Historic Columbus

HISTORIC COLUMBUS 

A Bicentennial History 

by Ed Lentz 

A publication of the 

Columbus Chamber of Commerce

Thank you for your interest in this HPNbooks publication. For more information about other 

HPNbooks publications, or information about producing your own book with us, please visit www.hpnbooks.com.

HISTORIC 

COLUMBUS 

A Bicentennial History 

by Ed Lentz 

Commissioned by the Columbus Chamber of Commerce 

Historical Publishing Network 

A division of Lammert Incorporated 

San Antonio, Texas

ABOUT THIS BOOK 

This book is dedicated to the entrepreneurs and businesses who form the backbone of the Columbus Region—strengthening our 

community and economy from 1812 to 2012 and beyond. 

Founded to be the State Capital in 1812, Columbus marks 200 years of growth and prosperity in 2012. The Columbus Chamber 

produced this book, Historic Columbus, to honor the rich history that makes the Columbus community what it is today and honor just 

a few of the businesses and organizations that share in Columbus’ proud past. 

Historic Columbus tells the story of where we have been. The Chamber is proud to have served as an economic catalyst of and 

advocate for this community since 1884, when it was established as the Columbus Board of Trade. 

In 2012, the Columbus Region is at a pivotal point. As we celebrate the bicentennial, residents, neighborhoods, community and 

business leaders, pay tribute to the past. But we also look forward, to embrace the future with bold plans to for economic development. 

Together, we will ensure that we continue to grow, prosper and thrive. 

Happy 200th Birthday, Columbus. 

Michael Dalby Jack Partridge Melissa P. Ingwersen 

President and CEO Chairman 2010-2012 Chair Elect 2010-2012 

Columbus Chamber Columbus Chamber Columbus Chamber 

First Edition 

Copyright © 2011 Historical Publishing Network 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from 

the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Historical Publishing Network, 11535 Galm Road, Suite 101, San Antonio, Texas, 78254. Phone (800) 749-9790. 

ISBN: 9781935377597 

Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 2011938334 

Historic Columbus: A Bicentennial History 

author: Ed Lentz 

cover photography: Larry Hamill Photography 

contributing writer for “Sharing the Heritage”: Marie Beth Jones 

Historical Publishing Network 

president: Ron Lammert 

project managers: Wynn Buck, Igor Patrushev, Bruce Barker 

administration: Donna M. Mata, Melissa G. Quinn 

book sales: Dee Steidle 

production: Colin Hart, Evelyn Hart, Glenda Tarazon Krouse, Omar Wright 

PRINTED IN CANADA 

H I S T O R I C C O L U M B U S : A B i c e n t e n n i a l H i s t o r y 

2

CONTENTS 

4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

5 PREFACE 

6 CHAPTER I “A Most Delightful Country” 

15 CHAPTER II Frontier Conflict 

22 CHAPTER III Franklinton 

29 CHAPTER IV A Capital Beginning 1812-1816 

37 CHAPTER V The Hub of the Wheel 1816-1840 

48 CHAPTER VI The City Challenged 1840-1865 

59 CHAPTER VII Railroad Town 1865-1900 

68 CHAPTER VIII A City of Light 1900-1930 

80 CHAPTER IX Hometown 1930-1950 

88 CHAPTER X All-America City 1950-1970 

96 CHAPTER XI Test City to Best City 1970-1990 

105 CHAPTER XII The City Rising 1990-2012 

116 SHARING THE HERITAGE 

199 SPONSORS 

200 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

C O N T E N T S 

3

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

A history book—especially a pictorial history—is never the work of one person or even of a few. As is often the case, a lot of people 

helped in the preparation of this book. 

For help with research, I am once again indebted to the reference librarians at the Main Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, 

the Archives-Library of the Ohio Historical Society, the State Library of Ohio, the Ohioana Library, and The Ohio State University Library. 

As to the pictures, there are even more people to thank. 

There are two major sources of the pictures used in this book. 

The first is the Columbus Dispatch. I am especially grateful to Michael Curtin, Associate Publisher Emeritus for his help and to Linda 

Deitch and the staff of the Dispatch library for their extraordinary assistance in finding obscure images for a local historian. 

Equally helpful was the staff of the Genealogy, History and Travel Division of the Columbus Metropolitan. I am especially indebted to 

Bonnie Chandler, Nick Taggert, Andy Miller, and Russ Pollit—all whom spent more than a little time on this project. 

Other helpful assistance with photographs and their availability came from the Capitol South Community Urban Redevelopment 

Corporation, the Columbus Downtown Development Corporation, the City of Columbus Department of Development, the Columbus 

Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration and the New York Public Library. 

Also special mention should be made of pictorial help from Parrill Hertz, Esther Miller, and Donald Schlegel. 

Thanks are in order to Jack Partridge and Susan Merryman of the Columbus Chamber and Ron Lammert of Historical Publishing 

Network for their advice and support as the book was in preparation. 

Finally, as always, a special thanks to my wife Andrea, who makes my work both possible and worthwhile. 

✧ 

The Columbus skyline in 2005. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH 

PHOTO ARCHIVES. 


4

PREFACE 

Like most cities, Columbus has been a place that has seen a lot of different people pass through over the course of the last couple of 

centuries. Some stayed awhile. Some did not. So at any given time there are a lot of people living in Columbus who do not know very 

much about the place where they are living. 

And this lack of knowledge is not just about who we have been. It is about who we are. Columbus is the largest city in land area in 

the state of Ohio. Many people living in the suburbs of one side of the city may come downtown from time to time but they seldom travel 

to the other side of town. In short, many of us do not really know who we are—as well as who we have been. 

I happen to think we should know who we are and who we have been. I came to Columbus in the late 1960s to study American history 

at The Ohio State University. While I was doing that I was surprised to find that no one had written a history of Columbus and Franklin 

County since 1930. And that history was something of a rehash of one written ten years before. And the 1920 history was a simplified 

retelling of a lengthy narrative published in 1892. 

And since there were not all that many people teaching and writing local history in central Ohio, one might say the field was rather 

open to newcomers who might be inclined to tell the story of Columbus. 

I was so inclined. 

I have always believed that we cannot really know who we are if we do not know where we have been. And that is what history does. 

It gives us roots in a society of increasingly rapid political, economic, and social change. Some might wonder what there is new to tell 

about the history of Midwestern capital city. Writing a weekly newspaper article about local history for almost twenty years has taught 

me that there is always a new story to tell. 

In the course of writing this book, I have learned a few things I did not know about Columbus and found a lot of new pictures that 

have not been published all that often and sometimes not at all. It is that discovery of new things about a familiar town that keeps me 

returning to the past of this place. 

Columbus is not only geographically in the middle of the state. As the center of state power and authority for the past two hundred 

years it is also the symbolic heart of Ohio. This admixture of state history and local history makes the story of this city unique and unlike 

that of any other place in Ohio. 

It is a story well-worth retelling. 

✧ 

The Riverfront in 2009. Columbus, Ohio, 

has been a place where people have been 

meeting one with another for more than two 

hundred years. It is the state capital—and 

much, much more. 



P R E F A C E 

5

C H A P T E R 

“A MOST DELIGHTFUL COUNTRY” 

I 

T H E L A Y O F T H E L A N D 

✧ 

Created as Ohio’s first state park in 1896, 

Fort Ancient in southwest Ohio has been a 

place of human habitation for at least two 

thousand years and possibly much longer. 

Its people were residents of central Ohio 

as well. 



In the fall of 1750, a trapper, trader and frontiersman named Christopher Gist was hired by 

the Virginia Land Company to cross the Appalachians and report on the land beyond in and 

around the valley of the Ohio River. People had been living in what is now central Ohio for quite 

a long time before Christopher Gist came calling. Some of those earlier residents were French 

“Courier du Bois” and English “Long Hunters.” But none of them could or would leave a record 

of what they found. 

Passing very close to what would later be Columbus, Ohio, Christopher Gist would later 

record what he found. The well-known American author Washington Irving later wrote that 

Gist’s journal reported that the land was “clad with noble forests of hickory, walnut, ash, poplar, 

sugar-maple and wild cherry trees. Occasionally there were spacious plains covered with wild rye; 

natural meadows with blue grass and clover.” 

“Nothing is wanted save cultivation,” said Christopher Gist, “to make this a most delightful country.” 

Gist’s report was important because it convinced a number of people in the English colonies to 

the east that the Ohio Country was neither a wasteland nor an endless trackless forest. It was in 

fact a very pleasant and desirable place indeed. 


6

This was a place of extraordinary natural 

richness and diversity. Over the long history 

of North America, different sorts of people 

would continue to find something to like 

about this land between the Great Lakes to 

the north and the Ohio River to the south. 

The broad arc of the various ranges composing 

the Appalachian Mountains begins in 

the American South and moves to the northeast 

eventually ending in the mountains of 

New England and maritime Canada. People 

traveling east from the Great Plains would 

inevitably be drawn inexorably north and east 

into the Ohio Country. And they would like 

what they found. Unlike the subtropical heat 

of the South or the numbing cold of the land 

north of the Great Lakes, Ohio is a place of 

relatively temperate climate—occasionally 

very hot or cold but generally more moderate. 

This temperate climate produced plains 

with grasses more than six feet tall and 

mighty old growth forests whose trees soared 

to heights of more than one hundred feet 

both of which served as the home to a wide 

variety of wildlife. The natural cycle of death 

and rebirth of the plant life of the forests 

produced a thick rich soil, especially along 

the clear clean rivers running through 

the land. 

From time to time, we still find evidence 

of the extraordinary wildlife which wandered 

across the land in that long ago time—fossilized 

bones of the mastodon, the tree sloth, 

and other large animals. 

For at least 14,000 years, this rich land 

has served as the home of a wide variety of 

people. While people might have been here 

even longer than that, we will be hard put to 

find evidence of their presence. Prior to that 

time, 14,000 years ago, most of central Ohio 

was buried under a great glacier that covered 

most of the Midwest for hundreds of years. It 

was not the first glacier to cover Ohio. And it 

is not likely to be the last. But since the next 

one is not due for another 50,000 to 75,000 

years from now, it is not a matter of current 

and pressing concern. 

The great Wisconsinan Glacier completely 

transformed the landscape of most of Ohio. 

It rerouted some rivers, eliminated whole 

mountains and carved out the Great Lakes 

as it ground its way across the Midwest. The 

traveler interested to know what Ohio 

looked like before the glacier does not have 

to travel very far. Leaving Columbus and 

driving south and east one will soon see 

hills in the distance beyond Lancaster, Ohio. 

It is here—where the flatland ends and the 

hills begin that the glacier stopped and began 

eventually to withdraw. 

The land the glacier left behind was a new 

country. To some extent we tend to be biased 

by our conventions in map making. Looking 

at a map of Ohio with roads and rivers noted, 

it is tempting to think of the state as a uniform 

kind of place. It really is not that way at all. 

G L A C I A L M A P O F O H I O 

✧ 

Until about 14,000 years ago, most of 

central Ohio was under a very large layer 

of glacial ice. This map shows just how far 

south the great glaciers came—and what 

they left behind. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE OHIO DEPARTMENT OF 

NATURAL RESOURCES. 

C H A P T E R I 

7

✧ 

To the south and west of what is now 

Columbus lay the great Pickaway and 

Darby Plains. The prairies of central Ohio 

have largely vanished under the progress of 

the plow. A few remain such as the Bigelow 

Cemetery Nature Preserve near Plain City. 



Ohio is really several different places— 

from the flat lands in Northwest Ohio that 

were once part of the Great Black Swamp to 

the hills of Southeast Ohio, the terrain of the 

state varies quite a bit. More importantly the 

northern third of Ohio sees its rivers drain 

into Lake Erie while the southern two thirds 

of the state looks south to where its rivers 

empty into the Ohio River. It was near the 

places where rivers come together that people 

coming into Ohio as the glaciers retreated 

often spent some time. 

One of those places where two great rivers 

meet is in central Ohio. 

T H E F I R S T P E O P L E 

People have been living in North America 

for at least 15,000 years and possibly much 

longer. For many years, it was believed that 

people crossed over to the Americas from Asia 

on an ice bridge between Siberia and Alaska. It 

is likely that some people did arrive by that 

route. But in recent years, theories have also 

been put forth suggesting early arrival by boat. 

In any case it is clear, that at least some 

people were present in North America long 

before the glaciers began to withdraw. 

We do not know all that much about the 

earliest residents of central Ohio. There were 

not all that many people anywhere 15,000 

years ago. And the people who came to North 

America were even fewer in number. 

These people were “hunter-gatherers.” They 

lived in small bands of closely related people 

and did not stay very long in one place. They 

followed the animal herds in their migrations 

across the land and relied on the animals they 

hunted for food, clothing, shelter and even the 

weapons they carried. Because the remains of 

animals do not survive all that well, the only 

real evidence we have that early people were 

here at all is in the stone arrow points that turn 

up from time to time in central Ohio. 

The forests were different in those days. 

It is important to remember that the forests 

and woodlots we see today in central Ohio 

are relatively recent. A close look will show 

that most of the trees are simply not all that 

big. The reason for this is that most of the 

forests of Ohio have been cut down at least 

once, and sometimes several times. 

The forests that will cover Ohio will later 

come to be called “old growth” forests. Some 

of the trees will grow to truly astonishing 

sizes. Some sycamore trees would be twenty 

to thirty feet in diameter and rise more 

than one hundred feet above the forest floor. 

Sycamore trees decay and die from the 

inside out. More than one frontier narrative 

describes sheltering from a storm or camping 

for the night inside the trunk of a fallen 

sycamore tree. 


8

Certain of the hardwood trees 

come to be identified with the forests 

of Ohio and central Ohio in particular. 

Some like the Maple will be 

prized for the syrup made from their 

sap. Others like the Walnut and 

Hickory are favored for food. And 

some like the Horse Chestnut are 

simply admired for their immense 

size and the value of their wood. The 

massive groves of Horse Chestnut 

trees are generally gone today from 

Ohio but the characteristic seed of 

the tree—said to resemble the eye of 

a deer—gave Ohio its nickname— 

the Buckeye State. 

Over the course of several thousand 

years, the land grew warmer, 

the forests and prairies flourished 

and in time the size of the roving 

bands of “hunter-gatherers” grew 

larger and larger. In some parts of 

the world, the lives of hunter-gatherers 

continue today much as they have for 

the past several thousand years. But in Ohio, 

a different path would be followed. What had 

been a culture and a way of life for generations 

was about to become a civilization. 

C I T I E S O F 

E A R T H E N W O N D E R 

A number of American towns and villages 

have a Mound Street. But few major cities 

have a Mound Street only a few blocks from 

the center of town in the middle of the 

central business district. But Mound Street in 

Columbus, Ohio, is just such a street. 

When early American settlers of the Ohio 

valley reached the junction of the Scioto and 

Olentangy Rivers in the late 1700s they 

were surprised to see what appeared to be 

a large tree-covered hill standing along the 

flat crest of the high ridge on the eastern 

bank of the Scioto river. They were even 

more surprised when they determined that 

the hill was apparently manmade. Rising 

more than fifty feet above the forest floor, the 

large trees growing on the sides of the mound 

indicated that it had been there for quite a 

long time. 

Undeterred by this feat of prehistoric engineering, 

the surveyors of Columbus laid out 

their new town and placed the mound in the 

intersection of High Street and the appropriately 

named Mound Street. They then proceeded 

to use clay from the mound to make 

bricks for the original two story statehouse. 

For more than twenty years, traffic moving 

along High Street came to the intersection of 

Mound and High Street and carefully skirted 

around the edge of the mound blocking 

the intersection. An enterprising local physician 

named Young went to the trouble of 

hacking a path to the top of the mound and 

then proceeded to build a two story white 

frame house on the summit. Mound notwithstanding, 

it is not fully clear how Dr. Young 

acquired the right to build a house in the 

middle of a public intersection. But it is fair 

to note that squatters and other practitioners 

of less than legal occupancy were rather 

common on the frontier. 

It is also not clear why the good doctor 

constructed his office at the top of a rather 

steep hill. Presumably if one was really sick, 

they would make it to the top of the hill. Or 

it is also possible that the doctor liked his 

privacy and was in the habit of making a lot 

✧ 

Most of what is now Columbus was once 

part of an immense old growth forest of 

huge hardwood trees. The forests that once 

covered Ohio have mostly been removed— 

more than once. One of the places that was 

missed is the Davey Nature Preserve in 

Champaign County. 




9

✧ 

When European explorers first came to 

Ohio they found thousands of Native 

American enclosures, mounds and 

ceremonial sites. As late as 1914, William 

Corless Mills could still show dozens of sites 

in Franklin County in his Archeological 

Atlas of Ohio. Few of them remain. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF ED LENTZ. 

of house calls. In any case the mound and the 

doctor’s house lasted until the early 1830s. By 

that time, Columbus was large enough and 

local traffic was bad enough to warrant the 

removal of the mound. Over the next several 

years the mound was removed. Since all of 

this took place before the invention of photography, 

there is no known surviving image 

of the Mound Street mound. But it is believed 

to have closely resembled the Grave Creek 

Mound in West Virginia—a mound which 

also once had a house at its crest. 

When some local residents were not driving 

around the mound or plundering it for clay 

and artifacts, they undoubtedly sometimes 

wondered who had built it. And wonder is 

perhaps the correct word since the Mound 

Street mound—while larger than most—was 

by no means the only mound in the valley. 

When settlers arrived in Ohio they found 

literally thousands of mounds—big and little 

conical mounds, enclosures of all shapes and 

sizes, and even an occasional effigy of an 

animal of one sort or another. Over the next 

century, many if not most of these mounds 

were removed by farming, road construction 

or the rapid expansion of towns and cities. 

Several mounds were located in what 

is now downtown Columbus. Late in 

the 1800s, longtime local resident Joseph 

Sullivant remembered that, when he was 

young, there were still two small mounds 

near the place where COSI and Veterans 

Memorial Auditorium is today on the west 

side of the Scioto. And there was a mound 

where the Arena District is today. All were 

removed by the 1830s. 

In the years before the emergence of archeology 

as a profession, there were all sorts of 

speculative ideas about who these mound 

builders might be. Perhaps the Aztecs or 

Mayans had made it to Ohio and lacking 

stone built their large mounds with dirt. 

Perhaps Viking explorers had built them or 

Egyptian sailors blown off course and looking 

to remind themselves of the pyramids they 

would never see again. It was even seriously 

proposed that the ten lost tribes of Israel 

might be responsible. 

Perhaps the only people not proposed as 

mound builders were the Native Americans 

whom the new American settlers were 

slowly but surely removing and sending away 

from their longtime homes in Ohio. What 

we know today is that the Mound Builders 

were a diverse and interesting group of 

people. We also know that all of them were 

Native Americans and we know how they 

built their mounds. 

But there is much we still do not know. 

About one thousand years before the 

current era, the long generations of huntergatherer 

peoples decided to settle down. 

Why they did and precisely when they did 

is still a subject of considerable and often 

acrimonious debate. 

For whatever sets of reasons—and there 

may have been differing reasons for different 

groups—the Native American peoples of 

Ohio began to build villages of greater or 

lesser size and stay in one place for lengthy 

periods of time. Archeologists have found 

remnants of enough of these villages to 

form some opinions as to how these people 

lived. Unlike our common image of Native 

Americans living in large groups in wigwam 

like tents, the Native Americans of Ohio built 

sturdy structures anchored on wooden poles 


10

planted in the ground and then covered with 

layers of bark for walls and roofing. Many of 

these structures were built and rebuilt and 

stayed on the same site for decades. And at 

least at first, these people did not live in 

large villages but rather in small groups of 

houses probably occupied by people linked 

by kinship and acquaintance. 

But most of what we have learned of these 

people has come not from their village sites 

but from their monuments, ceremonial sites 

and cemeteries—cemeteries in the form of 

mounds. We have come to call these people 

the Mound Builders mostly because we do not 

know what they called themselves. 

Around five hundred years before the 

current era a group of residents of central 

Ohio began the funerary practice of 

constructing burial mounds for their dead. As 

more people were buried in a mound, new 

layers of earth were added and the mounds 

became larger. Because one of the first of 

these mounds to be carefully excavated was 

located at Adena, the Chillicothe home of 

Governor Thomas Worthington, the builders 

of the mound came to be called the 

Adena people. 

The Adena were not the first people in the 

Midwest to build mounds. But the Adena people 

took up the practice and built more elaborate 

mounds and mounds with more extensive 

ceremonial sites associated with them. 

By one hundred years before the current 

era the Adena people had been superseded 

by a new culture that came to be called 

the Hopewell. The Hopewell people were 

named for the farmer in Chillicothe on whose 

land their remains were found. There are still 

differing opinions as to whether the Adena 

and Hopewell were two separate peoples or 

simply one people passing through a period 

of cultural change. 

In any case, the Hopewell had a much 

more elaborate sense of the ceremonial. Their 

towns were larger, their ceremonial centers 

like Newark and Chillicothe were extensive, 

and their use of a variety of items from distant 

locations—obsidian from Oregon, shells from 

the Gulf of Mexico—is evidence of a welldeveloped 

trade network. 

In time, the Hopewell yielded to yet other 

cultures. One of the most important of these 

was the Fort Ancient people who occupied 

the hilltop enclosure now called by that name 

in southwest Ohio. It appears that these later 

peoples were involved in lengthy conflicts as 

the people buried at their sites show evidence 

of disease and violence. Who exactly they 

were fighting and why is not completely clear. 

What is clear is that by 1500 the age of 

the great Mound Builder societies had ended. 

Of the thousands of mounds that once 

dotted the landscape of Ohio, only several 

hundred remain. Some of the best known like 

✧ 

Above: Mound Street is named for a large 

mound that once stood in the intersection of 

that street with High Street in downtown 

Columbus. Removed in the 1830s, it was 

said to have resembled the Grave Creek 

Mound in West Virginia—shown here 

in 1848. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Below: The Native American cultures of 

Central Ohio produced exquisite pieces of 

ceremonial art. A notable example is the 

Adena Pipe at the Ohio Historical Society. 




1 1

Fort Ancient in Warren County and Serpent 

Mound in Adams County are preserved as 

historic sites. In fact Fort Ancient was the first 

park acquired by the State of Ohio in 1896. 

In central Ohio, two of the best preserved 

sites are the Jeffers Mound near Worthington 

and the Shrum Mound on McKinley Avenue. 

And hidden in the woods in the southbound 

interchange of Route 315 and Bethel road is a 

small mound. At the time of construction the 

entire freeway was shifted a bit to accommodate 

the mound. One of the men who insured 

the survival of the mound later said that it 

seemed like the right thing to do. 

T H E N E W P E O P L E 

The story of central Ohio in the years 

between 1500 and 1650 is lost in historical 

darkness. The Mound Builder cultures of the 

Adena, Hopewell and Fort Ancient had faded 

away and it is not fully clear what happened 

next. Probably some of the groups living in 

the state were the ancestors of tribes who 

would also be around later. But European 

explorers—especially literate ones—would 

not come into the Ohio valley until well into 


12

the 1600s. It is the people encountered by 

those explorers, traders, trappers, frontiersmen 

and priests who would be remembered 

as the historic Indian tribes of Ohio. 

What we do know is that by 1600, a confederation 

of Native Americans called the Erie 

had come to occupy much of the southern 

shore of the lake that bears their name. The 

Erie’s neighbors to the east were a recently 

established confederacy of five previously 

warring tribes along the Mohawk River 

valley in New York. Calling themselves 

Haudenosaunee or People of the Long House, 

these people were often called Iroquois by 

both friend and foe alike. 

Finally exasperated by continued conflict 

with the Erie, the Iroquois swept out of New 

York and virtually annihilated the Erie in a 

series of pitched battles. Having defeated their 

enemies, the Iroquois took most of the rest of 

what is now Ohio and part of Indiana and 

held it as their own private preserve for most 

of the next century. 

