A town laid out around the Circle in 1807
Tallmadge is one of Summit County’s oldest towns, and its center still follows the 1807 plan. Rev. David Bacon founded it that year and named it for Benjamin Tallmadge, a Revolutionary War officer and landowner. It’s the county’s second-oldest city after Hudson, and it was incorporated in 1936.
The Tallmadge Circle sits on the original town square. Eight roads meet at the Circle, including SR 91 and SR 261, and it surrounds the Historic Tallmadge Church, built in 1825, and the Old Town Hall from 1859, now a museum.
Tallmadge was also dry for most of its history. Retail alcohol sales weren’t allowed until the early 1990s, and restaurants could first serve alcohol in 2001. A six-way intersection northeast of the center became a roundabout in 2010.
Tallmadge’s Portage County corner
A small piece of east Tallmadge is in Portage County, not Summit. The city annexed that land from Brimfield Township. The Census Bureau counts about 237 residents and 61 homes there.
If your house is in that section, some sale steps change:
- Property taxes and transfers go through the Portage County auditor and treasurer instead of Summit’s Fiscal Office.
- Conveyance fee. Portage County also charges $4 per $1,000, so the fee is the same as Summit’s.
- Foreclosures on Portage real estate are filed in Portage County, and the Portage sheriff runs those sales online. If the owner who died lived on the Portage side, the estate goes through the Portage County Probate Court in Ravenna. See the Portage County probate guide.
- Septic or well inspection. The Summit County Public Health point-of-sale rule covers Summit County homes. For a Portage parcel, ask Portage County’s health district what applies.
The Portage County page covers that county’s offices in more detail.
Tallmadge City Schools
Most of the city is in the Tallmadge City School District, which has about 2,700 students. A small part of Tallmadge is in the Stow-Munroe Falls district.
Education here goes back a long way: Western Reserve University held its first classes in Tallmadge in 1826, before moving to Hudson and later Cleveland. Tallmadge High School has won 10 state titles, eight in softball and two in baseball. It’s a small-town district, and buyers who want it often look for a house first and a project second.
Houses from the 1950s to the 1970s
Tallmadge grew from 3,452 people in 1940 to 15,274 in 1970, and the median house was built in 1971. About 83% of homes are owner-occupied, and in 2020 the city’s vacancy rate was about 3%.
Many of those homes are 50 to 70 years old, and they often still have:
- Original windows, kitchens and baths.
- Furnaces and water heaters from a later update, now nearing replacement.
- Older sewer laterals that a buyer’s inspector will want to scope.
If the house has been kept up, listing it in Tallmadge usually makes sense. If it needs most of that list, compare the cost of fixing it against an as-is offer. The page on selling a house that needs work covers that comparison.
No point-of-sale inspection in Tallmadge
Tallmadge does not require a city inspection when a house is sold. That keeps a sale simpler than in nearby Macedonia or Twinsburg.
The Summit County steps still apply to the Summit side of the city, including the conveyance fee, the septic and well inspection, and probate through the court in Akron. They’re explained on the Summit County page.
If you’d like to see what an as-is sale would look like for your Tallmadge house, request an offer.