[2][3] Gibraltar Island became a lookout point for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry in the fight against the British during the War of 1812.

Perry and his men defeated a fleet of British sailing vessels during the famous Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813.

The Cooke family entertained a variety of notables, such as William Tecumseh Sherman, Salmon P. Chase, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover Cleveland, and Benjamin Harrison.

In the early 1880s Cooke's daughter, Laura Barney, sold it to Julius Stone, who eventually gave it to Ohio State University.

The Board of Trustees resolved that it would be named for his father, Franz Theodore Stone, a Prussian mathematician and astronomical researcher who worked for Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel after attending the Königsberg Albertina University.