But by the early 1700s, the Iroquois were 

feeling some pressure of their own. Beginning 

with the travels of Jacques Cartier in 1534, 

French explorers were traveling up the 

St Lawrence River to the Great Lakes. At 

the same time English colonization was 

proceeding apace along the Atlantic coast. 

Responding to the growing proximity of both 

the English and the French, the Iroquois 

increasingly withdrew from Ohio to protect 

their homeland. 

Into the empty Ohio Country left by the 

Iroquois came a number of people from many 

different places. Into western Ohio from 

Indiana came the Miami or Twightee people. 

From the east came the Delaware or Leni 

Lenape people. These were the people who 

had met William Penn when he founded 

Pennsylvania in 1681. Their villages would 

extend all the way west to the county immediately 

north of Columbus. 

From the north came the archenemies 

of the Iroquois, another Algonquin people 

called the Hurons by their French friends. 

They called themselves “wendat” and that 

name would become the Wyandot or 

Wyandotte that they came to be called 

in Ohio. Their villages occupied most of 

northwest Ohio and extended as far south as 

northern Franklin County and even to what 

is now Columbus. 

✧ 

Opposite, top: Fort Ancient, Ohio’s first 

state park. 



Opposite, bottom: Located along McKinley 

Avenue in Columbus, the Shrum Mound is 

maintained by the Ohio Historical Society. 

It is believed to be a burial mound of the 

Adena people. 



Above: The Jeffers Mound near 

Worthington, Ohio, is a Hopewell mound 

from 100 BC to 400 AD. It originally stood 

within a rectangular enclosure with two 

adjacent circular enclosures. Quite well 

preserved, it now is in the midst of a 

residential area. 



1 3

✧ 

Any place where two major rivers come 

together will eventually attract people as 

well. Yet the confluence of the Olentangy 

and Scioto Rivers was remarkably free of 

people as late as 1908 when this picture 

was made. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE COLUMBUS 

METROPOLITAN LIBRARY. 

The Iroquois were not completely gone 

from Ohio. Much of the northeastern part 

of the state was still controlled by the 

Senecas, one of the five tribes of the Iroquois 

Confederacy. And scattered across the 

state were random bands of Iroquois who 

chose not to formally associate with the 

Confederacy. These people came to be called 

Mingo and they also had villages in various 

parts of central Ohio. 

And then there were the Shawnee. They 

came to occupy most of the Scioto River 

valley from what is now Columbus to the 

Ohio River. 

These were the people who had come 

to occupy Ohio by 1750. It is important to 

remember that there were not all that many 

of them. Although no one was taking a 

census at the time, it has been estimated that 

there were approximately 20,000 people 

living in Ohio at the time. And of those 

people, about 10,000 were Shawnee. 

Interestingly, these relatively recent arrivals 

were also the people who gave many of the 

places in the state the names we still use 

today. “Ohio” is a variation of an Iroquois word 

meaning “great river.” “Scioto” is a word a little 

more difficult to define. Its root is a Wyandot 

word meaning “deer.” And the word Olentangy 

is probably the most elusive of all. It was 

originally called “Keenhongsheconsepung” or 

“Knife Stone Creek” by the Delawares because 

sharpening stones could be found within it. 

In fact the river is still called Whetstone Creek 

in the counties north of Columbus. 

In 1833, possibly as a gesture to the Indian 

tribes it had spent a generation evicting from 

the state, the Ohio General Assembly decided to 

return a number of rivers to their original Native 

American names. Perhaps despairing of calling it 

by its former name, the Assembly settled the 

more easily pronounceable “Olentangy”—the 

original name of Big Darby Creek—on the river 

to the north. Olentangy is a word of varied 

origins. It has been variously translated as “river 

of red face paint” and “river at rest” depending 

on the language one consults. Certainly red 

ocher face paint sources can be found along the 

upper reaches of the Big Darby. And compared 

to other nearby streams, it is today a comparatively 

restful waterway. 

But in the mid 1700s, none of the waterways 

were all that restful and soon many of them 

would run red and not with face paint. After a 

generation of peace, the Ohio frontier was 

about to become a very dangerous place indeed. 


14

C H A P T E R 

I I 

FRONTIER CONFLICT 

A C O N T I N E N T A L C O N T E S T 

In the years after 1700, the powerful Iroquois Confederacy had withdrawn slowly from the 

Ohio Country to meet the challenges of French and English incursions into their New York 

homeland. What had followed was a generation of peace as a number of tribes had moved into 

the rich and bountiful lands north of the Ohio River and had generally avoided conflict among 

themselves or with outsiders. 

Now, in the 1740s all of that was about to end. Wars had come and gone before among 

America’s Native American peoples. But they were brief conflicts following rather strict rules of 

how warriors behaved one to another. Total destruction of communities as the Iroquois had done 

to the Erie was rare and usually was the climax of decades of conflict. 

Now a new kind of warfare was coming to Ohio. It pitted Europeans against each other and it 

also would lead to attacks by Native Americans of differing loyalties against other tribes. 

And finally it would lead to the destruction of entire communities of both Europeans and Native 

Americans. In short it was war with little mercy for both Native America and colonial settlers. 

And it would not end for more than sixty years. 

It began for the seemingly most trivial of reasons. By the 1740s, Europeans of one sort or 

another—English, French, Spanish and several other nationalities—had been settling on the 

various edges of the Americas for more than 200 years. And generally they had left each other 

alone. They were able to ignore the presence of people they might not have liked very much 

because the country was vast and generally the newcomers were few in number. 

✧ 

English and French North America clashed 

violently at Pickawillany near what is now 

Piqua, Ohio, in 1752. Recent archeological 

research at the site is beginning to reveal the 

layout of a frontier village and trading post. 

A local marker reads: 

PICKAWILLANY 

LOCATED ONE MILE NORTH OF THIS MEMORIAL 

HEADQUARTERS OF THE MIAMI TRIBES 

FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENT 

AND THE MOST IMPORTANT 

TRADING POST IN THE WEST 

1748 

DESTROYED BY THE FRENCH 

1752 

MARKED BY THE PIQUA CHAPTER 

DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 


C H A P T E R I I 

1 5

✧ 

Many of the people living in North 

America—as well as their European 

friends—had little idea what eastern North 

America looked like when John Mitchell 

published his large map of the area in 1755. 

It would remain the standard map of the 

region for many years. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

For more than a generation, English “long 

hunters” had been threading their way 

through the passes in the mountains and 

making a modest living by laboriously bringing 

the furs and skins of the animals they 

had killed back over the mountains to sell 

in the East. But their numbers were few. 

When caught by the French or their Native 

American friends, their furs were confiscated 

and the men sent away. 

But now, in the 1740s, French traders 

began to notice that the numbers of 

Englishmen in Ohio were increasing and they 

were not simply hunting for a while and 

leaving. Some of the newcomers were traders 

and they were building trading posts as if 

they had right to do so—as if they had come 

to stay. 

To the Comte de Galissoniere, the 

Governor General of French Canada, such 

English effrontery was simply unacceptable. 

In 1748, he ordered Captain Celoron de 

Blainville to take a force of French and 

Indians and secure the Ohio valley for 

France. With more than 200 French and 

Canadian irregulars and fifty of their Native 

American allies, Captain de Blainville proceeded 

to his task in the summer of 1749. 

Following the Allegheny River south to its 

junction with the Monongahela to form the 

Ohio, Blainville forcefully exhorted every 

Englishman he met—and he met several—to 

leave what he considered French territory at 

once. To reinforce the point, his party also 

buried a series of lead plates at the places 

where a number of major rivers emptied into 

the Ohio. The buried plate and a similar sign 

nailed to a nearby tree said that the place 

belonged to France. Reaching the Great 

Miami River, the party turned north and 

stopped briefly at a settlement of Miami 

Indians near what is now Piqua, Ohio. 

Among the residents of Pickawillany town 

were several English traders. Captain de 

Blainville ordered them to leave but he had 

little reason to believe that they would. 

Over the next few years, the English 

continued to come down the Ohio River and 

the French continued to try to get them to 

leave. Finally, in 1752, the French decided 

that enough was enough. A party of 300 

French and Indians led by Pierre de Langlede 

swept into Ohio and burned Pickawillany to 

the ground. Several of the attackers seized the 

leader of the village—a man unfortunately 

nicknamed “Old Britain” by his English 

friends. To emphasize the point that aiding 

the English was unwise, the Indian allies of 

the French killed Old Britain and ate him. 

Pickawillany was not rebuilt. 

But the English continued to arrive in the 

Ohio valley. The French responded with the 

construction of a series of new forts from 

the Great Lakes to the Ohio River. The most 

important of these was built where the Ohio 

River began. It was called Fort Duquesne and 

occupied land claimed variously by Virginia, 

Pennsylvania, and the King of England. 

In 1754, the Royal Governor of Virginia 

sent a young officer named George 

Washington with several hundred men to 

order the French to leave English territory. 

Washington’s mission resulted in a pitched 

battle between Washington’s small army and 

a much larger French force. Washington surrendered 

and in short order a major struggle 

between France and England was underway. 

It came to be called the French and Indian 

War. When it was over in 1763, Great Britain 

had won control of North America—or so 

it seemed. 

A number of the Native American residents 

of the Ohio valley did not like the 

idea that the French were leaving and the 

British were taking their place. Many of them, 

at least loosely affiliated with a charismatic 

Ottawa leader named Pontiac, rose in revolt 

in 1763 and began to attack every recently 

occupied British fort they could find. Soon 

only Fort Detroit and Fort Pitt (formerly fort 

Duquesne) were still under British control. 


16

As it turned out, holding those two forts 

proved to be sufficient. As Pontiac’s revolt continued 

without success, the siege of the two 

forts became less and less popular. At length 

a British force under General Henry Bouquet 

defeated the Native Americans and relieved 

Fort Duquesne. While all of this was going on 

two British traders named Matthew McCrea 

and Patrick Ellison were camped at the Forks 

of the Scioto and Olentangy Rivers. Attacked 

by Native Americans, Ellison escaped but 

McCrea was not so lucky and became the first 

person whose name we know to die in what is 

now downtown Columbus. 

The combination of the French and Indian 

War and Pontiac’s Revolt had left Great 

Britain in possession of an Empire—and 

deeply in debt. To raise money, the British 

government thought it perfectly reasonable to 

tax its colonies in America for at least some of 

the cost of the war. The Crown also closed 

the Ohio country to settlement so Britain 

could continue the fur trade with Ohio’s 

Native Americans that had previously been so 

profitable for the French. 

The residents of colonial America—unaccustomed 

to heavy taxation and wanting that land 

for themselves—begged to differ. Over the next 

several years, the colonists stopped begging and 

began demanding. And the British government 

became much less accommodating. 

By 1774, Lord Dunmore, the Royal 

Governor of Virginia, was rather exasperated 

with his unruly residents. He began to look 

around for something to occupy their attention 

and fortuitously found an Indian war. 

A Mingo warrior with the Anglicized name 

of Logan had been a friend of the English for 

many years. That friendship ended when a 

band of border renegades slaughtered his 

entire family. In retaliation, Logan and several 

of his friends and acquaintances began to 

kill every colonist they could find. 

Dunmore marched into what is now Ohio 

and established a camp near what is now 

Circleville where he hoped to talk peace with 

the local tribes. Some Native Americans 

did come to Dunmore but Logan and many 

of the Mingoes did not. To emphasize the 

importance of his visit, Dunmore sent 

Colonel William Crawford and 240 mounted 

men north to attack what was considered to 

be a hostile Mingo village at the Forks of the 

Scioto and Olentangy Rivers. 

Many years later Joseph Sullivant of 

Columbus reported what he had been told 

when he was young by people who had been 

captives of the Indians, 

…there were three Indian encampments or 

villages in this vicinity; one on the high bank 

near the old Morrill House one and a half 

miles below the city; one at the west end of the 

Harrisburg Bridge; and the principal one on 

the river below the mouth of the Whetstone… 

While there indeed was a Mingo village 

at the Forks, it was not terribly hostile. When 

Crawford and his men attacked before dawn, 

the element of surprise was lost when one 

of the men fired his weapon early. Still, 

Crawford considered the attack a success. 

In a letter, he later reported, 

…the chief part of the Indians made their 

escape in the dark. But we got fourteen prisoners, 

and killed six of the enemy, and wounded 

several more. We got all of their baggage 

and horses, ten of their guns and two hundred 

white prisoners. The plunder sold for four 

hundred pounds sterling, besides what was 

returned to a Mohawk Indian who was there. 

The whole of the Mingoes were ready to start, 

and were to have set out the morning we 

attacked them. Lord Dunmore has eleven prisoners 

and has returned the rest to the nation… 

With that, the only pitched battle of the 

colonial era to be fought on the site of what 

would later be the capital city of Ohio came 

to an end. Dunmore made a treaty of peace 

with the Indians that stipulated that no 

Indian would hunt east of the Ohio River and 

no white man would hunt west of the river. 

He then returned with his army to Virginia. 

It was a short lived peace. Within a few 

months, the colonies had revolted against Great 

Britain and Dunmore soon left America. On the 

frontier, Virginia settlements in Kentucky and 

western Pennsylvania would soon be attacked 

by raiders from the Native American encampments 

north of the Ohio River. 

✧ 

Above: John Murray, the Fourth Earl of 

Dunmore and Royal Governor of Virginia, 

led an expedition into the Ohio Valley in 

1774 to quell an uprising led by Logan of 

the Mingoes. 



Below: Major William Crawford was 

dispatched with several hundred men to 

raid an Indian village at the Forks of the 

Scioto and Olentangy Rivers during Lord 

Dunmore’s War in 1774. He fought the only 

battle on the site of Columbus in the 

colonial period. 




1 7

✧ 

General Harmar believed that he could best 

defend the frontier from places like Fort 

Harmar near Marietta. His campaign into 

frontier Ohio in 1790 proved him to 

be correct. 



To counter the raids, men like George 

Rogers Clark and Benjamin Logan would 

launch mounted raids of 1,000 men or more 

against the native villages of Ohio. Some 

of the largest raids took place in western 

Ohio near the present towns of Springfield 

and Xenia. Similar raids were undertaken 

from western Pennsylvania against hostile 

Delaware and Wyandot villages in northern 

Ohio. On one of those raids Colonel William 

Crawford was captured by the Delawares and 

burned at the stake. 

Throughout the troubling and violent 

years of the American Revolution, central 

Ohio was generally rather peaceful. The only 

major exception came when John Edwards, a 

Virginia trader stopped for the night on the 

site of the old Mingo camp at the Forks of the 

Scioto. A Wyandot killed him as he slept on 

September 3, 1775. 

A N O T H E R K I N D O F W A R 

After the American Revolution, the recently 

formed United States of America had much 

about which it could feel justifiably proud. 

Thirteen rather independent colonies—many 

of whom had little use for each other—had 

managed to hold together a fragile alliance, 

raise an army and navy, and had managed to 

free itself from one of the most powerful 

empires in history. 

Now having won its independence, the 

new country had a few new problems to face. 

Not the least of these was the simple fact that 

the country had very little money and was 

facing an army and many other creditors who 

had not been paid in quite a long time. 

But America did one have important asset 

to its name. At the end of the Revolution the 

new country ended up in proud possession of 

most of the land east of the Mississippi River. 

And this new land could be used to pay debts 

owed to soldiers, bankers and even a few 

states. But to do that a few other matters 

needed to be resolved. 

First there was the question of measuring 

the land to insure that it was properly 

allocated to its new owners. This issue was 

addressed by the Land Ordinance of 1785 

which set out a system of rectangular 

measurement which would end up giving 

Ohio and the country a familiar system of 

square townships marching across the 

landscape. Or at least it did for much of the 

country. In some of the land grants set aside 

for the states in the new territory, older 

systems of measurement were continued. So 

if one ended up living between the Miami 

and Scioto Rivers in the newly established 

Virginia Military District, a system called 

“metes and bounds” was used to measure the 

boundaries of a land purchase. 

The next big problem was how to govern 

the new territories and eventually admit 

them—or not admit them—to the Union. The 

Ordinance of 1787 set up a method by which 

a part of the vast new territory might become 

a state like every other state in the United 

States. The Ordinance also banned slavery 

north and west of the Ohio River and protected 

certain basic civil liberties of its residents. 

With the passage of these 

laws many people began to 

think that the time was right 

to move to the new country. 

In 1788, Marietta became 

the first permanent settlement 

north and west of the 

Ohio River. It would soon be 

followed by a number of others. 

In short order, forts and 

other military installations 

began to be constructed. 

They were built rapidly 

because it soon became clear 

they would be needed. 


18

Even with the Land Ordinance of 1785 

and the governing Ordinance of 1787, the 

new territory north and west of the Ohio 

River still had a few problems. Not the least 

of these was the fact that the opinion of 

the Native American population of Ohio of 

all of these new laws and ordinances had 

not been asked. Complicating the problem 

was continued occupation of parts of the 

new country by the British who were 

continuing the fur trade and selling the 

Indians guns and other supplies to help them 

in their efforts. 

General St. Clair was not pleased. He 

became even less pleased when new raids 

began to be made all along the frontier. 

Determining that he could probably do what 

Harmar couldn’t, St. Clair assembled an army 

of his own in 1791 and marched north to 

find and fight the Indians. Marching far too 

late in the season with untrained and undisciplined 

troops—and 250 of their wives and 

children—St. Clair camped in the snow on 

November 4, 1791. Before dawn the next day, 

he was attacked by more than 1,500 warriors 

led by Little Turtle of the Miami and Blue 

Jacket of the Shawnee. By the end of the 

day Arthur St. Clair did indeed do something 

no other American general had done. He 

suffered the worst defeat ever inflicted on an 

American army by Native Americans. More 

than 700 American soldiers died that day 

and many more were wounded. Most of 

the 250 women and children also perished in 

the battle. 

The first Governor of the Northwest 

Territory was General Arthur St. Clair. A 

friend of George Washington, St. Clair 

ordered the commander of America’s northwest 

army, General Josiah Harmar to go forth 

and subdue the Indians. Josiah Harmar, like 

St. Clair, was a veteran of the Revolution. 

Modesty not being his strong suit, he had 

named the post he had built to protect 

Marietta—Fort Harmar. And it was at Fort 

Harmar that he would have preferred to 

stay. Nevertheless, he obeyed his orders and 

sallied forth with his small army to find the 

hostile enemy who had been attacking 

frontier settlements. Near what is now Fort 

Wayne, Indiana, he found them and engaged 

his forces in a series of running fights. Having 

bloodied both himself and the enemy a bit, 

Harmar decided that he had won, declared 

victory and came home. 

St. Clair only avoided court-martial by 

the direct intervention of an appalled 

President George Washington. St. Clair 

would remain Governor of the Northwest 

Territory, but he would never lead an 

American army again. To rebuild the 

shattered army, Washington chose General 

“Mad Anthony” Wayne. A ferocious combat 

✧ 

Left: General Arthur St. Clair was the first 

Governor of the Northwest Territory. 

Frustrated by the lack of progress in 

pacifying the frontier, he personally led a 

new expedition into northern Ohio in 1791. 

It resulted in the worst defeat ever suffered 

by an American army by Native America. 



Right: General Josiah Harmar was the 

senior officer in the United States Army 

from 1784 to 1791. He constructed Fort 

Steuben at what is now Steubenville and 

Fort Washington at Cincinnati among 

other fortifications. 




1 9

general in the Revolution, Wayne was not 

the first person some might have picked to 

recruit and train a new army. But Washington 

knew his generals and he had chosen wisely. 

Wayne took two years to assemble a new 

fighting force and build the forts to supply 

and protect it. When the new army met 

Native America at a place called Fallen 

Timbers near Toledo in 1794, the battle was 

over in less than twenty minutes. 

Wayne then retired to his newly constructed 

Fort Greene Ville and called on Native 

America to come to the fort to discuss a treaty 

of peace. The Treaty of Greenville of 1795 

was signed by representatives of thirteen 

tribes and opened the southern two thirds of 

what is now Ohio to settlement. The northern 

third, including the Great Black Swamp, 

would remain in the hands of Native America 

for several more years. 

Hanging in the rotunda of the Ohio 

Statehouse is a quite large painting of the 

signing of the Treaty of Greenville by the 

noted American artist, Howard Chandler 

Christy. Completed for Ohio’s sesquicentennial, 

the painting is impressive and remarkably 

accurate as to the appearance and dress of the 

people who were present. However, some of 

the most important people in the story of 

Ohio are not shown. They are not shown 

because they were not there. While important 


20

✧ 

Opposite, clockwise, starting from top left: 

Rebuilding the American army, General 

Anthony Wayne won a stunning victory at 

the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. The 

battle was over in less than twenty minutes. 



Calling representatives of Native America to 

Fort Greene Ville near what is now 

Greenville, Ohio, in 1795, General Anthony 

Wayne negotiated a major treaty that 

changed the map of America. 



The Treaty of Greenville opened most of the 

southern two-thirds of what is now Ohio to 

American settlement in the years after the 

Revolution. The northern third remained the 

site of reservations until the last Wyandots 

were removed in 1842. 



Left: A quite large painting of the Treaty of 

Greenville was completed by noted 

American artist Howard Chandler Christy 

in 1953. It hangs in the Ohio Statehouse 

and is remarkable for its meticulous and 

accurate detail. 



and common people, red and white, young 

and old gathered at Greenville, another group 

of men was already moving into the newly 

opened land and drawing the lines that would 

truly make the land their own. 

Some of the people who moved across 

Ohio in these years came only to see the land 

and move on. Others came to protect and 

defend it and then move on. Some, however, 

came to stay. 


2 1

C H A P T E R 

I I I 

FRANKLINTON 

T H E F R O N T I E R S U R V E Y O R 

✧ 

Top: The Sullivant family plot in Green 

Lawn Cemetery centers on the large 

monument to Lucas Sullivant. The 

inscription on the stone notes that it was at 

this place that Sullivant first saw the place 

that he would soon call home. 


Above: Lucas Sullivant is the pivotal figure 

in the opening of central Ohio to settlement. 

Too young to have fought in the Revolution 

he came to Ohio as a surveyor in the 1790s. 

The portrait is from his grave stone in 

Green Lawn Cemetery. 



The years after the American Revolution were times of great change. It should therefore not be 

surprising that those times produced some remarkable people who sought a new life in the Ohio 

Country. A few of them were rogues, scoundrels and not very nice people at all. Most were simple, 

honest, and decent enough. 

Some of these people had lived through the war that had created a new America and they 

continued to be carried forward by the wave of patriotic energy it had created. Others were the 

children of the founders and wanted to make their own mark as their parents had done. And 

some were people with the hope that a new world on the frontier had to be far better than the 

one they were leaving behind. 

Men like Daniel Boone of Kentucky and Simon Kenton of Ohio loomed somewhat larger than 

life even during their own lives. They had left home at a young age and gone to the frontier to— 

as Kenton once put it succinctly—“live on their own hook”—and make a new life for themselves 

in a new land. 

One of those new people was a young man from Virginia named Lucas Sullivant. He had been 

too young to have fought in the American Revolution. But Sullivant grew up on the edge of the 

frontier and was as interested as anyone in the tales of the men who returned from the land on 

the other side of the mountains. And in time he would come to have reason to follow them back 

to the Ohio Country. 


22

The Sullivants of Mecklenburg County, 

Virginia, had come a long way since the 

family had arrived from Northern Ireland. By 

the time Lucas Sullivant was born in 1765, 

the family of Michael Sullivant and his wife, 

the former Hannah Lucas, had achieved some 

success farming the back country with a 

number of slaves and other occasionally 

hired workers. Their family included young 

Lucas, his older brother Michael and his 

sister Anne. But Michael Sullivant Senior 

became a bit too much accustomed to the 

temptations of a leisure life. Having amassed 

a considerable amount of debt, he died and 

left Hannah Lucas and her young children 

with little more than their home and the 

small tobacco farm surrounding it. 

