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Although forced to surrender the Pennsylvania portion of its sea-to-sea land grant following the Yankee-Pennamite Wars and the intercession of the federal government, Connecticut held fast to its right to the lands between the 41st and 42nd-and-2-minutes parallels that lay west of the Pennsylvania border.
Within the state of Ohio, the claim was a 120 mile (190 km) strip between Lake Erie and a line just below Youngstown, Akron, New London and Willard, about three miles south of the present-day U.S. Highway 224. Beyond Ohio the claim included parts of what would become Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California.
In her deed of cession (the states gave up their western claims in exchange for federal assumption of their American Revolutionary War debt) dated September 13, 1786, Connecticut retained more than three million acres (12,000 kmē) in Ohio. In 1796, Connecticut sold that land to the Connecticut Land Company , but the Indian title to the reserve had not been extinguished then. Clear title was not obtained until the Greenville Treaty in 1795 and the Treaty of Fort Industry in 1805. The west end of the reserve included the 500,000 acre (2,000 kmē) " Firelands or Sufferers Lands" reserved for residents of several New England towns destroyed by British-set fires during the Revolutionary War.
Architectural influence can still be seen there (The Western Reserve Style), predominantly in the style of windows (six small panes over one large pane in a double-hung window).
Many street, business, and organization names still reflect the region's Western Reserve origin, including Case Western Reserve University, an important university in Cleveland.