a work truck. Reel’s belongs to both the national and Ohio independent dealer associations, and is one of a small handful of independent dealers in Ohio to complete the Certified Master Dealer program through Northwood University and NIADA. Open Monday through Friday until 7, Saturdays until 3, closed Sunday.

Capp’s Pizza

Capp’s Pizza at 156 East Main is one of those places that holds a spot in the local rotation. Orwell has an unusual number of pizza options for a village its size — there are at least six inside the village limits — and Capp’s has outlasted plenty of them. Which tells you something.

A Few Orwell Footnotes

The village’s most unexpected claim to fame: the King Training Camp, owned by boxing promoter Don King, is located in Orwell. A rural Ashtabula County township is not where most people would guess a heavyweight training compound ended up, and that’s part of the charm.

Beyond that, Orwell has the Orwell State Wildlife Area just north of the village for hunting and birding, and the surrounding townships offer about as much quiet open country as exists in Northeast Ohio.

Browse the Orwell Business Directory

Our Orwell business directory covers the 44076 area and the surrounding South County townships — auto sales and service, restaurants and carryout, construction and the trades, farm and agricultural businesses, shops and professional services. If you run a business in or around Orwell, adding your listing is free.