By the time Lucas Sullivant was sixteen, his 

sister had married and left home, his brother 

had been the victim of an accidental drowning, 

and his mother had recently died. While working 

on the farm, young Lucas Sullivant had 

acquired a basic education and, with the help 

of a local neighbor, Colonel William Starling, 

Sullivant had been trained in surveying. 

Having little reason to remain in Virginia, 

Lucas Sullivant took his small share of the family’s 

estate settlement and left for Kentucky— 

then still part of Virginia. He farmed near Paris 

in Bourbon County for a time and later lived 

with a family named Treacle in Washington 

County. Through the next few years he perfected 

his surveying skills and looked with 

increasing interest at the land across the Ohio 

River to the north. 

In 1784, Colonel Richard Anderson was 

appointed surveyor of the western lands to be 

distributed as bounty payments to Virginia’s 

veterans of the American Revolution. Located 

between the Little Miami and Scioto Rivers, 

the Virginia Military District was narrow at 

the top but became quite wide as the two 

rivers diverged from each other as they flowed 

to the Ohio. 

To work as a surveyor under these conditions 

required men of extraordinary talent, 

flexibility and courage. Colonel Anderson 

became convinced that, along with men like 

Nathaniel Massie and Duncan McArthur, 

Lucas Sullivant was one of them. By 1795, 

Sullivant was leading a survey team of chainmen, 

surveying assistants, scouts and hunters 

into the northern part of the District. 

His son later described him at this time. 

Lucas Sullivant was a man “of medium 

height, muscular and well-proportioned, 

quick and active in his movements, with 

an erect carriage and a good walk, a 

well-balanced head, finished off with a 

cue, which he always wore; a broad and 

high forehead, an aquiline nose, and a 

blue gray eye, a firm mouth and square 

chin. He was firm and positive in his 

opinions, but courteous in manner and 

expression, prompt and decisive to act 

on his own convictions, altogether a 

man of forcible character, exercising an 

influence over those with whom he 

came in contact.” 

Sullivant and his party were under 

some pressure to move quickly and survey 

their allotted part of the District as 

rapidly as they could. One reason for 

this haste was to meet the demands of 

the people who were holding the land 

warrants. Some of them were veterans 

who had not been paid in years. Others 

were land speculators who had bought 

the land warrants. 

✧ 

Simon Kenton is Ohio’s answer to Daniel 

Boone. Arriving in the Ohio River valley 

while still in his teens, he and frontier Ohio 

grew up together. He is reputed to have been 

the model for James Fennimore Cooper’s 

Natty Bumpo of the Leather stocking 

Tales. Over a very long life, he came to 

know central Ohio quite well. 



C H A P T E R I I I 

2 3

✧ 

In 1797, Lucas Sullivant laid out a town on 

the west bank of the Scioto River where it 

met the Olentangy. An admirer of Benjamin 

Franklin, he called it Franklinton. 



Another reason for speed was the enlightened 

self-interest of the surveyor who took his 

own payment in land and wanted to find the 

best property before someone else did. And a 

final reason was the presence and occasional 

pursuit of the party by Native Americans who 

would be less than cordial if they caught the 

surveyors in their homeland. 

Surveying along Deer Creek in what is now 

Madison County, the rear guard of Sullivant’s 

party had, much to Sullivant’s chagrin, fired 

on a small party of Indians accompanied by 

a Frenchman, killed the Frenchman and 

dispersed the Indians. Sullivant knew the 

Indians would soon be back in force from 

their villages along the Scioto. They returned 

in large numbers and forced Sullivant to hurl 

his large surveying compass into a tree top, 

disperse his party and run for their lives. 

Reassembling his party, Sullivant continued 

with his survey work with another compass. 

His first compass was found in good condition 

many years later, returned to his family 

and later given to a local museum. 

Sullivant continued his work further up 

the Scioto into what is now Franklin County. 

However, even managing to avoid local Native 

Americans did not reduce the danger. 

Once…three miles below the present City 

of Columbus, a panther was detected 

crouched on the limb of a tree, almost directly 

over the campfire around which the men 

were sitting. The tail of the beast was swinging 

to and fro, its eyeballs glaring…Seizing his 

rifle, a huntsman of the party took steady aim 

between the two blazing eyes and fired. The 

panther instantly came down with a terrible 

scream…When Mr. Sullivant awoke the next 

morning after this adventure, he felt some 

incubus on his person, and soon discovered 

that a large rattlesnake had coiled itself on 

upon his blanket. Giving blanket and snake 

both a sudden toss, he sprang to his feet and 

made away with his uninvited bedfellow. 

Despite these dangers and diversions, 

Sullivant continued with his work and over the 

next two years saw much of central Ohio. The 

major rivers in central Ohio had already been 

given names by both Native Americans and 

colonial explorers. But many of the smaller tributaries 

in the region had no name—until Lucas 

Sullivant gave them one. One of Sullivant’s 

scouts, Arthur Boke, had Boke’s Creek named 

for him in recognition of his service. Boke later 

left the area. His child out of wedlock with a 

Sullivant African American servant, also named 

Arthur Boke, served the Sullivant family for 

many years. Treacle Creek in Union County was 

named for Sullivant’s family friends in Kentucky. 

T H E T O W N B U I L D E R 

In addition to acquiring large tracts of land 

of his own, Sullivant also selected potential 

town sites on or near land he owned and drew 

up town plans for a few of them. North Liberty 

along the banks of Big Darby Creek near what 

is now Plain City, Ohio, actually drew a few 

settlers in the assumption—wrong as it turned 

out—that a town might follow. Another town 

was planned—at least on paper—where Mill 

Creek entered the Scioto River at what is now 

Bellepoint in Delaware County. 


24

But the place Lucas 

Sullivant came to like 

more than any other was 

at the Forks of the Scioto 

and Olentangy Rivers. In 

August 1797, he laid out 

a town on the west side 

of the river just below the 

place where the two rivers 

came together. It was a 

classic town plan with a 

tight grid of small town lots complemented 

by adjacent larger outlots nearby. 

It seemed like a good place for a town. The 

two rivers provided navigable traffic to several 

parts of the state. And the strong evidence 

of Native American settlement, both recent 

and ancient, indicated that the land in the 

area had been occupied for many years. 

Sullivant called his town Franklinton 

because he was a great admirer of Benjamin 

Franklin. In the fall of 1797, Joseph Dixon 

and his family arrived to become the first settlers 

in the new town. Several other families 

soon followed and by the spring of 1798, a 

small village was beginning to appear. 

Perhaps it is a good thing that it was small 

because most of the village was inundated 

in a flood in March. Undeterred by this, 

Sullivant simply moved the entire town plan 

about a quarter mile to the west to somewhat 

higher ground and well within a large grove of 

walnut trees. 

Perhaps somewhat concerned about the 

attractiveness of the town after the flood, 

Sullivant set aside one street and called it Gift 

Street. As long as they lasted, Sullivant would 

give away lots to anyone desiring to live in his 

town. They did not last long. 

At the time it was platted, Franklinton was 

the most northern settlement in the Virginia 

Military District and the farthest removed from 

other settlements in the area. The closest town 

of any size was Chillicothe more than sixty 

miles away. Undeterred by this the new village 

began to attract a number of new families. 

Some like the Deardurffs would settle on 

Gift Street. Built in 1807, David Deardurff’s 

house later became the first post office in 

Franklinton and is now the oldest standing 

structure in downtown Columbus. Others like 

the McDowell, Skidmore, and Foos families 

would acquire town sites and later give their 

family names to the streets nearby. 

And some of the early residents had even 

been in the area before—quite a long time 

before. John Brickell had been captured by 

the Indians when he was a young boy and had 

grown up among them. He spent a number of 

years in the village located at what is now the 

corner of Neil Avenue and Spring Street 

before returning to the East in a prisoner 

exchange. Discovering that he did not like 

✧ 

Above: Frontiersman John Brickell had been 

captured by Native Americans and brought 

to an encampment in what is now 

downtown Columbus. He returned later and 

built a cabin on the site. Still standing for 

this picture in 1892, it was removed in 1910. 



Bottom, left: A flood in 1798 and a move of 

the entire town a bit to the west convinced 

Sullivant that settlers might require 

inducement. He offered one with free lots 

on the aptly named Gift Street. 


Bottom, right: The home of David Deardurff 

and his family is the oldest standing 

structure in its original location in 

Columbus. Built in 1807 the two story black 

walnut log house served as the first post 

office in central Ohio. Shown in 1983, the 

home is currently being renovated. 



2 5

“civilization” all that much, he returned to 

Ohio in 1797. He later moved across the river 

and built a cabin on the site of the former 

Indian village where he lived with his family 

until his death in 1844. 

Another former captive had a more 

flamboyant career. Jeremiah Armstrong was 

only nine years old and living with his family 

in western Virginia when his home was 

attacked by Indians while his father was 

away. Armstrong’s mother and several of his 

siblings were killed. He was taken with a 

sister and brother on a long march to the 

Wyandot towns near what is now Fremont, 

Ohio. Armstrong and his brother and sister 

were adopted into the tribe and began to live 

as their captors lived. 

Armstrong later remembered, “The only 

war dance I witnessed, was near where the 

Penitentiary now stands [the Arena District], 

when a party of them were preparing to 

leave for Kentucky in quest of prisoners and 

scalps. They returned with three prisoners 

and five scalps.” 

As part of the Greenville Treaty prisoner 

exchange, Armstrong and his brother were 

returned to their families and eventually he 

returned to central Ohio. With the founding 

of Columbus, he purchased a lot on High 

Street and built an inn. He first called it 

“The Indian Chief” and later the “Red Lion” 


26

and in time it became one of the more popular 

hostelries in the city. While initially reluctant 

to leave the Wyandots, he then changed 

his mind and later said that he returned to his 

family “with affection and gratitude and never 

more had a wish to return to the red men.” 

In 1801, Lucas Sullivant returned to 

Kentucky and married Sarah Starling, the 

daughter of his friend Colonel William Starling. 

The newlyweds returned to Franklinton where 

Sullivant had built a two story brick home on 

the southwest corner of the public square. It 

was a grand and spacious home with large 

fireplaces and wide staircases and in future 

years would be expanded with an Italianate 

tower and other additions. Standing where 

Interstate 315 now crosses Broad Street, the 

house looked out on a backyard that sloped 

down and extended all the way to what is now 

the Mt. Carmel Medical Center. 

Lucas Sullivant’s home would have fit 

well into any city in America. But looks can 

sometimes be deceiving. In most American 

cities, a family could not walk out to their 

porch and watch a rather large and somewhat 

disheveled man named Corbus wrestle a 

bear—and win the match. And most housewives 

would not have had to negotiate with 

people like Billy Wyandot—a former captor 

of Jeremiah Armstrong—over the measurement 

of a bolt of cloth. 

But for all of the roughness and crudities of 

frontier life, Franklinton grew rapidly and 

successfully. Joseph Foos opened a tavern and 

later a ferry service across the Scioto River. 

Both were so popular that Foos was elected 

General of a local militia company and later 

represented the area in the Ohio legislature. 

Lincoln Goodale came to the village as a practicing 

physician but soon discovered that 

there was little need for doctors. Opening a 

store he soon began a career that would make 

his fortune. By the time Lyne Starling arrived 

in Franklinton to live with his sister and 

brother in law, Franklinton was a village of 

several hundred people with many of the 

amenities of villages anywhere in America. 

Near the Sullivant home were several 

stores and Sullivant’s land office. Across the 

square a two story courthouse would rise and 

nearby a sturdy log jail would meet the needs 

of a Franklin County that was created the 

same year Ohio became a state in 1803. 

Directly across the street from the courthouse 

a number of taverns, inns and other establishments 

sprang up. Nevertheless, life was still a 

bit on the rough side. When Gustavus Swan 

arrived in Franklinton in 1811, he was not 

impressed. “I feel safe in saying that there 

was not in the county a chair for every two 

persons, not a knife and fork for every 

four…Aged persons and invalids, however 

✧ 

Opposite, top: Complementing his medical 

career, Dr. Goodale soon opened a store in 

Franklinton and became quite successful. 



Opposite, bottom: Dr. Lincoln Goodale was 

a practicing physician who arrived in 

frontier Franklinton in 1808. He soon 

discovered that there was not a lot of call for 

doctors at the time. 



Above: Lucas Sullivant traveled to Kentucky 

and returned with his young wife, for whom 

he had built one of the first brick houses in 

Ohio. Located on the southwest corner of 

what is now West Broad Street and 

Interstate 315, the spacious southern-style 

mansion was often expanded. It is shown 

here in 1870 after an Italianate tower had 

been added. Later a convent, the home was 

removed in the early 1960s. 




2 7

✧ 

Above: In the distance behind an early 

Franklinton church can be seen the only 

known sketch of the original Franklin 

County courthouse in the middle of the 

village. During the War of 1812, the 

courthouse would be surrounded with a 

stockade and defensive ditch and made 

into a fort. 



Right: Brother-in-law of Lucas Sullivant, 

Lyne Starling came to Franklinton in 1806. 

Six feet six inches tall and a genteel 

bachelor, Starling would go on to make his 

fortune in transportation, trade and real 

estate development. The land he liked best 

lay on the ridge across the river 

from Franklinton. 



were respected and protected, and could 

avoid drinking and fighting with impunity; 

but even they could not safely interfere to 

stop a fight. There was one virtue, that of hospitality, 

that was not confined to any class. ” 

Lyne Starling had been raised in rather 

fashionable surroundings and his letters to 

relatives reflected his disdain. In 1810, he 

wrote to his sister: 

Our society is rather degenerating than 

getting better. The most of the old stock when 

Lucy was here are married, so that it is 

difficult to collect a sufficient number of girls 

of any description to have a party. We expect, 

however, that we shall have a new recruit 

during the summer, as several large families 

are expected to emigrate here during the 

summer, which will probably make up the 

assortment as complete as ever. 

But for all of his disdain, Lyne Starling liked 

the frontier village and decided to make it his 

home. He took jobs clerking with his brotherin-law 

at first but soon was involved in 

business ventures of his own. He discovered 

that he had a knack for making money in shipping, 

agriculture, transportation and trade. 

By the time he wrote his sister, he was doing 

quite well and looking to new enterprises. 

In 1809, he had mentioned to his sister in 

a letter, “I have lately purchased an elegant 

seat and tract of land opposite town on the 

other side of the river, which I have an idea of 

improving.” In the very near future, Lyne 

Starling and a few friends would be quite busy 

with those improvements. 


28

C H A P T E R 

A CAPITAL BEGINNING 1812-1816 

I V 

T H E S E A R C H F O R A C E N T R A L P L A C E 

Lyne Starling had been living in frontier Franklinton for a while before it occurred to him to 

begin looking at real estate on the other side of the Scioto River. 

There was no bridge and getting across the fast moving Scioto was not all that simple at the 

place where Franklinton had been built. Secondly, the Virginia Military District ended at the 

Scioto. Starling’s brother in law, Lucas Sullivant, was not the official surveyor of the other side of 

the river and was more than happy to stay busy with his land on the west side. And there was no 

real demand for the land in that rather unusual land grant east of Franklinton. 

The land located in the easternmost part of the Northwest Territory had been allocated very 

quickly as land grants to a wide variety of people who were owed money by the new government 

of the United States. In addition to land set aside for veterans of Virginia, there were a lot of land 

grants for other veterans, residents of Connecticut, people who had been burned out by the 

British, and even a set aside for some French citizens looking for a new home. And in addition to 

all of these, there was the Refugee Tract. 

Beginning at Fifth Avenue on the north and running to Refugee Road on the south the Tract 

ran east from the Scioto River in a narrow strip of land for several dozen miles. The land was set 

aside for residents of Nova Scotia who had lost property because of their loyalty to the American 

Revolution. A few of those families actually traveled to the new land. Truro Township in Franklin 

County is named for Truro Township in Nova Scotia—the home of some early arrivals. But most 

of the recipients of land grants never made it to Ohio. Most of the land on the east bank of the 

Scioto south of its junction with the Olentangy River was still empty and devoid of settlement 

even as Franklinton continued to grow. 

✧ 

The street plan of Columbus is not aligned 

north and south. All of the streets of 

Columbus are pointed twelve degrees west 

of true north. No one knows why. But the 

Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio 

State University notes the difference in the 

distinction between the building and the 

white construction attached to it. 



C H A P T E R I V 

2 9

✧ 

Above: Most refugees never made it to the 

Refugee Tract. One who did was Robert 

Taylor. He arrived with his family in 1808 

and settled at West Crest on the west bank 

of Big Walnut Creek. Truro Township later 

came to be named for the Taylor home in 

Truro Township of Nova Scotia. 



Below: The Refugee Tract ran east from the 

Scioto River from Fifth Avenue on the north 

to Refugee Road on the south. It was set 

aside for people from Nova Scotia who had 

lost their property as rebels in 

the Revolution. 



To be completely accurate, the land along 

the river was not completely empty. In 1800, 

a man named Robert Ballentine had built 

a rather simple kind of mill along the river 

near the place where the Federal District 

Courthouse is today. Shortly thereafter, a man 

named Benjamin White—with equal disregard 

for the niceties of property ownership— 

had built a small distillery nearby. Neither 

venture was very successful. The businesses 

closed and by 1810 they were little more than 

ruins. Complementing the abandoned structures 

were a few cabins scattered along the 

river bank. Some of them were occupied by 

people who actually had bought a bit of land 

in the Refugee Tract. Others were occupied 

by people called “squatters” who would move 

on when pressed to do so. 

By 1810, Lyne Starling and a few of his 

friends would begin to press. They saw an 

opportunity in all of that vacant land and 

were determined to make their fortunes 

with it. They believed there might be a 

chance to do so because the state capital 

needed a new home. The State of Ohio 

had only been around since 1803 and in 

a few short years it had already had several 

capitals. Now it was looking again. 

In some ways it was remarkable that 

Ohio as a state even existed at all. Had 

it been up to Arthur St. Clair the State 

of Ohio would have been a long time in 

coming. As governor of the Northwest 

Territory, St. Clair may not have been 

much of an Indian fighter, but he was a 

formidable politician. 

The Ordinance of 1787 had laid out a 

three step process by which residents of part 

of the Territory could petition for admittance 

as a state. No one questioned the idea that 

states would be carved out of this vast 

domain. It was rather a question of what sort 

of states—and when. 

To preserve the power of Federalist government 

in the Territory, St. Clair foresaw the 

creation of two states in what is now Ohio. 

The capitals of each would be Cincinnati 

and Marietta—both solid Federalist towns 

and likely to be loyal to George Washington 

and his friends. On the other hand the 

friends of Thomas Jefferson—led by Ohioan 

Thomas Worthington—liked the idea of one 

big state with a capital closer to the frontiersmen 

who also wanted it. 

St. Clair held his own until Thomas Jefferson 

became President in 1800 and soon forced 


30

J O E L W R I G H T ’ S 

N E W T O W N 

The Act of the Ohio General Assembly, 

passed on February 14, 1812, read in part, 

St. Clair from office. Thomas Worthington got 

his state and placed its capital in Chillicothe— 

down the hill from his home called Adena and 

where he could keep an eye on Ohio and its 

government. His brother in law, Edward Tiffin, 

became the first governor. 

But all was not well in Chillicothe. In 

addition to Federalist enemies, the new state 

government faced challenges from restless 

residents of Ohio who wanted the state 

capital in their town. From 1808 to 1810, the 

capital had been moved to Zanesville in a 

complicated agreement. Then in 1810 it 

came back to Chillicothe. Now the hunt for a 

permanent home was on once again. 

A committee of the General Assembly visited 

a number of towns looking for the best location. 

They included Delaware, Circleville, Newark 

and even Franklinton. After reviewing the contenders, 

that group recommended a place near 

what is now Dublin. Then the Ohio General 

Assembly, as it was wont to do, ignored its committee 

and looked at other locations. 

In the end it picked a site assembled by 

Lyne Starling and three other “Proprietors” on 

the east side of the Scioto on the “High Banks 

opposite Franklinton at the Forks of the Scioto 

known as Wolf’s Ridge.” Noting that the land 

was high and dry and “salubrious in climate” 

the Proprietors—Starling, James Johnston, 

Alexander McLaughlin and John Kerr—also 

promised to pay $50,000 to build buildings 

and make other improvements. This was an 

immense sum at that time and it seemed like a 

sealed deal. But a number of legislators balked, 

hoping to capture the capital for their own 

town at a later date. Inserting a line keeping 

the capital in central Ohio “until 1840 or until 

otherwise determined” did the trick and the 

legislation passed. 

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General 

Assembly of the State of Ohio, That the proposals 

made to this legislature by Alexander 

McLaughlin, John Kerr, Lyne Starling and 

James Johnston, (to lay out a town on their 

lands…for the purpose of having the permanent 

seat of government thereon established; 

also to convey to this state a square of ten 

acres and a lot of ten acres, and to erect 

a statehouse, such offices and a penitentiary 

as shall be directed by the legislature) are 

hereby accepted… 

The Act also stipulated that the General 

Assembly would soon select a Director to 

“view and examine the lands abovementioned 

and superintend the surveying and laying out 

of the town aforesaid; also to select the square 

for public buildings; and the lot for the penitentiary 

and the dependencies according to 

the proposals aforesaid; and he shall make a 

report thereof to the next legislature.” 

One week later the Ohio General Assembly 

passed another Act giving the new town a 

name. Joseph Foos, a part-time Militia officer 

✧ 

Left: In early 1812, the Director of 

Columbus, Joel Wright, laid out the city 

with this compass and the help of Franklin 

County Surveyor, Joseph Vance. The 

compass is now in the Ohio Statehouse. 


Below: Joel Wright’s plan of Columbus 

reserved ten acres for a statehouse and ten 

acres for a penitentiary. The large open area 

in the middle of the plan was reserved to the 

four Proprietors of Columbus. The original 

plan is lost. Versions shown are from Lee’s 

1892 History of Columbus. 



3 1

and ferry operator from Franklinton was also 

representing the area in the legislature. In the 

days since the Assembly had picked a site, 

he had been lobbying vigorously to name the 

new town after his favorite historical figure. 

There has been an unverifiable story for many 

years that Foos pursued his advocacy by 

providing his fellow members of the Assembly 

with legendary quantities of strong drink. 

However he pursued the topic, his lobbying 

apparently worked. Rejecting “Ohio City” as a 

contender, the Assembly adopted “Columbus” 

as the name of the new state capital. On the 

same day it also adopted legislation selecting 

Joel Wright as the Director of the new town. 

Wright was a logical choice for the job. 

A well-known surveyor, Wright had more 

than a little experience laying out towns. The 

town plans of Dayton, Ohio, and Louisville, 

Kentucky, were his and he had been surveying 

in Ohio and Kentucky for more than twenty 

years. Born in 1750, Wright was a member of 

the Society of Friends called Quakers and had 

lived in Pennsylvania for most of his life. He 

had married there and had returned to his 

wife and children there after his trips over the 

mountains for many years. But his wife had 

died in 1806 and his children had grown, so 

Wright had moved to the Quaker settlement 

near Waynesville, Ohio, in Warren County. It 

was from there that he came to central Ohio 

to lay out a new capital city. 

Working with local surveyor and soldier 

Joseph Vance, Wright spent the spring of 

1812 laying out the new capital city. Standing 

on the Indian trail along the ridge on the 

eastern high banks of the Scioto, in the midst 

of a towering old-growth hardwood forest, 

Vance and Wright must have appeared as an 

interesting pair to any observers passing by. 

Joseph Vance is sometimes mistakenly 

confused with a later Ohio governor of the 

same name. Born in 1775, Vance had been an 

early settler in Franklinton. Married in 1805, 

he had served as Franklin County surveyor 

since 1803 and would continue to do so until 

his death in 1824. In his frontier garb of 

buckskin and linsey-woolsey cloth, he would 

supervise the chain carriers and insure that 

the lines set out by Wright’s compass were 

properly laid. Standing at the compass and 

supervising the survey of the capital city was 

a man who rather obviously came from a 

different world than Joseph Vance. 

