In 1835, Timothy and Cinderella Sherman, with their two-year-old son Phillip, became the first people of European descent to settle in what is now Clay Township.

Ultimately the town owes its existence to a cost-saving decision by the executives of the Toledo, Norwalk, and Cleveland Railroad.

During the fall of 1852, iron imported from England was laid down and on December 22, 1852, the first passenger train rolled through a swampy wilderness.

Stony Ridge began to develop immediately; within two years there was a saw mill, post office, hotel, and other businesses.

With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 the nation-wide call for troop mobilization went out and Genoa, having a railroad station and thus a connection to the outside world, saw more than one hundred commit themselves to various regiments.

The Toledo Blade remarked in 1862 that "few towns have done as well as Genoa in furnishing troops for the Union Army."

From 1883 to 1884 the village and Clay Township jointly constructed a new two-story town hall and opera house.

After falling into disrepair by the 1970s, the town hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and was restored with a $755,000 grant from the federal Economic Development Administration in 1978-1979.

The Town Hall continues to house the village council chambers, mayor's office, and Genoa Civic Theater.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 1.55 square miles (4.01 km2), all land.