There is no known surviving portrait of 

Joel Wright. This is not too surprising since 

many Quakers considered them to be an 

exercise in vanity. But a description of his 

appearance was provided in a later account 

by one of his heirs. “He was about medium 

size. He continued to wear, as long as he 

lived, the costume that is familiar to us in 

pictures of Revolutionary worthies, long 

surtout, long waistcoat with flaps over the 

pockets, knee breeches with silver buckles, 

low cut shoes with silver buckles on the 

instep, and a broad brimmed beaver hat.” 

Joel Wright personally selected the site of 

Statehouse Square and a ten acre site for the 

Ohio Penitentiary. He also laid out the major 

streets to be quite wide—a reaction in the 

new towns of the west to the small, twisted 

and traffic-filled streets of eastern cities. 

Statehouse Square is located at the highest 

point along the ridge and is almost equally 

distant from what were then two large ravines 

carrying rapidly moving water down to the 

Scioto. One of the creeks has now been completely 

removed by the passage of Interstate 

70 through the city. The other is still there 

but well-hidden. Until the mid 1850s anyone 

traveling north on High Street crossed the 

stream that would become Spring Street over 

a wooden bridge. Today the stream that flows 

from several natural springs near Memorial 

Hall moves under the street in a deeply 

buried brick sewer. 

Joel Wright also gave names to the streets 

he created in the town plan of Columbus. The 

major streets drew their names from similar 

streets in the eastern towns Wright knew so 

well—Broad Street, High Street, Wall Street, 

Pearl Street. Others reflected the role of the 

new place as both a symbolic as well as local 

place—State Street, Town Street, Capital Alley. 

Some of the streets reflected a landmark like 

Mound Street. With a rather whimsical touch 

Wright named most of the alleys after the 

various trees that grew in the dense forest 

along the ridge—Maple, Walnut, Cherry. And 

perhaps in deference to his own denomination 

he named one street Friend Street. 


32

The one remarkable aspect of the town plan 

is that the quite straight streets do not run truly 

north and south or east and west. Instead the 

whole town plan is tilted twelve degrees west of 

true north. No one knows why. But a good 

guess can be made that Wright adjusted his 

town plan to fit the street alignment of nearby 

Franklinton. And why did Lucas Sullivant lay 

out his town a little to the left of center? Perhaps 

because there is a difference between magnetic 

north and true north and Sullivant did not correct 

for the change? Or perhaps Sullivant simply 

laid out his town to fit the lay of the land. 

In any case by June of 1812, it was done. 

Having made an agreement among themselves 

as to the division of any profit they 

might make and collecting subscriptions in 

the amount of $20,000, the Proprietors of 

Columbus announced: 

FOR SALE: On the premises commencing 

on Thursday, the eighteenth day of June and 

to continue for three days, in and out lots in 

the town of Columbus, established by an act 

of the legislature, as the permanent seat of 

government for the state of Ohio.” After some 

further description, the announcement concluded 

by noting that ease of transportation 

would soon “make the country on the Scioto 

River rich and populous. 

The rematch between the United States 

and Great Britain for the control of a continent 

had been coming for some time. The 

continued occupation by the British of forts 

in the Ohio Country had provided supply 

bases for their Indian allies to not only continue 

the fur trade but to occasionally attack 

American settlements. A bold new generation 

of young political leaders like Henry Clay and 

John C. Calhoun had vehemently argued that 

Canada was weak and defenseless and ripe 

for the taking. 

At the same time, Britain had been having 

great difficulty finding sailors to man its 

gigantic fleet in its continuing campaign to 

blockade Napoleonic Europe. It solved this 

problem by boarding American ships on the 

high seas and “impressing” seamen presumed 

to be deserters from the British Navy. Some 

were but many were not and the American 

government was offended by the incursion. 

President James Madison had done his best to 

avoid a conflict but continuing abuses and an 

increasingly angry population left him little 

choice. America would go to war with Britain. 

✧ 

The Franklinton Cemetery on River Street 

is one of the oldest in Ohio. Many people 

buried there were later removed to other 

cemeteries. But some of the founders of 

Franklinton—and Ohio—are still there. 


Apparently a sizeable number of people— 

especially from across the river in Franklinton— 

agreed with the Proprietors and not only 

arrived to inspect the site but to buy lots. 

Most of the initial sales were of lots along 

High and Broad Streets for amounts ranging 

from $200 to $1000. These were large sums 

of money in a time when an average worker 

might earn considerably less than a dollar a 

day and when land could be purchased in 

Ohio in many places for $1 to $2 per acre. 

But Columbus was a new town in a new state 

and people felt confident about their future. 

Perhaps they were a bit too confident. 

W A R C O M E S T O C O L U M B U S 

On the same day the lots were sold in 

Columbus, the United States went to war 

with Great Britain. 


3 3

✧ 

Above: General William Henry Harrison, 

“Old Tippecanoe” used Franklinton— 

among other places—as a mobilization 

center in the War of 1812. 



Below: Many years after the fact, General 

Harrison was reputed to have used the 1808 

Oberdier House as a headquarters. He 

probably didn’t, but the legend was enough 

to save the house from destruction in 1975. 

It is the second oldest standing structure in 

downtown Columbus. 


Back in central Ohio, work proceeded apace 

for a brief time on the new capital city. Trees 

were felled to begin to clear streets through the 

forest although stumps would remain both in 

the streets and on people’s lots for some time. 

A number of modest cabins were constructed 

in the forest and work began on split rail fences 

to surround both the statehouse square and the 

penitentiary site. As the summer turned toward 

the fall a man named John Collett learned that 

the new state house would eventually be 

constructed near the corner of State and High 

Streets on the square. Diagonally across the 

street, Collett would build the first brick 

building in Columbus—a two story brick 

tavern. A little further up the street at Broad 

and High, the somewhat pretentiously named 

Worthington Manufacturing Company would 

open a two story brick store at Broad and High 

Streets selling the essentials of frontier life— 

powder, shot, salt and hardware. Through 

most of the rest of the village of a few people in 

that first winter there was very little else. Most 

people who had bought lots and cleared a bit 

of land went back home and waited to see how 

the war would go. 

It would not go well. 

The War of 1812 began with the greatest 

of expectations in what was then the Great 

American West. People living in the frontier 

state of Ohio felt quite confident that their 

armies, raised from local frontiersmen, would 

quickly and decisively defeat the stodgy British 

and their less than capable Indian allies. 

Frontier Franklinton, sitting in the heart 

of Ohio saw itself as the central staging area 

of this new conflict. And indeed it was. 

During most of the war, large numbers of 

troops would gather here, train here and 

march from here to do battle against 

America’s enemies to the north. And while all 

of these troops were here, they would need 

food, and drink and amusements of all 

sorts—all provided by the increasingly 

wealthy merchants of Franklinton. Virtually 

non-existent Columbus on the other side of 

the river would see little growth at all 

through the war. 

The commander of the American armies in 

the west was General William Hull. A veteran 

of the Revolution, Hull had fought well in that 

war and his brother Isaac was commanding 

the soon to be quite famous American frigate 

Constitution. But the American Revolution 

had ended almost thirty years earlier and Hull, 

now governor of the Michigan Territory, was 

older, weaker and frankly frightened, not of 

his British opponents but of their Indian allies. 

General Hull assembled his army at 

Dayton and marched north to Urbana gathering 

volunteers to his cause from as far east 

as Franklinton. Striking north, he moved 

through the Great Black Swamp building a 

road whose route is still in use today and 

quickly took Detroit as the British retreated 

before him. After a brief incursion into 

Canada, he fell back to Detroit and awaited a 

British attack. It was not long in coming. The 

British force, less than half the size of Hull’s 

demanded his immediate surrender. To the 

astonishment of the British and the consternation 

of his officers, Hull surrendered. 

Now the whole Northwest was open to 

attack. Responding to the challenge was 

William Henry Harrison. Grandson of a signer 

of the Declaration of Independence, Harrison 

had gone west to seek his fortune. He found 

it in a battle in Indiana at a place called 

Tippecanoe in 1811 and now desperately 

assembled a new force to stop the British. 


34

Franklinton became an armed camp. The 

newly constructed courthouse on the main 

square of town became a fortress and refuge 

with a large stockade and defensive ditch 

built around it. Harrison was in town repeatedly 

seeking men and supplies for his campaigns. 

A brick house in Franklinton later 

became associated with him. It was not his 

headquarters, but he undoubtedly visited it 

from time to time. 

Franklinton and the people there who provided 

help to him were critical to his success. 

By the summer of 1813, Harrison had rebuilt 

an army and would successfully use it to 

defend both Fort Meigs near Toledo and Fort 

Stephenson in what is now Fremont, Ohio. 

But to undertake a new invasion of Canada, 

he needed at least the neutrality if not the 

support of the Ohio Indian tribes. In July, 

1813, he brought them together in the 

back yard of Lucas Sullivant in Franklinton. 

Under a large elm tree, he asked for their 

✧ 

Above: In 1822, Lucas Sullivant erected this 

land office at Green and Gay Streets in 

Franklinton. He died the next year and this 

would be his last building. It is the only 

building directly associated with him that is 

still standing. It was placed behind Harrison 

House in 1983. 


Left: In July, 1813, General Harrison held a 

critical conference with the Native 

American tribes of Ohio to seek their 

neutrality in the War of 1812. He got it 

from Wyandot chieftain Tarhe under this 

tree in what was then Lucas Sullivant’s back 

yard. The picture was made in 1892. 



3 5

✧ 

Above: In the early 1900s, Tarhe’s tree fell 

victim to Dutch Elm disease and was 

removed. This plaque was erected nearby. 


Below: Seeing where the future lay, Sullivant 

built the first bridge across the Scioto in 

1816. It looked something like the bridge in 

this 1832 sketch. The sketch is on a 

Staffordshire Blue turkey platter in 

the Statehouse. 

support and specifically that of Tarhe, principal 

chief of the Wyandots. He got it and marched 

to Canada. His army not only defeated 

the British but also killed the charismatic 

Shawnee leader Tecumseh. 

Returning from Canada, Harrison had a 

large number of prisoners. He put some of 

them on a sandbar in the Scioto with a view 

of the Franklinton graveyard and left them to 

their own devices. A number of them immediately 

tried to escape and were shot dead by 

American sharpshooters. Until it was washed 

away after a number of floods, the lonely 

place was called British Island and sometimes, 

Bloody Island. 

With Harrison’s victory, the war in the 

West was virtually over. The war elsewhere 

went on for two more years. When it was 

over, both America and central Ohio were 

ready to move on. The village of Franklinton 

had grown in both numbers and wealth 

during the war. New stores and enterprises 

had come into being. The first newspaper in 

central Ohio, the Freeman’s Chronicle, was 

published by James Gardiner on a press first 

used in early Marietta. Large numbers of 

doctors, lawyers and other professionals were 

on hand. And now, at the end of the war, they 

looked across the river and saw a capital city 

about to be born. They crossed the river and 

came to Columbus. 

They did so quite often—so often in fact 

that Lucas Sullivant worried about getting 

them back from time to time. To solve the 

problem, in 1816 he built the first bridge 

across the Scioto. It was an open top bridge 

on wooden struts and was not terribly strong. 

But it worked. 

The bridge was the first recognition that a 

new town was coming into being across the 

river. Soon the first church in central Ohio— 

the First Presbyterian—would move across 

the river. So too would Franklinton’s first doctors—Lincoln 

Goodale and James Edmiston. 

And so too would many of the stores, shops 

and tradesmen that had made their living in 

Franklinton during the war. 

It was time to leave the village of 

Franklinton and travel across the river to the 

borough beyond the bridge. 


36

C H A P T E R 

V 

THE HUB OF THE WHEEL 

1816-1840 

B U I L D I N G A B O R O U G H 

A person walking across the bridge over the Scioto River completed by Lucas Sullivant in 1816 

to the new capital city of Columbus from the village of Franklinton would probably have noticed 

rather quickly that there was not much of a city there. In fact there was not much of a town or 

even a village. To say “Columbus grew slowly at first” as one early observer did, was perhaps a 

bit of an understatement. 

By the fall of 1812 two major buildings—both brick and two stories tall—had been erected in 

the new town. Both had drawn their bricks from clay in the Indian mound at Mound and High 

Streets. Their builders by no means would be the last people to do so. 

✧ 

In 1818, John McGowan founded the 

first suburb of the new village—McGowan’s 

Addition to Columbus—at the bottom of the 

map. Today it is called German Village. 

This reproduction of the map is in 

the Statehouse. 


C H A P T E R V 

3 7

✧ 

The very first public building in the new 

capital city was the Ohio Penitentiary in 

1813. It was built first because prison labor 

would be used to build the rest of the new 

capital city. 



During the War of 1812, very little had 

been done to increase either the size or 

sophistication of Columbus. The Ohio 

General Assembly had described in considerable 

detail in an Act of both houses what the 

specifications of both a penitentiary and a 

statehouse should be. There was apparently 

some concern that without guidelines firmly 

set forth, Director Wright and his associates 

might build something too big, too elaborate 

and most importantly—too expensive—for 

the frontier state to accept. 

Joel Wright, the Director of Columbus, 

looked at these instructions and gathered 

material about diverse prisons and other 

public buildings. He then dug and placed 

foundations and gathered some building 

materials in the fall of 1812. And then he 

resigned, went home and sent the Assembly a 

bill for services rendered. 

In 1813, the new Director of Columbus, 

William Ludlow, got to work finishing what 

Joel Wright had begun. His first major project 

was the prison. It turned out to be a two story 

building built on the side of the sloping bank 

leading down to the river. Leaving the basement, 

open on one side, one entered a compound 

of a few acres surrounded by a high 

fence. In the two story house of local limestone, 

the first floor was set aside for the warden 

and his family and was entered from the 

street. The top floor was set aside into thirteen 

cells—nine with light and four without. The 

only entrance to the top floor was from the 

prison yard. Entering the prison through 

the front door, one was interviewed by the 

warden. The choices were simple. Either one 

was released to the world or one was dropped 

through a trapdoor to the prison below—a 

place where life was not very nice at all. 

The Ohio Penitentiary was the first public 

building completed in Columbus and it was 

soon filled with a band of hard working but 

rather variously motivated people. Some 

prisoners worked to win favor. Others worked 

to dispel boredom. But virtually all of them 

worked—digging foundations, making bricks, 

and erecting the other buildings needed by 

Columbus. And at the end of the day, they 

went to their new home at the penitentiary. 

The prison was the first public building finished 

in Columbus for a very simple reason. 

Prison labor would be used to build the rest of 

the city. By early 1816, with some penitentiary 

help, the new public buildings for the new 

capital city of Ohio were either completed or 


38

well underway. Most important among them 

was the new statehouse. 

It was, as one writer put it, “a common 

plain brick building. seventy-five feet north 

and south by fifty feet, east and west, on the 

ground, and two lofty stories high, with a 

square roof, that is, eaves and cornices, at 

both sides and ends, and ascending to the 

balcony and steeple in the center, at which 

there was a first rate, well-toned bell. The top 

of the spire was 106 feet from the ground. On 

the roof adjoining the balcony, on two sides 

were neat railed walks, from which a spectator 

might view the whole town as upon a 

map, and had also a view of the winding 

Scioto, and of the level country around as far 

as the eye could reach.” 

A later account recorded, 

The halls, we are told, were ‘of good size’ 

and of ‘respectable wooden finish’ consisting 

in part of large wooden columns handsomely 

turned…The columns were painted in imitation 

of ‘clouded marble’…The interior walls of 

the legislative chambers were hung with maps 

of the state and engraved copies of the 

Declaration of Independence besides ‘various 

other articles of use and ornament.’ 

A year after the completion of the 

Statehouse, a state office building was erected 

adjacent to it along High Street. The building 

was built of brick and was one hundred and 

twenty-five feet long by twenty-five feet 

wide and two stories tall. It held the offices of 

the governor, Secretary of State, auditor and 

treasurer on the ground floor and the State 

Library as well as the Adjutant General on 

the second floor. It was not very elegant 

and over the course of time acquired the 

nickname of “Rat Row”—whether for the 

character of its furnishing or its occupants 

was never entirely clear. 

In 1820, a United State Courthouse was 

erected along High Street north of the state 

office building. Two stories in height and, 

predictably, made of brick, the building 

was approximately fifty feet square. The 

bottom floor held offices. The second floor 

held the court room and an adjacent jury 

room. The entire building was topped by an 

elaborate circular latticed wooden dome 

which was painted a rather garish green. 

When the dome was weakened by wood rot 

and fell off during a storm in the 1830s, 

it was not replaced. No one objected to 

its loss. 

✧ 

The northeast corner of State and 

High Streets became the center of state 

government. At the corner was the two 

story brick statehouse. Next to it was the 

state office building—soon to be called 

“rat row.” And next to it was the 

federal courthouse. 




3 9

✧ 

Governor Thomas Worthington and his 

friends had arguably made Ohio a state. 

Now he did his best to tidy up the new 

capital city. In doing so, he soon found 

himself in trouble with the first mayor of 

Columbus, Jarvis Pike. 



With the completion of these buildings the 

basic work of constructing public buildings 

in Columbus was completed. Now the work 

of making the capital livable was begun 

in earnest. 

In the autumn of 1816 more than a dozen 

ladies of the town held a sewing party in the 

first floor of the Statehouse and completed 

the first carpet of that chamber. The affair 

had been suggested by Governor Thomas 

Worthington who came by and left the ladies 

with a number of apples from his Ross 

County orchard. It was the simple way things 

were done in those days. 

Thomas Worthington was the third governor 

of Ohio and, more than any other single 

individual, had brought Ohio into being as a 

state. Now, just as his home in Chillicothe 

had been the first capital, he was determined 

to make the new capital his own. A man of 

definite opinions and accustomed to getting 

his own way in short order, he looked about 

Columbus for someone to carry out his 

wishes without complaint. 

He decided that the mayor was probably 

that person. It was not the wisest of choices. 

In 1816 a number of residents of 

Columbus concluded that the previous 

method of operating the capital had outlived 

its usefulness. Columbus had been managed 

since 1812 by an all-powerful director who 

could plan the city, build buildings and 

generally get things done. The Director—first 

Joel Wright and then William Ludlow—could 

also levy taxes on the residents, and enforce 

order by whatever means he saw to be 

appropriate. Joel Wright, the amiable Quaker, 

balked at using such power, and departed in 

less than a year. William Ludlow on the other 

hand treasured his authority and used it. 

Now political and social power in the new 

capital of Ohio began to shift. When they 

were in town, the most important people in 

the small village of Columbus would be 

the members of the Ohio General Assembly 

who had brought it into being. But the 

General Assembly—and for that matter other 

state elected officials—were not in town all 

that often. So in their absence the director 

of Columbus—William Ludlow—was the 

all-important figure. But Ludlow’s job was 

primarily to lay out a town and build its 

public buildings. 

Now that job was almost done. Indeed, in 

1817, Ludlow would present a final accounting 

to the legislature of his work and a bill 

from the four Proprietors of Columbus for 

monies expended beyond the $50,000 they 

had originally promised. In the end the 

Proprietors collected another $33,000. 

The four Proprietors of Columbus— 

Starling, Johnston, McLaughlin and Kerr— 

were still important men in Columbus in 

1816. After all, they still owned much of the 

town. But their major business was in recruiting 

more people to come to Columbus and 

selling them a lot once they got here. And 

they were becoming increasingly successful 

in their efforts. 

By 1816, with the Ohio General Assembly 

soon to arrive, the prominent residents of 

the city—meaning the owners of the hotels, 

taverns and other businesses—decided they’d 

had enough of government by director—as 

honest and forthright as William Ludlow 

might be—and that it was time for a real 

town to have a real government. So the residents 

of Columbus incorporated themselves 

and the Borough of Columbus was born. 

Gathering together at the Columbus Inn, the 

new council of the Borough elected a mayor 

from among their number. 

It was to the new first mayor of Columbus 

that Governor Thomas Worthington came 

seeking help with a few undertakings he 

had in mind. The mayor’s name was Jarvis 

Pike and, like the governor, he was a man 

accustomed to getting things done. 

A not-all-that-distant relative of Zebulon 

Pike, of Pike’s Peak fame, Jarvis Pike was part 

of the younger generation that settled much of 

the Northwest Territory in the years after the 

Revolution. His father had been a captain in 

the Revolution and brought his family west to 

settle in the then-frontier lands of Oneida 

County, New York, in the early 1790s. It was 

there that young Jarvis came of age, started a 

family and served for a time as a judge. 

Born in 1766, Jarvis Pike was in his early 

forties when he decided to seek his fortune 

further west and move his family to Ohio 

accompanied by his brother Benjamin. 


40

Settling originally Madison County in 1812, 

the Pikes soon became attracted to Columbus. 

Jarvis Pike liked what he saw and soon 

became a strong advocate of the new town— 

as well as a political activist. 

In 1814, as the War of 1812 continued, 

Pike and his friends erected a liberty pole and 

a flag by the hole in the ground that would 

soon be the statehouse. It was soon torn 

down. Re-erected, the pole and flag were torn 

down again. Ten men, led by Jarvis Pike, 

formed a Vigilance Committee and offered a 

$100 reward for the perpetrator whom they 

assumed was loyal to Britain and “lost to all 

sense of decency.” They also vowed in due 

course “to give our expression in favor of 

those who are qualified by disposition and 

information to serve the people by promoting 

their interest and happiness.” The culprit was 

never found but Jarvis Pike was later elected 

mayor by his fellow councilmen in the first 

election in the borough of Columbus. 

Governor Worthington had a number of 

issues on his mind in 1816. But the one that 

bothered him the most when he was in 

Columbus was the awful condition of the 

capitol square. It was still full of trees, brush, 

and wandering animals and could scarcely be 

distinguished from the surrounding forest 

that still constituted much of downtown. 

So he contracted with Jarvis Pike to clear 

the ground and properly fence it—for a 

reasonable fee. The mayor proceeded to the 

task, probably working with his eighteen 

year old son, Jarvis W. Pike, a man with 

whom the old judge would sometimes later 

be confused. 

Judge Pike completed the job and presented 

his bill to the governor. The governor did 

not pay it. He did not refuse to pay it. He 

simply failed to do so after repeated requests. 

Exasperated, Pike swore out a capias warrant, 

had the governor detained and brought 

before Squire King, a local Justice of the 

Peace, to collect his money. Held at something 

of a disadvantage, the governor made 

an arrangement with the mayor. In lieu of 

money, which the governor did not have, 

Pike could have the use of the Statehouse 

grounds for a time until the state might need 

the ground for its own use. Pike agreed and 

grew corn on Statehouse Square for a number 

of years. He also built a sturdy fence to keep 

local pigs out of the square and local legislators 

in. So ended the first time a local official 

took Ohio’s governor to court. It would not 

be the last. 

But at least the Statehouse grounds looked 

nice when President James Monroe rode 

into town in 1817. Traveling on a tour of 

inspection of what was then “The West,” 

Monroe arrived in town from Worthington 

accompanied by the local Franklin Dragoons 

mounted militia company. After a brief 

welcome at the statehouse, the President 

complimented what he called the “infant city” 

on its progress and rode on. It was observed 

at the time that the President seemed trail 

worn and sunburned, but also quite happy to 

be on the road in what had come to be called 

the Era of Good Feelings. 

As to Jarvis Pike, the judge only served as 

mayor of Columbus for two years during 

which time he also operated an inn called 

the Yankee Tavern. Joining with a newcomer 

named William Neil, he went into the 

stagecoach business and had little time for 

politics. Eventually he became a devotee of 

the botanic medicine of one Samuel 

Thompson and editor in Columbus of the 

Thomsonian Recorder, a national newspaper 

describing the benefits of the good doctor’s 

practices. Remembered as the “Honorable 

Jarvis Pike,” the Judge died on the morning 

of January 28, 1836, leaving a widow, 

two children and a brother who “mourn at 

his departure.” 

✧ 

President James Monroe rode into Columbus 

in 1817 on an inspection tour of what was 

then the west. He complimented the 

“Infant City” and rode on. This sketch of his 

arrival in town was made in 1888. 



4 1

✧ 

Above: John Kerr was one of the four 

original Proprietors of Columbus. Two of the 

others went broke in later land speculations. 

Only Kerr and Lyne Starling made money 

in the new city. Then Kerr died young in 

1823. He was buried where North Market 

is today. The third mayor of Columbus is 

still there. 



Below: Lyne Starling, the handsome 

bachelor and Proprietor of Columbus, never 

married. At his death in 1848, most of his 

fortune went to establish the Starling 

Medical College and hospital. 



By the time Jarvis Pike died in 1836, the 

capital city of Ohio had gone through a 

period of enormous change and a whole 

new generation had come of age. The Era of 

Good feelings that had marked the Monroe 

Administration came to an abrupt end. The 

economy, artificially lifted by the War of 

1812, declined in the 1820s. With that 

decline came a precipitous drop in the value 

of real estate. Lots in Columbus that had sold 

for $1000 now were being sold at Sheriff’s 

sale for $100 or less. A number of people 

were economically ruined. 

Among them were two of the Proprietors of 

Columbus. James Johnston and Alexander 

McLaughlin had continued to buy land at 

higher and higher prices. When the crash 

came, they were wiped out. Johnston returned 

to his former home at Pittsburgh and died 

there in poverty in 1842. McLaughlin ended 

his career as a rural schoolmaster—the only 

job he could find. John Kerr had followed 

Jarvis Pike as a later mayor of Columbus and 

rose out the troubles of the early 1820s rather 

well until he died of malarial fever in 1823. He 

left his family reasonably well off and was 

buried with appropriate honors and ceremony 

in the graveyard which he had given the city in 

1813. The North Graveyard, and later an East 

Graveyard, served the city until the 1870s 

when they were closed and many people in 

them were moved to Green Lawn Cemetery. 

Many—but not all. Somewhere in the area 

where the North Market is today lies the 

lost grave of John Kerr—the third mayor 

of Columbus. 

Of all the Proprietors, only Lyne Starling 

really did well. Investing his money in a 

variety of businesses, Starling rode out 

wars, depressions and other upheavals with 

remarkable aplomb. Never marrying, Starling 

died in 1848 and left the bulk of his estate to 

found the first medical school and hospital in 

the city. Starling Medical College in downtown 

Columbus later became St. Francis 

Hospital and the medical school part of The 

Ohio State University College of Medicine. 

As Columbus entered the 1820s, despite the 

downturn in the economy, it was still definitely 

becoming the place to be in central Ohio. Lucas 

Sullivant had recognized this with the bridge he 

built across the river. In 1822, Sullivant erected 

a new one story brick land office only a block 

away from his home. It would be his last building. 

Less than one year later, Sullivant died in 

the same round of virulent malarial fever that 

took the life of John Kerr in Columbus. Within 

a year, the county seat, which had been in 

Franklinton since 1803, would move across the 

river to Columbus. 

Columbus was becoming the center of 

central Ohio. 

A T O W N O F R I V E R R A F T S 

A N D C O A C H E S 

In the 1820s, there were many new businesses 

trying to establish themselves in the 

new capital city. Some were service businesses 

like the inns, taverns and hotels that had 

met the needs of the general assembly since 

the town was founded. Others were a bit 

more mundane. Every town of any size in the 

era before refrigeration and preservation of 

food had a public market. Columbus was no 

exception and opened its first public market 

in the middle of the intersection of Rich and 

High Streets—close to the statehouse and the 

hotels along High Street that served them. 

But the biggest business of these years 

was transportation—or trying desperately to 


42

emedy the lack thereof. Lucas Sullivant had 

founded his town at the forks of the Scioto 

with the confident assumption that any 

town placed where two rivers came together 

had to prosper. Perhaps Columbus was destined 

to prosper—but not because of these 

two rivers. 

What Sullivant and other seemed to miss 

was the point that there was a big difference 

between a canoe or even a keelboat and a 

large flat-bottomed raft—fifty feet wide by a 

hundred feet long—with outriding oars to 

guide the huge cargo laden craft down the 

river. The Scioto could handle small craft very 

well. In fact, a number of legislators from 

southern Ohio took skiffs to return home 

from legislative sessions. 

But south of Columbus the Scioto River 

narrowed and became considerably more 

shallow. The only time the large flatboats full 

of agricultural products and livestock could 

successfully go down the river was for a few 

weeks in the early spring when the river rose 

in flood season. And then one took one’s life 

in one’s hands trying to steer one of the huge 

rafts down the river. Still, many people tried 

to do it anyway. 

One of the people who tried was a young 

man from Kentucky named William Neil. 

Neil had arrived in Columbus in 1818 with his 

wife, Hannah, determined to make a success 

of himself. Failing in an effort to negotiate the 

river with a raft, he took a job with a local 

bank while his wife Hannah ran a small tavern 

✧ 

Above: In 1832, the Army Corps of 

Engineers came to town and built a new 

covered bridge across the Scioto to carry the 

National Road. It would last for 

many years. 



Below: Thomas Kelah Wharton came to 

Columbus in 1831 and stayed for a brief 

time. An accomplished sketch artist, he drew 

the first known picture of the new town. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK 

PUBLIC LIBRARY. 


4 3

✧ 

Clockwise, starting from the top: 

The Neil family—in addition to their other 

ventures—established the first Neil House 

Hotel in 1839—across the street from the 

Statehouse. It would not be the last. 



He was called the “Old Stage King.” 

William Neil came to Columbus in 1818. 

He soon drifted into stagecoaches and found 

he liked the business. By 1840 he was the 

most powerful stagecoach entrepreneur in 

America. Neil Avenue was his private lane. 

After his death in 1870 his farm became 

The Ohio State University. 



in a log house across the street from the 

capitol building on High Street. While another 

local resident named David Deshler was 

leaving cabinet making behind to go into 

banking at his home near Broad and High 

Streets, Billy Neil was deciding that his future 

was elsewhere. It was in stagecoaches. 

In the 1820s, it did not take much to start 

a stagecoach line. If one had a coach and 

some horses at each end of a run about ten 

miles long, one was in business. The first 

stage lines in the area ran from Columbus 

to Worthington or Columbus to Granville or 

Columbus to Circleville. They ran on a rather 

eccentric schedule depending on the weather 

and other impediments. But they did run and 

provided a reasonably regular way to deliver 

people, goods and mail around central Ohio. 

Working in partnership with Adam Zinn, the 

pioneer coachman in central Ohio, and Judge 

Jarvis Pike, William Neil put together a series 

of stagecoach companies that were faster, 

safer, and cheaper than many of their rivals. 

It was a tough business and only the strong 

survived the travails of rough roads and even 

rougher competitors. William Neil was the 

toughest of them all and by 1840 his Neil, 

Moore & Co. stagecoach line was the biggest 

in the Midwest. 

Not trusting banks all that much, Neil put 

his profits—and they were quite large—into 

land. Arriving in Columbus, he had stayed 

briefly at the home of County Surveyor 

Joseph Vance about three miles north of 

Columbus on the road to Worthington. He 

always admired it and after the death of 

Vance in 1824, Neil bought the property as 

his country home. Over the years he added to 

his holdings until they included most of the 

land between High Street and the Olentangy 

River from Lane Avenue south to Goodale 

Park. Neil’s brother Robert, also a stagecoach 

entrepreneur, owned much of the land on the 

other side of High Street. In addition to his 

While Billy Neil was driving coaches, his 

wife Hannah was organizing private charity 

in Columbus. She was a founder of 

Columbus’ oldest charity, the Columbus 

Female Benevolent Society. 




44

land holdings, William Neil bought a number 

of properties in downtown Columbus and in 

1839 built the first of what would eventually 

be three Neil House hotels. It was a significant 

lifetime of accomplishment by a remarkable 

man. When William Neil died in 1870, 

his farm would become the home of the new 

Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, 

later The Ohio State University. 

While William Neil was helping redefine 

business in central Ohio, his wife was helping 

redefine charity. In the earliest years of the 

city, there was little in the way of organized 

charity except for the charitable efforts of 

church congregations to people in need 

and the kindliness of individuals in helping 

one another. 

But by the 1830s, it was becoming clear 

something else was needed. Families moving 

across the state might find themselves bereft 

of resources and unable to go any further. 

They moved into the poorer parts of town 

and became a burden to the community. 

Many of these poorer areas were located 

along the bed of the ravines that course 

through the village on their way to the river. 

Others were located in the wet and swampy 

areas scattered around Columbus. 

To help these people, Hannah Neil and 

others organized the Columbus Female 

Benevolent Society in 1839. It is the oldest 

organized charity in Columbus and still exists 

as a fund of the Columbus 

Foundation. In her later years, 

the Hannah Neil Mission and 

Home for the Friendless was 

also brought into being with 

her support. It still is serving 

the community. 

While William Neil was 

building his stagecoach empire, 

other forces were working to 

make Columbus a transportation 

center. One of them was 

an initiative of the federal 

government. The other was an 

activity sponsored by the State 

of Ohio. 

✧ 

Above: The key to the success of the Neil 

family was a safe, reliable and easy to 

maintain stagecoach—like the one seen here 

at the Statehouse. 


Left: Late in her life, Hannah Neil became 

a sponsor of what later would come to be 

called the Hannah Neil Mission and Home 

for the Friendless. It occupied the Neville 

family home on East Main Street and stayed 

there for years. 




4 5

✧ 

For a relatively landlocked city, the 

Columbus Feeder of the Ohio and Erie 

Canal was a welcome sight. Combined with 

the effect of the arrival of the National 

Road, the city would double in size. 

This view of the canal entering the Scioto 

River was made in 1906. 



Ever since the country was founded, members 

of Congress from the western territories 

and then the western states had argued vociferously 

for federal support for transportation. 

If the country was to prosper, said Henry 

Clay of Kentucky, the national government 

should subsidize improvements to road, river 

and lake transportation. It was a tough sell. 

Many people living in the East did not think 

using their tax money to help their western 

competitors was all that wise. 

That is why a National Road begun in 1811 

in the East took until the early 1830s to reach 

Columbus where it stopped for a few years. 

Many people, taking the National Road with 

its all-weather roadbed and safe bridges got to 

Columbus and saw that there was no road on 

the other side of town. So they decided to 

stay. More importantly the completion of the 

National Road gave Columbus a link to the East 

shared by only a few other cities in the state. 

T H E C A N A L C O M E S 

T O C O L U M B U S 

The National Road was helpful to the 

growth of Columbus. So too was the Ohio 

and Erie Canal. 

Canals are nothing new in the history 

of western civilization. People have been 

building them where rivers are not all that 

reliable or where they don’t exist at all for 

hundreds of years. But canals are expensive, 

complicated projects and were not all 

that common in America. At least they were 

not until De Witt Clinton and his colleagues 

completed the Erie Canal linking the Atlantic 

to the Great Lakes and opening up New York 

State to easy transportation. 

Then, many people—including many people 

in Ohio—wanted one too. 

An original idea had been to do something 

similar to what had been done in New York 

and build one great canal crossing the middle 

of the state. The difference would be that this 

canal would run north and south and connect 

the Ohio River to the Great Lakes. 

But it soon became clear that it was not 

technically possible to build such a canal 

through the center of the state. At this point 

some people might have simply given up 

and abandoned the idea. But the idea did not 

die. In fact if anything it became even more 

elaborate. Now instead of one canal, the 

people of Ohio would sell bonds and build 

two canals—The Miami and Erie in western 

Ohio and the Ohio and 

Erie from Portsmouth 

to Cleveland. Columbus 

would be linked to the 

Ohio and Erie by a 

Feeder Canal leading 

south from the city. 

Looking back later 

many people would be 

recognized as having 

helped build Ohio’s 

canals. Among them were 

legislators, engineers and 

the dozens of men who 

dug the hundreds of 

miles of ditch fifteen feet 

deep and thirty feet wide 

across the state. But perhaps 

most critical to the 

success of the canals—as 

well as many other projects 

over the early 1800s 

in Ohio—was one man. 


46

Alfred Kelley came to Ohio 

from New York in 1810. 

Settling in Cleveland, the twenty-one 

year old attorney served 

as the first mayor of Cleveland 

and then came to Columbus 

as the youngest man in the 

Ohio General Assembly. When 

he retired in 1857, he was 

representing Columbus and 

had served as a legislator longer 

than anyone else. Sometimes 

called the architect of Ohio’s 

banking system he was also 

rightly called the “Father of 

Ohio’s Canal System.” 

It was not hard to see why. 

Someone had to review the 

contracts, oversee the contractors 

and generally make sure 

the canals were built correctly. 

Walking the entire length of 

both canals, Alfred Kelley was 

that supervisor. Later when 

the state was in danger of 

defaulting on its canal bonds in 

the 1830s, Kelley pledged his magnificent 

Greek Revival Columbus home to insure 

payment on the bonds. It came to be called 

“The House that Saved Ohio.” 

William T. Martin in his history of 

Columbus described the opening of the canal 

to Columbus: 

On the 23rd of September, 1831, the first 

boat arrived at Columbus by way of the canal. 

About eight o’clock in the evening, the firing 

of cannon announced the approach of the 

“Governor Brown” a canal boat launched at 

Circleville a few days previous, and neatly 

fitted up for an excursion of pleasure to this 

place, several of the most respectable citizens 

of Pickaway County being on board as 

passengers. The next morning at an early 

hour, a considerable number of ladies and 

gentlemen of Columbus repaired to the 

boat in order to pay their respects to the 

visitors…the party proceeded back to 

Circleville, accompanied a short distance by 

a respectable number of the citizens of 

Columbus, and the Columbus band of music. 

Longtime Columbus resident Emily 

Stewart later remembered the almost 

magical nature of the allure of the canal. 

“The first canal boats seemed like fairy 

palaces. They were painted white and the 

windows had green shutters and scarlet 

curtains. The inside panels of the cabin 

contained mirrors and pictures. The officers 

of the passenger boats were gentlemen… 

For years after the canal opened, the boats 

always came in with a band of music playing 

on board. The captain of the boat usually 

played the clarinet for the entertainment 

of the passengers…A trip to Europe now is 

nothing to a canal trip then…” 

Columbus was now more open to the 

world than it had ever been. And that 

world would soon be coming to Columbus. 

By 1834, Columbus had seen enough new 

people arrive by the canal and the National 

Road that the village of a few thousand 

legally became a city of more than 5,000 

inhabitants. With a newly elected and 

reorganized city council and mayor, 

Columbus was about to become a city in fact. 

✧ 

Left: When it was completed in 1835, the 

Greek Revival Kelley Mansion was the finest 

house in the city. Offered as collateral to 

secure Ohio’s debt in 1837, it became “the 

house that saved Ohio.” Threatened with 

destruction in 1963, its stones were 

numbered as the building was taken apart. 

The stones still sit—in a field near 

Cleveland—waiting to come home. 



Below: Alfred Kelley came to Columbus in 

1816—after serving a term as the first 

mayor of Cleveland—to serve in the Ohio 

General Assembly. He never went home. He 

ended a long career in 1859 serving as the 

Senator from central Ohio. He was the 

father of Ohio’s banking system, the 

superintendent of its canal system and a 

promoter of a number of railroads. 

He had a very busy life. 




4 7

C H A P T E R 

THE CITY CHALLENGED 1840-1865 

V I 

U P O N T H I S H O U S E … 

✧ 

This is the best early birdseye view of 

Columbus. Constructed with imagination by 

people making sketches on the ground and 

then lifting them and themselves above the 

city, this birdseye looks at Columbus from 

Goodale and High Streets in about 1854. 



July 4 has always been a day to do a little celebrating in Columbus, Ohio. But the celebration 

of July 4, 1839, was something of a wonder to behold. A large group of people consisting of bands 

of music, military companies and large numbers of people both on foot and on horseback marched 

and countermarched through the town until the entire group ended up on Statehouse Square at 

the northeast corner of what appeared to be a rather large hole in the ground. A closer examination 

would reveal it to be the basement and foundation of what must be a very large building. 

It was to be a very large building indeed. By 1836, only twenty years after the first Statehouse 

had been built on the corner of State and High Streets, a number of legislators and state officials 

had concluded that something should be done to replace the statehouse. As such things go, 

it took two years of internal and external lobbying until The Ohio General Assembly decided to 

act and authorize the construction of a new building. A contest with cash prizes of $500, $300 

and $200 for the best plan for a new building was won by Henry Walter. 


48

Walter’s design was breathtaking. Ohio, a 

new state with a small population—many of 

whom still lived in cabins—was proposing 

to build a new statehouse that would be 

second only to the United States Capitol in 

size and magnificence. Simply accepting such 

a plan, much less actually building it, was a 

confirmation of Ohio’s faith in its future. 

Now after a year of work, frugally 

undertaken by prison labor, the cornerstone 

was ready to be laid. The stone itself was a 

huge block of hollowed limestone more 

than six feet by three feet by two feet and 

euphemistically called “the coffin.” Filled 

with lead lined glass jars, the cornerstone 

contained copies of newspapers, public 

papers, local coinage and other documents. 

Ex-Governor Jeremiah Morrow gave 

the principal address of the day. He said 

in conclusion: 

And may the councils of truth and justice 

and public virtue reside in its halls; may discord 

and faction be put far from them; and 

may a free and united people who reared it, 

and whose temple it is, watch over and cherish 

within its walls the form and spirit of their 

republican institutions. And may the blessings 

of benign Providence, now and through all 

coming time, rest upon this people, and upon 

this house, the work of their hands. I now lay 

the cornerstone of the Capitol of Ohio. 

Would that it would have been that easy. 

The extraordinary and magnificent Ohio 

Statehouse was estimated to cost about 

$250,000 and take about two years to build. 

It would take twenty-two years and cost 

almost $1,500,000 to complete. It would 

take so long and cost so much for a number 

of reasons. First and foremost, many people 

C H A P T E R V I 

4 9

living elsewhere across Ohio knew that if 

this great building were ever completed, 

the capital city would never be moved to 

another town—perhaps their town. So much 

was done to delay and stop construction. And 

of course the delayers were right. Since the 

building was completed no one has seriously 

proposed moving the capital. 

Those disputes resolved, it still took a 

while to get the building built. This was 

mostly because the sponsors of the project, 

the Ohio General Assembly and the state’s 

elected officials, were hard people to please 

and often changed their minds. So the project 

went through numerous architects, engineers 

and construction managers. With all of the 

changes and delays, the building was still in 

need of a lot of work by the early 1850s. 

Then fortuitously, the old statehouse 

burned to the ground in a blatant case of 

arson for which no one was ever prosecuted. 

While local souvenir dealers made money 

selling miniatures of the old statehouse bell— 

made from the original broken bell of the 

destroyed building—work on the new statehouse 

suddenly became very busy indeed. 

By early 1857, the ugly board fence around 

the square to contain prison labor was gone, 

the older buildings were removed and the new 

statehouse was occupied after a grand ball in 

which guests danced till dawn. The building 

was not fully completed until early in 1861, 

when newly elected President Abraham 

Lincoln visited town on his way to his inauguration. 

It was Lincoln’s second visit to the statehouse. 

It would not be his last. But between 

Jeremiah Morrow’s benediction and Lincoln’s 

last visit a lot would happen in the capital city. 

A B U S Y T O W N 

O F N E W P E O P L E 

✧ 

Above: By 1855, there was a new 

Statehouse—as yet uncompleted—on the 

square. There is a Neil House Hotel to the 

right and a hay wagon at Broad and 

High Streets. 



Opposite, top: Completed in 1832, 

the new, improved Ohio Penitentiary was 

considerably larger and more orderly than 

its predecessor. And where else would one 

find a tree in the midst of the prison yard? 



Opposite, bottom: By 1856, Columbus and 

Franklin County were beginning to grow. 

That growth can be seen on this map with 

dozens of new towns and crossroads 

communities. The original map is more than 

five feet tall. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE FRANKLIN COUNTY 

ENGINEER’S OFFICE. 

In 1840, Columbus, Ohio, was a bustling 

city of 6,000 people and actually was several 

different towns all at the same time. On the 

one hand it was a center of transportation and 

trade. The arrival of the Ohio Canal and 

National Road had made the city the major 

market center of central Ohio. Early resident 

John Gill remembered many years later that, 

“In front of every store, was a post and rail for 

the convenience of the country people to 

hitch their horses when they came to town.” 

In fact the horses were so numerous, especially 

on weekends, that they were commonly 

called “the cavalry.” 

The National Road had come into 

Columbus on Main Street from the east and it 

was commonly assumed it would leave town 

the same way. This gave state officials a reason 

to move the overcrowded Ohio Penitentiary 

out into “the country” on Spring Street—a 

move accomplished in 1832. As it turned 

out the move could have been postponed. 

Columbus merchants and hotels—mostly 

located on High Street—successfully persuaded 

the army engineers charged with 

building a bridge across the Scioto to build it 

at Broad Street. So the National Road entered 

Columbus on Main Street, turned onto High 

Street and left town on Broad Street. 

It was at Broad Street and the Scioto River 

that the local canal agent had his office. By 

1840, the entire river front from Main Street 

to Spring Street was lined with canal boat 

wharfs and canal warehouses as well as 

foundries, factories and mills. 

While the original settlers of Columbus had 

liked the spacious lots along Front Street away 

from High Street, the arrival of coach and canal 

traffic made the whole area less desirable. 

Prominent families began to move further east 

along Broad, State, and Town Streets as well 

as north and south along High Street to the 

city limits at North Public Lane (Nationwide 

Boulevard) and South Public Lane (Livingston 


50


5 1

✧ 

Irish immigration to Columbus peaked in 

the 1840s as thousands fled the potato 

famine and came to America seeking a 

new life. Many of them found that life in the 

railyards north of the city. Saint Patrick’s 

Church was the beacon that drew the Irish 

faithful to worship in Irish Columbus. 


METROPOLITAN LIBRARY/JOHN CANADAY COLLECTION. 

Avenue). Less affluent residents found themselves 

increasingly pushed into inexpensive 

housing near the factories along the river or 

into the ravines that still knifed down to the 

river near Spring and Fulton Streets. It was 

near the south ravine that some of the black 

community of Columbus had something of a 

residential center in what was formally referred 

to as Negro Hollow and derisively in a more 

derogatory way. Most African-American residents 

of the city did not live in any one defined 

neighborhood before the Civil War but rather 

were dispersed throughout the city. 

Beginning in the 1830s large numbers of 

immigrants began to arrive in America from 

western Europe. The movement of new 

immigrants to America increased even more 

as revolutionary movements continued to 

sweep across the continent. While the new 

people came from virtually every country, the 

primary arrivals in America were from 

Ireland and Germany. 

The Irish had been under increasingly 

burdensome British governance for centuries 

and the promise of a new life in America was 

attractive. A massive potato famine in the 

1840s increased Irish immigration even 

more. Many of the new Irish immigrants 

found employment as unskilled workers on 

the Erie Canal and later on the canals in 

Ohio. Some of them died building the 

canals but others who survived stayed in 

Ohio when their work on the canals was 

done. The center of Irish immigration in 

Columbus was on the near north side along 

North Public Lane. By the 1850s, that street 

anchored by factories along the river on one 

end and St Patrick’s church on the other 

would come to be called “Irish Broadway.” 

The other major ethnic minority to come 

to Columbus in the years before the Civil War 

was the Germans. German immigration was 

more complicated than Irish immigration 

since Germany in its modern form did not 

exist until well after the American Civil War. 

German speaking immigrants to Columbus 

settled on the south end of the city and 

sorted themselves out by religion (Protestant, 

Catholic or Jewish), by geographic origins 

(Prussia, Bavaria or the Palatinate) or by 

occupation (brewery workers, trades, or 

crafts) to name just a few of the distinctions. 


52

The new immigrants settled north and 

south of the city limits for a simple reason— 

the land was cheap. By the 1850s, Columbus’ 

first railroad, the Columbus and Xenia, 

arrived in town and filled the near north side 

with noise, smoke, and traffic. There were 

many new jobs for Irish Columbus in the 

railyards but it was not a pretty part of town. 

In “Die Alte Sude Ende”, or the Old South 

End, the Germans had their own problems. 

The legendary south end smell—a mixture of 

the rather nasty detritus of Columbus drifting 

south along the river and the canal was complemented 

by really bad smelling tanneries 

and a literal open sewer carried in a trough 

from downtown over the top of the canal to 

empty into the river. Living on the south end 

required olfactory courage. 

But for all of this the new Irish and 

German communities genuinely liked the city 

and tried to fit in. It was not always easy. 

Louisa Frankenberg, a German immigrant, 

introduced the German concept of kindergartens 

to America in Columbus in the 

1830s. They were not all that successful and 

only really became popular after the 1850s. 

More troubling to the newcomers was the 

reaction of the American Party. Founded to, 

among other things, oppose unrestricted 

immigration, the American Party was also a 

secret society which instructed its members 

when questioned to only say “I know 

nothing.” Many immigrants came to feel that 

“Know Nothing” accurately described their 

American Party antagonists. 

And there was antagonism. When the 

Germans marched in 1855 to celebrate the 

Fourth of July, they came downtown armed 

to the teeth. Turning the corner from Town 

Street to High Street, rock throwing escalated 

to gunfire. The Germans fired back and one 

young rock thrower died. The incident was 

a turning point in Columbus as immigrants 

and natives tried from this point on to better 

tolerate one another. 

Such toleration was useful because 

Columbus and central Ohio was continuing 

to grow in the 1840s and 1850s and many of 

the new people as well as longtime residents 

were working one with another. 

While transportation, trade and manufacturing 

were continuing to expand, so too was 

government. Unlike some other states, Ohio in 

the 1830s made the decision to locate its major 

institutions for the treatment, care and correction 

of its citizens in the capital city. So in addition 

to the Penitentiary, which had been in the 

city since 1813, Columbus also became the 

home of treatment facilities for the deaf (1827), 

the blind (1837), and the mentally ill (1838). 

Other cities in Ohio would eventually become 

home to prisons and treatment facilities, but 

Columbus was always the headquarters for 

these services and would provide employment 

to a significant part of its population. 

While Columbus was able to settle its differences 

over ethnicity and the role of public 

and private employment with relative ease, 

other disputes were not so easily resolved. 

Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, Whigs and 

✧ 

Above: On the other end of the city, German 

Columbus was building its own community. 

The children of Stewart Avenue would 

become the civic leaders of twentieth 

century Columbus. 



Below: Part of the reason for German 

academic success was Louisa Frankenberg 

and her kindergartens of the 1850s. The 

idea soon spread to the rest of America. 




5 3

✧ 

Much of the success of Columbus in the 

1800s was due to the large institutions 

centered in the city. The treatment facilities 

for the blind, the deaf and the mentally ill 

combined with the prison to employ many 

and diversify the economy. The picture 

shows the many homes of the lunatic 

asylum before the Civil War. 



Democrats fought over political principles, 

while other local residents argued about the 

merits of women’s rights, the value of temperance, 

and the importance of public education. 

But the issue that increasingly provoked 

the most controversy was slavery. Slavery had 

been prohibited north of the Ohio River by 

the Ordinance of 1787. But many residents of 

central Ohio had arrived in the area from 

the South, still had relatives in the South 

and felt that slavery had a role in American 

life. Other residents of central Ohio strongly 

believed that slavery was just plain wrong. 

The most adamant among them felt slavery 

to be an abomination and called themselves 

Abolitionists. Their opponents, who really 

felt slavery was a necessary part of American 

life, came to be called Fire-Eaters. 

Very few people in central Ohio were 

either Abolitionists or Fire–Eaters. But the 

central reason for their antagonism one to the 

other was quite present. It was called the 

Underground Railroad. 

The Underground Railroad was neither 

underground nor a railroad. Rather it was a network 

of trails and safe lodgings that permitted 

runaway slaves to escape to freedom in Canada. 

Driving through one of the small towns near 

Columbus, one is tempted to believe that many 

older houses were stops on the Underground 

Railroad. Most of them were not. After the 

passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, 

most Northerners could be fined and jailed 

for harboring a runaway. Remarkably, protest 

against the system increased, and many houses 

did become stops on the Underground 

Railroad. Several prominent white Columbus 

families—the Neils, the Deshlers and the 

Westwaters—were participants in the system, 

as were black families like the Poindexters, 

Jenkins and Wards. There are several places in 

Columbus that were stops on the Underground 

Railroad and which are still standing today. 

They include the Kelton House on East Town 

Street and the Southwick, Good & Fortkamp 

Funeral Chapel on North High Street. 


54

In the years since the Missouri Compromise 

of 1820, America’s political leaders had struggled 

to find enough common ground to hold 

the country together. And generally they had 

succeeded. But each time a new compromise 

was needed, it was increasingly difficult to 

find agreement. 

By the mid 1850s, the whole political 

structure of the country was beginning to 

change. The Whig Party of Henry Clay and 

Daniel Webster was falling apart. The 

Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson was 

increasingly becoming the party of the South. 

And, by 1854, a new coalition had begun to 

piece itself together from former Whigs and a 

variety of small independent political movements. 

It called itself the Republican Party 

and ran a candidate for President, General 

John Charles Fremont, the Pathfinder, in 

1856, on a platform opposed to the extension 

of slavery to the territories. Fremont lost but 

gathered a respectable number of votes for a 

new man and a new party. 

As the election of 1860 approached, a 

number of major figures in the Republican 

Party—Governor Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, 

Governor William Seward of New York and 

others sought the Presidency. In the end, a 

divided Republican Party chose an Illinois 

prairie politician named Abraham Lincoln as 

its candidate. Running against an even more 

divided Democratic Party, Lincoln surprisingly 

won the election. Much of the South was 

astonished and appalled. 

Abraham Lincoln arrived in Columbus, 

Ohio, by train on February 13, 1861, on his 

way to Washington D.C., to be inaugurated as 

the sixteenth President of the United States. 

He had been in Columbus once before, in 

1859, and had spoken briefly to a small group 

of friends and supporters at the Statehouse. 

Now he was back to briefly visit Columbus 

in a more troubling time. Several states had 

already seceded from the Union and several 

more soon would follow. While waiting to 

speak to the Ohio General Assembly, Lincoln 

sat at the side of Governor William Dennison’s 

desk in the governor’s office—a desk and an 

office still in use today—and learned that he 

had officially been elected President by the 

Electoral College. 

After addressing the legislature, he walked 

to the east steps of the statehouse and met 

with several people who had been patiently 

waiting for some time to see him. He spoke 

briefly to the group: 

The General Assembly of Ohio has just 

done me the honor to receive me, and hear a 

few broken remarks from myself…Knowing 

as I do that any crowd, drawn together as 

this has been, is made up of citizens near 

about, and that in this county of Franklin 

there is great difference of political sentiment, 

and those agreeing with me having a little of 

the shortest row, (laughter) from this and the 

circumstances I have mentioned, I infer that 

you do me the honor to meet me here without 

distinction of party. This is as it should 

be…I am doubly thankful that you have 

appeared here to give me this greeting. It is 

not much for me, for I shall very soon pass 

away from you, but we have a large country 

and a large future before us, and the 

manifestations of good-will towards the 

government, and the affection for the union 

which you may exhibit are of immense value 

to you and your posterity forever. (Applause) 

In this point of view it is that I thank you 

most heartily, for the exhibition you have 

given me. And with this allow me to wish you 

an affectionate farewell. 

✧ 

Above: Columbus was a major switching 

station on the Underground Railroad. 

Neither underground nor a railroad, the 

network helped hundreds escape to freedom. 

The home of Fernando Cortez Kelton on 

East Town Street was a “stop” on the 

Underground Railroad. It is now a 

house museum. 



Below: One conductor on the Underground 

Railroad was James Preston Poindexter. 

Barber, scholar and minister, Poindexter 

was the first African-American to serve on 

Columbus city council and the school board. 




5 5

✧ 

Abraham Lincoln visited Columbus on 

several occasions. After a stop in 1859, 

Lincoln stopped in Columbus again on his 

way to his inauguration. He spoke to the 

legislature and to the public. In Columbus, 

Lincoln learned that he had indeed been 

certified as the winner of the 1860 election. 

He left Columbus with some states in 

secession and others about to join them. 

Soon there would be war. 


Two months later, the “manifestations of 

good will” proved to be insufficient. Southern 

troops opened fire on Fort Sumter, South 

Carolina, on April 12, 1861, and America 

was at war with itself. It would prove to be 

the deadliest and most devastating conflict 

in American history. It was a war that would 

change America forever and Ohio and 

Columbus would have much to do with it. 

T H E C I V I L W A R I N 

C E N T R A L O H I O 

In the beginning, few people really 

thought the war would last all that long. 

The North outnumbered the South by more 

than two to one. Most of the industrial might 

of America lay in the North and much of its 

best agricultural land was there. 

Recognizing that the 

seceding states posed a 

challenge the small 

American regular army 

could not meet, and 

unwilling to recognize 

southern states as having 

left the Union, 

President Lincoln called 

for 75,000 volunteers 

for three months to put 

down “combinations to 

powerful to suppress” 

by normal means. 

The response across the north was overwhelming. 

Thousands of men left their 

homes and flocked to the cities. Ohio alone 

soon had enough volunteers to meet half of 

the President’s needs. These men needed 

to be uniformed, armed and trained. But for 

the moment they simply needed to be fed 

and housed. That in itself proved to be a 

challenge. Men were housed in every public 

building in the city, in the Statehouse 

and even aboard canal boats in the 

Scioto River. 

In 1851, Dr. Lincoln Goodale had given 

Columbus its first park, a wooded site on 

the near north side that came to be called 

Goodale Park. Now in the spring of 1861, 

Goodale Park was commandeered to become 

Camp Jackson, a mobilization center for 

Union troops. Trees were removed and buildings 

were quickly erected. But Camp Jackson 

soon found itself to be much too small to 

meet the needs of the huge number of men 

arriving in the city to serve. 

Later, in 1861, a much larger site of several 

hundred acres was selected on the far west 

side of the city between Broad Street on the 

north and Sullivant Avenue on the south. 

Honoring former Governor Salmon P. Chase, 

the post would come to be called Camp Chase. 

Camp Chase would become a major mobilization 

and training center housing more 

than 26,000 Union troops. And it was not 

the only military base in the city. The existing 

arsenal and Columbus Barracks were 

increased in size and new installations named 

Camp Thomas, Camp Lew Wallace and Tod 

Barracks were established. Farther up the 

road in Delaware, a training camp for United 

States Colored Troops would be built in 

1863. Columbus and central Ohio became an 

armed camp. 

The war did not go well for the North. 

Despite its greater size and economic base, 

the North did not have all that much of 

an advantage at the outset. Both sides had 

large untrained armies. The South had a 

somewhat more experienced officer corps, 

shorter supply lines and the high morale 

that came with defending one’s home from 

invasion. For the first two years of the war, 

Mr. Lincoln had a difficult time finding good 

generals—with one notable exception. In the 

west, Ohioan Ulysses S. Grant—ably assisted 

by Ohioans William T. Sherman and Philip 

Sheridan—was winning battles. 

Needing a place to put the prisoners those 

battles produced, a Confederate prison camp— 

designed for 2,000 men—was attached to 

Camp Chase. By 1864, More than 10,000 

men were living there. More than 2,300 of 

them are still buried there in one of the 

largest Confederate cemeteries in the North. 

A Confederate Memorial Day service is held 

there each year on a Sunday in June after 

June 3—the birthday of Confederate President 

Jefferson Davis. 

Ohio would provide more men to the 

Union Army as a percentage of its population 

than any other state, prompting President 


56

2,400 Confederate cavalrymen. His purpose 

was to draw away Union troops from other 

battlegrounds. In this effort, he succeeded 

admirably as he was soon being pursued by 

more than 20,000 rather determined Union 

soldiers. Checked in his attempt to cross 

the Ohio back into Kentucky at a sharp 

little battle at Buffington Island, Morgan 

turned back north until he and his men were 

surrounded and forced to surrender. 

✧ 


In 1861, Columbus, a city of 18,000, 

saw the emergence of Camp Chase—a 

mobilization center of 26,000 Union troops. 

This birdseye view shows the camp and its 

Confederate prison camp at the upper left of 

the picture. 



Lincoln at one point to say “Ohio has saved 

the Union!” Around 320,000 men served 

from Ohio in the Union Army. More than 

5,000 of those soldiers were free black men. 

Some 35,000 of those 320,000 men died— 

more than ten percent of the men who 

served. Thousands more were seriously 

injured and permanently disabled. It was 

a costly price and one that touched every 

community in the state. 

Having said that, most of the fighting was 

done in places rather far from Ohio—at least 

until 1863. In May 1863, General John Hunt 

Morgan crossed the Ohio River into Indiana 

and then southern Ohio with more than 

The Camp Chase confederate prison was 

built in 1862 and was designed to hold 

2,000 men. By 1864, it held 10,000. 

Twenty-three hundred of them are still there 

in one of the largest Confederate cemeteries 

in the North. 



There were no battles in Columbus in the 

Civil War. But John Hunt Morgan, the rebel 

raider who brought 2,400 Confederate 

cavalry into the state, was caught and 

imprisoned in the “escape-proof” Ohio 

Penitentiary. It took Morgan and his officers 

six weeks to escape in one of the more 

ingenious jailbreaks in American history. 




5 7

✧ 

Abraham Lincoln’s last visit to Columbus 

came in 1865 after his assassination. 

The Lincoln funeral train stopped in 

Columbus for one day and more than 

50,000 people filed past the casket in the 

rotunda for a last look at the President. 

A city divided by war was reunited by the 

last casualty of that war. 



Most of Morgan’s men were sent to the 

Camp Chase prison where many of them died. 

Morgan and several of his officers were housed 

in the “escape-proof” Ohio Penitentiary. It took 

Morgan and a few of his men a little more 

than six weeks to escape in one of the more 

ingenious breakouts in the long history of the 

Penitentiary. Changing to civilian clothes, 

Morgan and a friend walked to the Union 

Station and bought a ticket to Cincinnati. 

John Hunt Morgan continued to serve in the 

Confederate army until his death in 1864. 

While Union sentiment was strong in 

central Ohio, it would be incorrect to assume 

everyone was dismayed by Morgan’s escape. 

A significant part of the population of central 

Ohio did not approve of Mr. Lincoln or his 

war. Samuel Medary was one of the most vocal 

opponents of the conflict. A longtime prominent 

resident of Columbus, Medary had been 

a Columbus newspaper editor and territorial 

governor in the Buchanan Administration. 

During the war he edited a newspaper called 

The Crisis which bitterly opposed the war. 

In addition a number of other opponents of 

the war also made themselves heard and 

opposed Lincoln’s re-election in 1864. 

But with strong support from soldiers voting 

in the field, Lincoln was re-elected. With 

General Grant’s victories in the east and General 

Sherman’s successful March to the Sea in 

Georgia, the war was effectively brought to an 

end with the surrender of the Army of Northern 

Virginia on April 9, 1865. Five days later, a 

festive spirit in the victorious North was chilled 

with the assassination of President Lincoln. 

For the next two weeks, the Lincoln funeral 

procession moved its way west from 

Washington D.C., to Lincoln’s home in 

Springfield, Illinois. On April 29, the Lincoln 

funeral train arrived in Columbus. 

Local newspaperman William T. Coggeshall 

described the scene as the President’s casket 

was placed on a great funeral hearse drawn by 

six white horses. 

The hearse was the great center of attraction. 

All along the line of march it was 

preceded by hundreds of all ages, sexes and 

conditions, striving to keep as near as possible 

to the solemn structure…Every window, 

housetop, balcony and every inch of sidewalk 

on either side of High Street was densely 

crowded with a mournful throng assembled 

to pay homage to departed worth. In all the 

enormous crowd, silence reigned… 

Coggeshall later described the scene after 

Lincoln’s casket had been placed in the 

Statehouse rotunda. 

By actual count, it was found that over 

eight thousand passed in and out every hour 

from half after nine until four o’clock, and 

making due allowance ‘tis thought that over 

fifty thousand people viewed the remains in 

that time… 

With the Lincoln funeral, some of the 

healing of a country torn apart by war finally 

began. For Columbus and Ohio as well as 

America, a new time was beginning. 


58

C H A P T E R 

V I I 

RAILROAD TOWN 1865-1900 

T H E G R O W T H O F R A I L R O A D S 

After the Civil War, Columbus, Ohio, grew at a remarkable rate. After doubling in size during 

the four year conflict, the town of 31,000 people in 1870 would become a major American city 

of more than 125,000 by 1900. 

Of course, Columbus was not the only city in the Midwest to see this kind of rapid expansion. 

Chicago would become the second largest city in America in the same period and other major 

Midwestern towns like Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit saw growth even more spectacular 

than that of Columbus. Still, most Midwestern capital cities like Madison, Wisconsin, Lansing 

Michigan, and Springfield, Illinois, remained quite small. Indianapolis and Columbus on the 

other hand became major industrial cities. 

How and why did this happen? While the story of each city is a bit different, there are some 

common reasons for the growth of the Midwest in this period. In a few words, the region was a 

place with a lot of good fortune and an Industrial Revolution. And each contributed to the other. 

And in a way it all came about because of the War Between the States that had just come to an end. 

During the Civil War, the leadership of the North, both military and civilian, quickly realized 

that to win the war, the nation’s armies would require immense quantities of food, clothing and 

weaponry. And while much of this might be readily produced by northern factories, getting it to 

the places it needed to be might be difficult. Many parts of the North, even in 1861, still had only 

the most rudimentary of railroad lines. And the lines in the South generally ran east and west 

rather than north and south. 

✧ 

Completed in 1874, the second Columbus 

Union Depot opened for service in 1875. 

It replaced an older barn-like structure that 

had served the city since the first railroad 

came to town in 1850. 


METROPOLITAN LIBRARY 

C H A P T E R V I I 

5 9

To remedy all of these problems, the federal 

government went into the railroad construction 

business. During the war a lot of old track 

was repaired and reset to a uniform gauge or 

distance between the rails. More importantly, 

hundreds of miles of new track were laid to 

many places that had never seen a railroad 

before. One of the prime beneficiaries of all of 

this railroad largesse was the State of Ohio. 

By the end of the war, thanks to government 

construction, Ohio and nearby Indiana 

had one of the most complex and sophisticated 

rail networks that one could find anywhere 

in the world. In the center of 

the state of Ohio and served 

by more than fifteen of these 

rail lines was the capital— 

Columbus, Ohio. If anyone 

wished to ship goods in Ohio 

after the Civil War, inevitably 

some of these goods would 

pass through Columbus. Part 

of the growth of Columbus after the Civil War 

can be directly traced to this railroad expansion. 

New lines entered the city and old ones 

expanded their repair shops and storage facilities. 

By 1875 the drafty old wooden barn that 

had served as the city’s railroad station since 

1850 was torn down and replaced with a new 

multistory brick Italianate terminal and office 

building. Virtually every picture taken of the 

new terminal admiringly shows its front façade 

and adjacent web of tracks. What these pictures 

do not show is what the average traveler 

or railroad employee saw when they stood at 

the front door of the station and looked west. 

They saw the North Graveyard whose weather 

beaten white fence did little to keep local pigs 

and cattle from wandering among the tombstones. 

It was not a sight to encourage the 

prospective traveler. Fortunately—and perhaps 

with a gentle nudge from the neighbors—the 

cemetery closed in 1876 and the 

site—with at least some of the graves 

removed—would become the home of the 

immensely more attractive North Market. 

The railroads existing at the end of the war 

made Columbus into a commercial center and 

a transport hub. But the old railroads did not 

make Columbus into a factory town. For that 

something new was needed. That something 

new was yet another railroad. 

In 1870, The Hocking Valley Railroad ran 

from Columbus into the heart of southeast Ohio. 

Its owners proudly proclaimed, 

In addition to coal, the Hocking Valley 

together with the counties lying south of 

it…are rich in iron ore of superior quality. 

Two furnaces are now in operation on the 

line of this road and an almost unlimited 

supply of iron, coal and limestone in the 

immediate vicinity will lead to the speedy 

erection of others… 


60

Built with Columbus capital, the Hocking 

Valley Railroad permitted great quantities of 

coal, iron and timber to be readily and 

cheaply available to Columbus businesses. 

Using these cheap resources and the inexpensive 

labor of local workers—native or immigrant—Columbus 

was now in position to 

make many things inexpensively, sell them 

at high prices and make a lot of people a 

lot of money. In short order that is exactly 

what happened. 

T H E R I S E O F I N D U S T R Y 

A few examples will illustrate how the 

process worked. 

A number of older businesses simply continued 

to do what they had always done but 

now they could ship their product further 

and less expensively on the new rail lines. 

Some businesses like the old agricultural 

implement and hand tool companies now 

could ship their product longer distances to 

new markets. The same was true of local 

breweries whose product—while perishable—could 

be shipped farther. 

Other businesses took advantage of the 

extraordinarily cheap resources of the 

Hocking Valley. One of these was the carriage 

trade. People had been making buggies, 

carriages and wagons in Columbus since the 

city was founded. But the custom-made 

hand-tooled product was expensive and time 

consuming to produce. Cheap wood and iron 

meant that more people could make more 

buggies more cheaply than had previously 

been the case. 

The people who did it best were the Peters 

brothers. George and Oscar Peters had grown 

up working in their grandfather’s really disgusting 

tannery along the creek that raced 

through a ravine to the river south of the 

Courthouse and north of the German community. 

Desiring to improve themselves they went 

into the leather trunk and carriage business 

and did well but wished to do even better. 

A local history of a century ago noted that: 

…George M., the first son, learned the 

carriage-making business of the Messrs. 

Booth, of Columbus, and from that circumstance 

and his natural inventive genius, he 

originated the Columbus Buggy Company 

and the Peters Dash Company. 

With the help of promoter and financier 

C. D. Firestone, the Peters brothers went into 

the carriage business on a grand scale. Using 

assembly line methods pioneered in the 

firearms trade, Columbus Buggy used inexpensive 

materials, labor and transportation to 

become one of largest buggy companies in 

✧ 

Opposite, top: Replacing the North 

Graveyard in 1875, the North Market was 

one of several around the city. Shown in 

1888, the original North Market burned in 

1948 and was replaced for a number of 

years by a Quonset building. The Market 

has been at its current location since 1995. 



Opposite, bottom: Directly across the street 

from Union Station was the North 

Graveyard. Established in 1813, the city 

had been trying to close it for years. 

The new Union Station provided the final 

incentive and the cemetery was closed. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF SCHLEGEL, DONALD M., 

THE COLUMBUS CITY GRAVEYARDS, (1985). 

Below: Located between the railroad and 

Fourth Street on the near north side, the 

Kilbourne and Jacobs Manufacturing 

Company was formed in 1881 and merged 

hardware and tool companies formed earlier 

by James Kilbourne and Felix Jacobs. 




6 1

✧ 

Above: Located at 482 North High Street 

just north of the rail yards, the Buckeye 

Buggy Company operated from 1882 to 

1910 and helped make Columbus 

“the Buggy Capital of the World.” 



Right: M. C. Lilley & Co., manufacturers of 

military and society goods. 



Below: The Jeffrey Manufacturing Company. 




62

America. And they were not alone. By 1900, 

there were twenty two buggy companies 

in Columbus and one buggy in every five 

made anywhere was made in Columbus. The 

inability of the company to effectively 

compete in the auto industry would eventually 

lead to its demise. But many people in 

that industry—including Henry Ford and 

C. D. Firestone’s cousin Harvey learned a lot 

from Columbus Buggy. 

Other Columbus companies catered directly 

to the needs of the very companies producing 

the raw materials that were transforming 

a continent. One of them was the Jeffrey 

Manufacturing Company. Joseph Jeffrey was a 

local banker in the 1870s who became interested 

in a local inventor’s coal mining machine. 

Eventually Jeffrey acquired the patents for the 

machine and launched a business to make 

them. By the turn of the century, Jeffrey 

Manufacturing was one of the largest producers 

of coal mining equipment in the world. 

There were also people who simply had 

a good idea and found Columbus the place 

to let it grow. Captain M. C. Lilley returned 

from the Civil War and looked around for a 

business to make his fortune. Unsuccessful at 

first, he began to notice that more and more 

men were joining lodges and other secret 

societies. Most of these groups had uniforms, 

commemorative swords and other weaponry, 

badges, sashes and ribbons galore. What 

they did not have was a central place to buy 

this equipage. The Lilley Regalia Company 

solved that problem with its large warehouse 

and elaborate catalogue. It soon became the 

largest regalia house in the nation. 

And then there were the dreamers and their 

dreams. Dr. Samuel B. Hartman was an orthopedic 

surgeon who was doing well but not all 

that well in practice in Columbus, Ohio. One 

day, the ghost of an Indian chief came to Dr. 

Hartman in a dream and revealed the source of 

all disease. The source was catarrh or congestion. 

But this was not the simple sinus catarrh 

that one often had in the morning. One could 

have catarrh in any part of the body—catarrh 

of the eye, the nose, the ear etc. And the only 

cure was a bottle or two of Dr. Hartman’s 

famous formula. He called the medicine 

Peruna after the chief who gave it to him. 

The concoction was largely flavorings 

laced with alcohol and was marketed with 

paid testimonials from retired Civil War 

officers and other public figures. People 

bought the product, believed in it and used it 

for years. Eventually the good doctor was 

told in so many words to stop production or 

open a distillery. He took the alcohol out but 

continued to sell the product successfully for 

a number of years. 

C O N V E N T I O N 

T O W N 

By the 1880s Columbus no longer looked 

the way it had appeared at the end of the 

American Civil War. The downtown was 

larger and more diversified. Columbus now 

had theatres, galleries, a museum, and quite 

nice restaurants near the Statehouse. The 

wealthiest people had begun to move away 

from Statehouse Square onto Broad Street, 

Mount Vernon Avenue or Bryden road. And 

the poor of Columbus continued to live 

together in their own communities—only 

now they were not as close to the affluent 

neighborhoods as they once were. 

In 1886 the American Federation of Labor 

was founded in Columbus. In 1890, the 

United Mine Workers of America was founded 

here in a grand convention. One might 

wonder if these two great organizations were 

founded here because Columbus was a 

hotbed of unionism. 

✧ 

Above: Dr. Samuel Hartman was a 

practicing physician who later claimed to 

have learned the secret of a wonderful 

medicine from the ghost of an Indian chief 

named Peruna. Pe-ru-na became a 

legendary patent medicine and made 

Dr. Hartman a very wealthy man. 



Below: By 1888, East Broad Street, with its 

four lines of trees, was one of the most 

fashionable avenues in America and was 

featured in Harper’s Magazine. 



6 3


64

✧ 

Opposite, top: Central Market in 1873. 

The market was built in 1850 and served 

the city until it was removed in 1966. The 

upper floor served as city council chambers 

until a new city hall was completed in 1872. 



Opposite, bottom: The Grand Army of the 

Republic, the Union Army veterans’ 

organization arrived in Columbus in 1888 

with 250,000 members, families and 

friends. The parade of 90,000 veterans was 

the largest since the end of the Civil War. 



Not really. They were founded here because 

the town was a good place to hold a convention. 

How really good the town was at this 

sort of thing was tested in 1888. 

In 1888, Columbus decided to throw a 

party. It was a party like no other and it was a 

party with a panache not often seen elsewhere. 

But mostly, it was a demonstration of how 

well Columbus, with its excellent system of 

transportation, could easily host a convention. 

Ohio in 1888 was celebrating (a year late) 

the centennial of the Northwest Ordinance 

of 1787. To complement the celebration, 

it was decided to ask the Grand Army of 

the Republic—the Union Army veterans’ 

group—if it would like to hold its meeting 

here. The GAR, one of the largest and most 

powerful organizations in America, said 

yes and began to hold planning meetings. 

The meetings were necessary because in the 

Above: Paul Mone and his family operated 

a small grocery store at 84 North High 

Street from 1873 to 1898. 




6 5

✧ 

Founded as the Ohio Agricultural & 

Mechanical College in 1870, the school was 

opened in 1873 and graduated its first class 

in 1878—all six of them. In the same year 

it would become The Ohio State University. 



end, 90,000 veterans and 160,000 of their 

relatives and friends arrived in Columbus, 

a town of 80,000. To put this in perspective, 

it would be as if 2,000,000 people showed up 

suddenly today and wanted to stay for a week 

in Columbus. 

What does one do with so many people? 

In the first place one uses every park, public 

building and recreation center in the city. 

When that space is gone, one erects large tent 

cities near the downtown. 

The highlight of the encampment was the 

procession of the Union veterans down High 

Street in the largest parade of its kind since 

the Grand Review at the end of the Civil War. 

A newspaper of the period described the march. 

The procession which inaugurated the 

22nd National Encampment was a magnificent 

and incomparable spectacle…The 

Capital City was in holiday attire. Every 

dwelling, though ever so humble, bore some 

mark of respect to the veterans. On the 

principal streets, all of the business houses 

and private residences were decorated…The 

veterans marched with firm step, and in the 

ranks were many soldiers who would answer 

the call to war again if the country needed 

their services. 

With all of these conventions and the new 

business that went with it, it was easy to 

believe that Columbus could only improve in 

the next century. And perhaps it might, but 

first the 1890s had to be survived. In 1893 

the nation entered a period of economic 

depression and business failure. 

The bottom fell out of a number of 

Columbus businesses and only the strongest 

industries—the railroads, tool companies, 

steel mills and the buggy businesses—survived 

unscathed. And then in 1898, just as 

the city was beginning to recover from four 

years of economic depression, the entire west 

side of the city was inundated in a flood. It 

was not the worst flood in the city’s history 

but it was quite damaging none the less. 

But all in all as the century ended and 

Columbus and central Ohio prepared for a 

new era, the city had reason to feel good 

about itself. It had participated in the largest 

economic transformation in the history of 

the world to that time—the Industrial 

Revolution—at the very center of its development 

and the city had come away successful. 

For all of that, Columbus did not end the century 

a totally industrial city like Cleveland, 

Akron, Youngstown or Toledo. It had maintained 

its diversified economy with people 


66

working in commerce, trade, and transport as 

well as industry. And it had sponsored the 

successful beginning of what was then a small 

but important new state institution. 

In 1870, William Neil, the Old Stage King 

had died, six years after the death of his 

beloved wife Hannah. His great farm—the 

old Vance farm—became available three 

miles north of the city. The farm was acquired 

and became the new home of the Ohio 

Agricultural and Mechanical College. Opening 

in 1873, it graduated its first class of six 

students—women as well as men—in 1878. 

By 1900 it was somewhat larger but still 

not all that great in size or influence. As The 

Ohio State University, the new school—like 

the town where it was born—was about to 

be transformed. 

✧ 

Above: The West Side of Columbus had 

been flooded many times since the city was 

founded. The flood of 1898 caused extensive 

damage but little loss of life. 



Below: 1898 flood rescue. 




6 7

C H A P T E R 

V I I I 

A CITY OF LIGHT 1900-1930 

✧ 

Completed in 1895, the Wyandotte 

Building was designed by Chicago architect 

Daniel Burnham and became the city’s 

first skyscraper. 



A R C H 

C I T Y 

If a person who had grown up in Columbus in the years after the Civil War had left the town 

and not had a chance to return until the turn of the twentieth century, an evening walk down 

High Street from the train station to one’s hotel would have been nothing short of astonishing. 

The entire face of downtown had changed. 


68

✧ 

Top: The third Union Station was designed 

by Daniel Burnham in Beaux Arts tradition. 

The station was completed in 1897 and the 

Arcade facing High Street was opened 

in 1899. 



Middle: By 1900, Columbus was known as 

the “Arch City.” The arches had originally 

been erected in wood with gaslights in 1888. 

They were replaced by metal arches lit by 

electricity and were the symbol of the city 

until 1914. 



Bottom: High Street at night. 


METROPOLITAN LIBRARY/LAURA KUHNERT COLLECTION. 

C H A P T E R V I I I 

6 9

✧ 

Top: Looking east on Broad Street from 

Ninth Street. 



Above: In the early twentieth century, 

Columbus became a city of “streetcar 

suburbs.” The electrified streetcar means 

that many people could now live miles from 

where they worked. This is Neil Avenue 

looking north from Wilber in 1907. 



Columbus was no longer a quiet country 

capital city with people’s homes scattered 

around Statehouse Square and along High 

Street amidst the stores and warehouses of a 

Midwestern commercial center. Now downtown 

consisted of a true central business 

district with a number of multistory buildings 

and bustling crowds of people on the 

sidewalks and in the stores. 

The larger buildings had come about 

because of a significant number of advances in 

building construction. Stronger types of brick 

and better cement to hold the bricks together 

were reinforced with cast iron frames that 

permitted buildings to rise to much greater 

heights. But even with those advances it still 

took some time before buildings got to be 

much taller than five or six stories tall in most 

American cities. Few people wished to walk 

up more than a few flights of steps to do their 

business. The development of safe and efficient 

elevators changed all of that. In 1894, 

Daniel Burnham of Chicago designed and 

supervised the construction of the first 

“skyscraper” in Columbus, the Wyandotte 

Building, near Broad and High Streets. It 

would be the first of many that would soon 

begin to rise near the heart of downtown. 

But as a traveler walked down High Street 

from the rather elaborate and somewhat 

pretentious Beaux Arts Union Station Arcade 

toward one of the greater or lesser hotels in 

downtown, the main thing that one would 

have noticed as night came on was not the 

buildings or the theatres or the restaurants or 

the stores—all of which stayed open quite 

late to catch people leaving town for home. 

One would have noticed the lighted arches 

which marched down High Street all the way 

through the middle of town. And moving up 

the street toward the station were streetcars 

lighted both inside and out with electric 

lights. If anyone had any lingering doubt why 

Columbus was called the “Arch City”, this 

sight certainly dispelled it. 

Columbus had first seen lighted arches in 

1888 for the annual convention of the Grand 

Army of the Republic. Concerned that the 

streets of Columbus were dimly lit by oil 

lamps at most corners, the city built elaborate 

wooden arches lit by gas lights to illuminate 

the downtown and provide a new level of 

security and safety to the more than 250,000 

people who came to town. 

Eventually those arches were replaced by 

metal arches illuminated by electric lights provided 

by the Columbus Railway Power and 

Light Company. Many years later people who 

grew up in Columbus would remember how the 

lighted arches—combined with lighted stores 

like the F& R Lazarus Company created an 

effect that was often described as a “fairyland.” 

But while electric power was changing 

the way the world was perceived, a term just 

as important in the power company’s name 

was “railway.” 

In 1900, Columbus was still the center of 

things in central Ohio. This was the place 

where people came to shop, to work, and to 

be entertained. But increasingly a larger and 

larger number of people were not living in 

downtown. They were living one, two and 

three miles away from downtown and regularly 

coming downtown from their homes. This 

would not have been all that possible for any 

but the most athletic only a few decades before. 


70

But now a truly suburban lifestyle was possible 

for large numbers of people. And it was 

all due to the electrified streetcar. There had 

been streetcars in Columbus since 1863, but 

they were horse drawn and rather slow. Now a 

unified, electrified streetcar system served 

most of the city. A person could make a daily 

commute to downtown in less than half an 

hour. All along the streetcar lines, new neighborhoods—streetcar 

suburbs—were springing 

up in every direction from downtown. To keep 

people using the cars throughout the day and 

night, the streetcar companies built elaborate 

amusement parks at the end of the lines. 

The largest and most famous of the 

Columbus attractions was Olentangy Park 

along High Street to the north of The Ohio 

State University. With its rather elaborate 

grounds and a large number of rides and 

attractions, the park had something for 

everyone. A locomotive engineer, in town for 

a convention in 1908 was suitably impressed. 

“Olentangy Park is a very complete place of 

amusement and has a fine auditorium…” 

The people living in the new suburbs were 

not all well-to-do. Industrial America was 

creating a new class of people to manage its 

factories and provide the teachers, doctors, 

lawyers and other professionals who also 

were needed. This new middle class were the 

primary residents of the new neighborhoods 

that one began to find in the new communities 

along the streetcar lines. 

Urbanization, industrialization, electrification 

and new forms of transportation were creating 

new cities of challenge and opportunity. 

And many people continued to flock to 

these new urban areas to seek a new home 

and new future. 

Between the end of the Civil War and 

the early twentieth century millions of new 

people came to America from abroad. Many 

of those people went to the great industrial 

cities of eastern and Midwestern America 

where jobs were plentiful for the newcomers. 

By 1900 immigrants constituted a significant 

proportion of the populations of places like 

Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago. Such was 

not so much the case in cities like Columbus 

where industry constituted a smaller percentage 

of the work force. 

But while most of the newcomers to 

Columbus in the early twentieth century 

were from rural Ohio and neighboring states, 

certain parts of town developed a decided 

ethnicity. On the far south end of the city, 

immigrants from Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, 

Poland and elsewhere in Europe found jobs 

in the steel mills and other factories that had 

emerged in the 1890s. The area came to be 

called Steelton. 

The old factory district, located along the 

Scioto River near downtown, was sitting on 

land that had become too expensive to be 

used for factory purposes. Just as new industries 

moved south to cheaper available land, 

so too did they move north along the rail 

lines serving the city. 

✧ 

Above: The riverfront, 1908. 


METROPOLITAN LIBRARY 

Below: The South End of Columbus rapidly 

became a melting pot in the late 1800s as 

hundreds of immigrants from eastern and 

southern Europe sought work in the 

factories of what came to be 

called “Steelton.” 


METROPOLITAN LIBRARY/LAURA KUHNERT COLLECTION. 


7 1

Along North Fourth Street, a whole line of 

factories provided jobs to recent immigrants 

as did another set of factories along the 

Olentangy River north of the downtown. All 

of these new industries complemented older 

factories and shops that continued to operate 

in old Franklinton and near the railyards 

north of downtown. The African-American 

community, which had begun to form a 

business district near Long and High Street in 

the 1870s, also saw its developing neighborhood 

shifted to the east with the expansion of 


Shoehorned in between the downtown and 

the new industrial and residential areas 

around the city were the neighborhoods of the 

less fortunate. On the north side, a neighborhood 

called Flytown served as a point of entry 

for many of the people newly arrived in the 

city. An area called Middletown near the eastern 

edge of Old Franklinton and another area 

called the Badlands on the east side of the 

central business district served the same purpose. 

In these marginal areas, one could find 

inexpensive housing and a wide variety of 

legal—and some not so legal amusements. 

Columbus as the Arch City took some getting 

used to—even by people who had not left 

and returned several years later. Cities in their 

nature are cauldrons of change and innovation. 

And the bigger a city becomes, the more 

rapid and diverse that change becomes. And 

with that change and diversity also comes a 

certain fragility. 

Columbus had seen a modest amount of 

labor unrest over the years. But most strikes 

tended to be limited in both time and effect 

on the general population. That had certainly 

been the case with the strikes by streetcar 

workers. But this lack of disruption was due 

to the fact that most people did not use the 

streetcars all that often. All of that had 

changed by 1910, when a newly formed 

union of streetcar employees decided to go 

out on strike. Now, in a city full of streetcar 

suburbs, the strike had an immediate effect. 

Neither side gave way and the strike became 

quite violent. At length, the National Guard 

was called in to patrol the city. The strike 

lasted for most of the summer. It was the 

most violent time the city had seen since the 

Civil War. 

Three years later the city’s fragility was 

illustrated in another way. 

Like most people who live near rivers, the 

people of Columbus had come to expect the 

river to flood from time to time. And the 

Scioto and Olentangy Rivers had met those 

expectations no less than eleven times since 

Franklinton was founded in 1797. In those 


72

✧ 

Opposite, top: In 1912 Columbus marked 

its one hundredth birthday. The celebration 

culminated in a week-long series of events 

in August when the Ohio State Fair was 

underway. This postcard view is looking 

north on High Street at Goodale Avenue. 



cases, people on low ground moved to high 

ground and moved back when the flood 

waters receded. To lessen the damage caused 

by flooding, the city had erected levees along 

the river near the downtown and had limited 

construction along the riverfront. None of 

that helped in March 1913, when five inches 

of water on already soaked ground caused the 

greatest flood in the city’s history. 

A local resident later remembered, 

We had very heavy rains and all of the 

rivers were rising…From the window, we saw 

a mad brewing rush of brown water. As we 

watched, the Broad Street bridge slowly broke 

up and tumbled into the flood…It was an 

appalling sight. 

The rising rivers took out every bridge save 

one along the Scioto, tore through the levee 

and put most of the west side of the city under 

several feet of water. The flood came so quickly 

and with such intensity that many people 

were caught before they could flee. Ninetyfour 

people were soon known to be dead in 

the disaster and others were probably killed as 

well. The National Guard was called out to 

preserve order as the entire city shut down for 

six days and the west side for six weeks. 

Social and physical disasters such as these 

were only the exceptional punctuation marks 

to a growing concern by many people in 

Columbus and in urban America as a whole 

that the price of change had become quite 

high indeed. 

Opposite, bottom: The 1910 streetcar strike 

lasted for months and became quite violent. 

Eventually the National Guard was called 

in to preserve order. The strike ended in the 

fall of 1910. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF PARRILL HERTZ. 

Above: The 1913 Flood. 



Left: The 1913 Flood was and remains the 

worst single natural disaster in the history 

of the city. The entire city was closed down 

for six days in March 1913. The west side 

was stricken for six weeks. At least ninetyfour 

people died. From the disaster came a 

new riverfront. 




7 3


74

A P R O G R E S S I V E T I M E A N D 

A W A R T O E N D W A R 

It was not a new feeling. In the nineteenth 

century, many people in rural areas came to 

distrust the power of wealth and influence 

that often concentrated in the cities. Opposed 

to the perceived power of eastern corporations 

and distrustful of cities, a Populist 

Movement tried to roll back some of the more 

disliked aspects of Industrial Revolution and 

restore the power of rural America. 

In its time, the Populist Revolt captured 

the imagination of many Americans. But it 

ultimately failed in its effort to return to an era 

that was rapidly ending. A few years later, a 

new movement would arise that in retrospect 

is often confused with the Populists. The 

Progressive Movement was largely composed 

of people who lived in urban America and 

owed their success to its industry and commerce. 

Still many members of the new working 

class and middle class looked around and 

saw aspects of their new world that needed 

attention. Child labor, poverty and disease, 

political corruption and moral ambiguity all 

became concerns of a new movement convinced 

that reform could lead to progress. 

The high tide of the Progressive Movement 

came in the years between 1900 and 1920 

and Columbus, Ohio, was caught up in its 

fervor. The movement—never really a major 

political party—expressed itself in a variety of 

ways—not all of them all that consistent. 

The Progressive Era had a decidedly esthetic 

side. Columbus had been designed as 

planned city in 1812. But there had been little 

if any planning since—until the turn of the 

century. The rapid growth of the city had led 

to a need for parks and a better use of the city’s 

open space. A panel of professionals produced 

a city plan in 1908 that proposed a system of 

parks. It did not stop there however. The plan 

also called for the demolition of much of the 

area around the Statehouse and the creation of 

a civic center vaguely reminiscent of the Mall 

in Washington D.C. Very little of the plan was 

adopted immediately. But in the wake of the 

1913 Flood, the 1908 city plan provided the 

impetus for what would eventually become a 

civic center along the Riverfront in the 1920s. 

But Progressivism in its essence was a political 

movement. At the national level, the movement 

would result in regulatory agencies and 

antitrust activity. At the state level, Ohio saw 

significant reforms. The Ohio Constitution of 

1851, with a certain Jeffersonian flair, had 

specified that the people must be asked every 

twenty years if they would like a Constitutional 

Convention. Most times the people had said 

no. In 1912 they said yes. The Convention 

that resulted gave Ohio the initiative, recall and 

referendum and granted cities the power to 

adopt Home Rule if they wished to do so. 

Columbus decided to do so and also moved 

away from ward representation to a council 

elected citywide in 1914. 

Many of the same reformers who pushed 

through the political changes were also lobbied 

heavily by advocacy groups to adopt suffrage 

for women and the absolute prohibition of the 

sale and distribution of alcohol. Both movements 

were extraordinarily strong in Ohio. In 

fact, the Anti-Saloon League of America was 

founded in Columbus and had its headquarters 

in Westerville. While not adopted in 1912, 

both movements would see success in a few 

years, both locally and nationally. 

By 1912 the city of Columbus had seen 

remarkable change both politically and 

physically in response to the needs of a new 

and changing urban society. But arguably the 

biggest changes had been social and cultural. 

Since the 1880s, the Reverend Washington 

Gladden had been holding forth from the 

First Congregational Church in Columbus 

with a message that favored a Social Gospel of 

assistance to those in need. 

The one injurious and fatal fact of our 

present church work is the barrier between 

the churches and the poorest classes. The first 

thing for us to do is to demolish this barrier. 

The impression is abroad among the poor that 

they are not wanted in the churches… 

While Gladden was the best known social 

advocate in Columbus, he was by no means 

alone. By the end of his life in 1919, Gladden 

could see with satisfaction that a new career 

called “social work” was defining itself 

professionally and a whole series of “social 

✧ 

Opposite: Columbus was a planned city in 

1812. The next great plan came in 1908 

and proposed parks, parkways and a rebuilt 

city center. Much of what was proposed was 

never built. But some of the plan inspired 

the reconstruction of the riverfront after the 

1913 flood. 



Below: The Reverend Washington Gladden 

came to the First Congregational Church in 

1882. Until his death in 1919, he was a 

nationally known advocate of a “social 

gospel” in the time of reform that came to 

be called the Progressive Period. 




7 5

settlement houses” and other charitable programs 

were underway to help the neediest 

people of Columbus. 

By the end of the decade of the 1910s, the 

driving force of Progressivism as a political 

movement was generally gone although its 

legacy remained. The end had come as 

America and Columbus approached another 

defining moment in its history. In this case, it 

was a war. 

America had not fought a major war since 

the end of the Spanish American War and 

Philippine Insurrection in 1903. And many 

people were not terribly thrilled with the idea 

of becoming involved in what had become a 

major conflict in Europe since its outbreak in 

1914. Recognizing that the two major ethnicities 

in America by 1916 were British and 

German—two countries at war with each 

other—President Woodrow Wilson had run 

for re-election on a ticket that proclaimed “He 

kept us out of war.” Then, six months later he 

led America into a “war to end all war” on the 

side of Britain and its allies. 

German Columbus was dismayed. It 

became even more concerned after war was 

declared in April 1917, when German was 

banned in the public schools, the last German 

newspaper was shut down, and the German 

names of several streets were changed. In a 

final gesture, a large pile of German books 

were burned at Broad and High Streets. 

Some have wondered since then why the 

German community did not respond more 

vigorously to this onslaught. The reason was 

rather straightforward. By 1917, only a small 

percentage of the more than 200,000 people 

in Columbus were of recent German origin. 

Most of the sons and daughters of the original 

German immigrants to the city had moved 

away to the new streetcar suburbs. The few 

still left in the Old South End were in no 

position to resist and so the books were 

burned and the street names were changed. 

They have yet to be changed back. 

World War I was a transformative event 

in Columbus as it was for much of the rest 

of America. The war experience at home—as 

harsh as it was for Germanic Columbus— 

acted like a white hot flame in welding 

together American support for the war. 


76

In World War II, few people if any questioned 

the loyalty or burned the books of an 

American with a German name. The First 

World War had begun to really make us into 

one people. 

C I T Y L I F E 

I N T H E T W E N T I E S 

The war changed Columbus in other ways. 

During the war many young men—otherwise 

draftable for the first time since the Civil 

War—avoided service and kept their jobs in 

vital wartime industries. The industries 

needed people drastically and recruited them 

in many new places—like the Deep South. 

During World War I, thousands of young 

men from the rural South came north looking 

for work in wartime industries. Many of them 

were African-American. It came to be called 

the Great Migration and by 1918, the black 

population of Columbus had doubled—from 

5,000 to 10,000. Many of these young men 

would soon found families in Columbus or 

bring their existing families north to be with 

them in a place of promise. 

A new and strong black community began 

to emerge along the Mt. Vernon Avenue 

and Long Street corridors. By 1922, Nimrod 

Allen, the recently selected director of the 

relatively new Columbus Urban League could 

proudly tell The Crisis, the journal of the 

National Association for the Advancement of 

Colored People, that Columbus was, among 

other things, a city with an important black 

population. What Allen neglected to mention 

was that the black population of Columbus 

had been larger for much of its history, as a 

percentage of population, than most other 

cities in the state. However one measured 

such things, black Columbus was now, as it 

had been for some time, like the Irish, the 

Germans and all of the other ethnicities, a 

vital part of the city of Columbus, moving 

into a new life in a new decade. 

The 1920s will forever be the Roaring 

Twenties—the decade of Flaming Youth, 

Flapper Girls. and bathtub gin. The decade 

began, of course long before it was 1920. 

In 1919, the Volstead Act banned the sale 

and distribution of alcohol. It was a law that 

was virtually impossible to enforce in a land 

✧ 

Opposite, top: Public support for World War 

I remained quite strong until the conflict 

ended in November, 1918. A large plaster 

triumphal arch at Broad and High Streets 

served as the focus of war bond drives and 

other public meetings. 



Opposite, bottom: Anti-German feelings 

became strong with America’s entry into 

World War I in 1917. German schools and 

a German newspaper were closed. The 

Germanic names of some streets were 

changed. German books were burned in 




Left: The African-American population of 

Columbus doubled during the First World 

War as many people migrated to the 

North seeking work in wartime industries. 

By 1919, East Long Street would become 

the commercial center of the African- 

American community with businesses like 

Allen’s Barbershop enjoying some success. 




7 7

✧ 

Above: The neighborhood saloon became a 

fixture of city life in turn of the century 

America. Places like Hertz’s Restaurant and 

Sample Room were not liked by increasingly 

strong groups like the Woman’s Christian 

Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon 

League of America. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF PARRILL HERTZ. 

Right: The long campaign for the absolute 

prohibition of the sale, manufacture and 

distribution of alcohol succeeded with the 

passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 

1919. A holiday sale in December, 1918, 

marked the end of one era and the 

beginning of another. 



that saw little reason to even notice its existence. 

In short order, people began to violate 

the law and could not care less that they did. 

People had a lot of fun in the Twenties. For 

the first time girls could wear lipstick, smoke 

cigarettes, and drink in public without too 

much recrimination. To meet the needs of 

thirsty Columbusites, a number of former 

saloons soon reopened quietly as speakeasies. 

The Twenties was a period of quite 

extraordinary economic expansion. Many 

people made a lot of money and arguably 

deserved to do so. It was also a time when a 

lot of people did not get overly concerned 

about who exactly it was who was selling 

them things that were not quite legal. 

Despite all of this happy frivolity, there 

was also a dark side to the 1920s. As society 

preached tolerance of others, America closed 

the immigration gates in 1924 that had been 


78

open since the end of the Civil War. Now 

Americans of many different backgrounds 

began in earnest to learn to live one with 

another. It was not an easy task. 

Many Americans had come to fear the 

immigrants. They felt the newcomers were 

taking their country from them and they 

did not like it very much. In the early 

1920s, many Ohioans became enchanted 

with an organization born in the South after 

the Civil War and dedicated to white 

supremacy. It was called the Ku Klux Klan 

and by 1924 it had recruited several 

hundred thousand members in Ohio. The 

organization was anti-immigrant, anti-Jewish 

and anti-black, but, it was claimed, the Klan 

was “100% Pro-American.” How this was 

possible was never explained as was the 

ultimate purpose of the group. Fortunately 

for Ohio and the country, the rapidly growing 

Klan was cursed with a number of bad 

leaders and bad decisions. By 1928, it was 

virtually gone. 

Through the 1920s, a number of 

Americans had more or less followed the 

rules of American finance and did their best 

to make themselves millionaires. 

It was a time that came to be thought of 

as a New Era—a time in which all things 

were possible. 

America and Columbus soon discovered 

the limits of those possibilities. 

✧ 

Above: Womens suffrage, 1920. 



Below: The years after World War I were a 

time of great prosperity and social change in 

America. Not the least of these changes was 

the new freedom women were given as they 

received the right to vote. Now women 

began to smoke in public, dress more 

casually and even go bowling with their 

male counterparts as these employees of the 

Jeffrey Manufacturing Company are doing 

in 1919. 




7 9

C H A P T E R 

HOMETOWN 1930-1950 

I X 

A N A I R H A R B O R 

✧ 

The Curtiss Seagull was one of many 

different aircraft produced by the Curtiss 

Wright Corporation Columbus during 

World War II. 



In more than a few ways, July 8, 1929, was something of the high tide of the 1920s in 

Columbus, Ohio. As the precocious and sometimes tragic decade wound its way to a close, most 

people still believed that the 1930s would be much like the 1920s—brash, bold and economically 

prosperous. Republican Herbert Hoover had run for president in the fall of 1928 with a campaign 

slogan of “a chicken in every pot” and a continuation of the policies that had seemed to make 

most people more money most of the time. He had handily beaten his Democratic opponent, 

Al Smith, by a wide margin. 

Now in the summer of 1929, Columbus was about to experience something the city had been 

looking forward to for more than a quarter of a century—regularly scheduled passenger air 

transportation. The city was welcoming an airport of its very own. Port Columbus was open. 

It had been a long time in coming. Like most Americans, the residents of Columbus had been 

fascinated by the flights of the Wright Brothers of nearby Dayton. Columbus had seen its share 

of aerial stunts over the years. These had included the arrival of a bolt of silk from Dayton by 

plane in 1910 and the spectacle of an airplane racing a car at a local track. And local fields had 

been training pilots of one sort or another for a number of years. But the possibility of any 

American—with enough money—being able to board a plane and fly across America seemed to 

be nothing more than a dream. 


80

Until that day in July, when Transcontinental 

Air Transport lifted into the air and followed a 

route laid out by Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh 

across America. To be fair, it was only a partial 

achievement. Since airports were few and far 

between, the original trip in 1929 involved 

riding trains for a considerable distance 

and then flying the rest of the way. 

Still, as historian George Hopkins later 

recounted, to the traveler boarding the 

plane it must have been rather impressive 

to hear an attendant announce, “All 

aboard by air for Indianapolis, St. Louis, 

Kansas City and points west.” 

To the people of Columbus and distinguished 

guests like Lindbergh, Henry 

Ford and Amelia Earhart, it seemed 

like the beginning of new and exciting 

chapter in the city’s history. And it was. Air 

travel and air transport over the years would 

play an increasingly strong role in the success 

of the city. But that would be many years in 

the future. 

✧ 

Above: Radio moved from being an 

experiment and a toy to a common 

household fixture in the 1920s and 1930s. 

Stations like WBNS sent their powerful 

signals across much of central Ohio. 



Left: July 8, 1929, was a landmark date in 

the city’s history as Transcontinental Air 

Transport made its first flight from the new 

Port Columbus airport. 



Below: With the onset of World War II, 

the Curtiss Wright Corporation came to 

Columbus and built a major production 

facility near the Port Columbus Airport. 

At peak, it would employ more than 

25,000 people. 



C H A P T E R I X 

8 1

✧ 

Clockwise, starting from the top, left: 

In 1937, Bill Moose Crowfoot died a little 

before his one hundredth birthday. After 

travels with the Sells Brothers Circus, he 

settled in central Ohio. The death of the 

“Last Wyandot” attracted more than 10,000 

people to his funeral on Wyandot Hill 

overlooking the Scioto River. He once 

claimed to have cast his first vote for 

Abraham Lincoln. 



D E P R E S S I N G 

D A Y S 

In the short run, the hopes of Columbus 

and America that had seemed so bright in 

the summer of 1929, literally came crashing 

down in the massive stock market collapse of 

October of that year. Many people today still 

believe that the massive economic dislocation 

that came to be called the Great Depression 

started that day with the stock market crash. 

It didn’t. The economy actually rallied a bit 

after the crash and the real economic disaster 

did not begin until many months later. 

Even after the downturn began in earnest, 

many Americans continued to believe that 

the troubled times would be limited. After 

all, America had not had a major economic 

collapse since the “Panic” of 1893. It said 

something about how America had come to 

look at the ups and downs of capitalism that 

a difficult time was coming to be called a 

“depression” rather than a “panic”—as if it 

were more like a spell of bad weather than a 

mad rush for an economic exit. 

But this downturn was no simple period of 

brief economic decline. By the time it was over 

it would be the worst economic catastrophe in 

the nation’s history. The Great Depression of 

the 1930s would last more than a decade and 

transform the lives of a whole generation. 

The 1930s were the years of the Great 

Depression. Times were hard but people 

coped with groups like the Food 

Conservation League who gathered up 

discarded food and gave it people in need. 



WPA or Works Progress Administration 

workers at The Ohio State University. 



Street car tracks lead West Town Street into 

South Gift Street, 1937. 




82

The causes of the Great Depression were 

many and diverse. It took a long time for the 

public and private sectors to recognize and 

come to grips with the problems they faced. 

Most early efforts to meet the challenges of the 

Great Depression involved assistance to large 

businesses to “prime the pump” as the phrase 

went at the time. It was only as the Depression 

deepened that government began to intervene 

and directly employ people in need. By the 

end of the decade, the federal government had 

spent more than 33 billion dollars to fight the 

problems of the Great Depression. And the 

Depression still continued. 

It was a very difficult time. The years 

between 1930 and 1940 saw very little 

growth in the city. A city that had seen 

significant positive growth for most of its 

history barely grew at all. In the course of 

the decade, the city only increased in size 

from 290,000 to 316,000 people. Many new 

people arrived in Columbus trying to find a 

future when there was little work in the 

country side. But many others left the city 

and moved in with family or friends in 

the small towns they had originally left for 

the lure of the city. 

While cities like Columbus with diversified 

economies probably rode the Depression 

out better than the great industrial cities with 

their double digit unemployment, it was still 

not a good time to be looking for work. Many 

local employers—stretched by debt and 

declining markets—cut wages and hours in 

an effort to keep as many people working as 

possible, as long as possible. Many people 

were faced with a choice of less work or no 

work. They chose less work. 

As budgets tightened, many companies 

dependent on recurring public spending 

began to suffer. Restaurants, department 

stores and specialty stores all lost business. 

Some businesses collapsed completely. Since 

the turn of the century Columbus had been 

the home of a number of major amusement 

parks. By 1937, the largest of them— 

Olentangy Park—was forced to close due to 

lack of income. 

So what did people do with their spare 

time in the 1930s? They did things that did 

not cost much. They went to the movies. 

They listened to the radio. They socialized 

with family and friends. It is no accident that 

the 1930s saw the increasing popularity of 

inexpensive entertainments like newspapers, 

pulp magazines and paperback books. 

✧ 

Top: As some forms of entertainment were 

beginning, others were ending. The large 

amusement parks had been built by the 

streetcar companies to get people to ride 

somewhere in their spare time. Now in the 

1930s, high costs and competition from 

movies, radio and other attractions doomed 

the parks. Olentangy Park closed in 1937. 



Above: Shoot the Shutes, Indianola Park. 


METROPOLITAN LIBRARY/REEB, DEIBEL, RUFFING 

COLUMBUS POSTCARD COLLECTION. 


8 3

People still had their heroes and heroines 

in these years. Sports figures and other 

local people who had made something of 

themselves were always welcomed back to 

the city enthusiastically. Some of these people 

like Eddie Rickenbacker—America’s Ace of 

Aces—and Elsie Janis—the Sweetheart of the 

American Expeditionary Force—had made 

their names in World War I. Others like Mary 

Catherine Campbell—the only two-time Miss 

America—were celebrities from the 1920s. 

And new heroes like Jesse Owens, the track 

star of the 1936 Olympics, also were admired. 

By 1940, America’s Great Depression had 

been going on for a decade. There had been 

times in those years—notably in 1934 and 

1937—when it seemed like the worst might 

be over and the economy might be on its way 

to recovery. And then, for various reasons, 

hard times returned and people resigned 

themselves to patiently waiting for the worse 

to end. 


84

✧ 

Opposite, clockwise starting from top, left: 

Born in Alabama and raised in Cleveland, 

Jesse Owens came to Columbus to attend 

The Ohio State University. On one day in 

1935 he set three world records and tied a 

fourth and in 1936 Owens won four gold 

medals at the Berlin Olympics. 



W A R C O M E S T O C O L U M B U S 

The wait came to an end on December 7, 

1941, with what President Franklin Roosevelt 

characterized as a “dastardly attack” by “naval 

and air forces of the Empire of Japan” on the 

American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 

America was at war. 

For all of the suddenness of the attack at 

Pearl Harbor, the coming of war to America 

was not entirely unexpected. The peace that 

had been hoped for in Europe after World 

War I had not materialized. The enormous 

burden of reparation placed upon a defeated 

Germany had sparked a ruinous economy 

that devastated the country’s middle class. 

Increasingly discourse in Europe moved to 

the extreme left and the extreme right. At the 

end of the 1930s, fascist regimes in Italy, 

Germany to Spain were on the march. By late 

1939, Europe was at war. 

Asia had been at war even longer. A 

lengthy conflict between Communists and 

Nationalists in China had provided an 

opportunity for Japan to take Manchuria in 

1931. By the end of the decade Japan was 

looking to manage a Greater East Asian 

Co-Prosperity Sphere—whether its potential 

members liked it or not. 

Throughout the 1930s many Americans 

had tried to avoid these conflicts. But since 

1940, it was becoming increasingly clear that 

the United States—the strongest economy in 

the world—would probably play some role in 

the coming conflict. But many Americans still 

entertained the hope that the national role 

would be an indirect one. 

All of that changed after the attack 

on Pearl Harbor. Within hours, American 

sentiment was overwhelmingly in favor of 

war. In short order, the conflict became a 

world war with the United States at war in 

both Europe and Asia. 

It was a war like no other in American 

history. Implementing a peacetime draft for 

the first time in 1940, America ultimately 

would increase its small peacetime military to 

encompass more than 16,000,000 people. To 

feed, clothe, arm and train so many people 

required the conversion of existing companies 

and the construction of whole new factories. 

Some of the new factories transformed the 

economy of the city. Curtiss-Wright Aviation 

came to Columbus and acquired a site near 

the Port Columbus airport. It then proceeded 

to construct a factory that would eventually 

employ 25,000 people building warplanes. In 

its later roles as North American Aviation and 

Long trips and expensive pastimes may 

have ended for many in the 1930s, but since 

1926 the Palace Theater has offered a lift to 

the spirits for one low price. 



In her youth, Columbus native Elsie Janis 

(second on the left) was one of most famous 

women in America. A child star in 

vaudeville, she went on to become the 

“Sweetheart of the AEF” after her trench 

tours in World War I. Her later career 

included singing, acting and writing several 

books until her death in 1956. 



Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was a genuine 

American hero. The World War I “Ace of 

Aces” went on to a storied career in aviation 

over the next several decades. His modest 

home on Livingston Avenue is a National 

Historic Landmark. 



Above: Begun by the Army during World 

War I, the Columbus Quartermaster Depot 

was greatly expanded during World War II 

and employed more than 10,000 people. 

After no less than fourteen name changes, 

the facility is known today as the Defense 

Supply Center Columbus. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH. 

Left: John Thomas Blackburn, first soldier 

from Columbus to be killed during the 

attack on Pearl Harbor. 




8 5

✧ 

World War II moved toward a rapid 

conclusion with the surrender of Japan on 

September 2, 1945, on the deck of the 

battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Back in 

Columbus, many people were happy to see 

the end of the war. 



North American Rockwell, the plant would be 

part of Columbus for many years. 

Similar to the experience of the Civil War 

in Columbus, just as important as the private 

sector companies were the military installations 

that were developed as part of the war 

effort. In 1917 the Quartermaster Corps of 

the Army had purchased 281 acres of farm 

and swampland near three major railroads in 

and around the community of Whitehall on 

the far east side of Columbus. By the end of 

the war the Army was operating six warehouses 

at the site. Not all that active during 

the 1920s and 1930s, the facility became 

critically important during World War II. 

Acquiring another 295 acres and eventually 

employing 10,000 people, the Columbus 

Quartermaster Depot became by war’s end 

the largest military supply depot in the 

world. It also became the temporary home of 

400 German prisoners of war. The Depot 

would go through many other reorganizations 

over the years—including no less than 

fourteen name changes—to become the 

Defense Supply Center Columbus which continues 

to serve the nation today. 

As one might imagine, all of these 

thousands of jobs being created by 

World War II proved to be extraordinarily 

appealing to people who had 

not seen many job opportunities in 

the previous decade. Thousands of 

people flocked to Columbus looking 

for work. They came from the small 

towns and crossroad communities 

of rural Ohio. And thousands of 

other people, black and white, came 

to Columbus from terminally poor 

communities in southeastern Ohio, 

West Virginia, Kentucky and 

Tennessee. It was an area we today 

call “Appalachia”. In those days, it 

was simply “the South.” It was the 

greatest mass migration to central 

Ohio since the great immigration 

waves of the nineteenth century and 

would change both the politics and 

culture of the city yet again. By the 

end of World War II, thousands of 

people from Appalachia were living 


The Urban Appalachian Council in 

Cincinnati describes the result succinctly. “In 

the years following World War II, 3 million 

people left the Appalachian region.” Yet, 

Appalachian people and their culture have 

not always been embraced in the city. The 

early migrants found the city a strange place 

and had a hard time adjusting. In return the 

city did not always understand the ways of 

“these newcomers.” But eventually, over the 

years, the newcomers and the city began to 

understand and accept one another. 

One of the more interesting aspects of 

wartime life in Columbus was rationing. 

Because so much was needed, many commodities 

came to be in short supply. The 

government came up with an elaborate 

rationing system for critical items like gasoline, 

tires, sugar and coffee. Since most 

people had been living for a decade without 

many of these items, the addition of rationing 

was not all that burdensome. In fact, 

some people became quite adept at trading 

ration stamps and acquiring things that 

they never would have had during the 

Great Depression. 


86

The war was a long unnerving, terrifying 

experience. Today it seems—many years 

later—that the Allies victory against European 

fascism and Japanese militarism was 

inevitable. It wasn’t. And the people living 

through those years knew it. As unlikely as we 

know today it might have been, people in 

Columbus looked nightly from their rooftops 

for German bombers. They had seen the 

newsreels from London and they had listened 

to Ed Murrow wishing them “Good Night 

and Good Luck.” Unlike most of Western 

Europe—Columbus was the recipient of both. 

T H E C O S T O F C O N F L I C T 

But the city America’s veterans returned to 

was not the same as the one they had left 

behind. After a brief recession in 1946, the 

economy refitted itself to domestic rather 

than wartime production. It was at this point 

that civic leaders began to realize the true and 

total cost of almost two decades of depression 

and war. During the hard times of the Great 

Depression, little local money had been 

available and little had been spent on public 

improvements. During the war, most public 

money was spent on war time needs. And 

while the federal and state governments 

had undertaken some notable public works 

projects like the new Federal District 

Courthouse in 1937, a lot remained undone. 

Now the bill was coming due and 

Columbus was in dire need of new money for 

schools, hospitals and roads and bridges to 

meet the need of the large new population 

who had come to the city in the war years. 

The problem was that residents of Columbus 

had gotten into the habit of rejecting bond 

issues and other taxation and convincing 

them of the city’s needs was not easy. 

To try to resolve the impasse, the mayor of 

Columbus decided to try something new 

and different. James A. Rhodes had come to 

Columbus in 1932 from southeastern Ohio. 

After a brief time at The Ohio State University, 

he went into politics and was elected to the 

Columbus School Board. By 1944 he was one 

of the youngest mayors in the city’s history. 

Rhodes would go on to a long and storied 

career as auditor of state and ultimately as the 

longest serving governor in Ohio history. But 

in 1945, the young mayor had a more limited 

objective—get a few bond issues passed. 

Rhodes held a meeting in his office with a 

number of governmental and private sector 

leaders. Out of this came a series of meetings 

leading to the formation of a group that came 

to call itself the Metropolitan Committee. 

Informally called the “Committee of 100,” the 

organization consisted of representatives 

from every part of the city’s leadership— 

management and labor, social and cultural 

groups, and local county and municipal government. 

Proposals to fund a variety of institutions—from 

schools to water treatment 

plants—were presented to the committee. If 

the proposal was approved by this very 

diverse group—many of whose members 

did not like each other all that much—the 

Metropolitan Committee would recommend 

it and push for its approval by the voters. 

Local journalist Adrienne Bosworth later 

quoted one of the leaders of Committee as to 

how the organization operated. “We wouldn’t 

support any issues that benefited one vested 

interest or one end of town. We only supported 

the things that everyone recognized 

were needed.” 

The strategy worked. Over the years from 

1945 to 1965, more than $80 million in bond 

issues were approved by voters and much of 

Columbus was rebuilt and refurbished. 

And as it turned out, the money started 

arriving not a moment too soon. 

✧ 

Born in Coalton, Ohio, James A. Rhodes 

had come to Columbus to attend Ohio State. 

By 1945 he was mayor of the city and was 

facing a lot of work left undone by two 

decades of war and economic depression. 

The Metropolitan Committee was formed to 

get things done. 




8 7

C H A P T E R 

“ALL-AMERICA CITY” 1950-1970 

X 

A R U S H T O T H E C O U N T R Y 


88 

At the end of World War II, the United States was unquestionably the strongest single country 

in the world. The men and women returning from the war were looking for several important 

things. They were—a spouse, a car and a house—and not necessarily in that order. 

In short order, thanks to the “GI Bill of Rights” at least some of those desires were met. 

Returning servicemen soon discovered that they could buy a house, go to school, and generally 

improve their position in society. And they did. 

In the years after World War II, Columbus, like many American cities, was a place in the 

process of redefining itself. Prior to World War II, houses had been built individually. Even if a 

developer proposed a new subdivision, he would do little more than lay out the streets, make sure 

that sewer and water lines were available, and then sell lots to homebuyers. The owner of the new 

property would build his own house. In some of the more exclusive suburbs of the 1920s, like 

the Upper Arlington of King Thompson and his brother Ben, developer approval of the house 

design was mandatory. In most parts of town, an owner could build whatever house he liked. 

He could hire an architect or buy a plan and hire a contractor to build it. Or if the owner was in 

a rush, he could buy a whole house and have it delivered to his home site. Before World War II, 

the most popular place to do this was in the pages of the inimitable Sears and Roebuck catalog.

✧ 

Opposite, top: By the end of World War II, 

even with wartime rationing, the automobile 

had become the preferred means of 

American transportation. The last streetcar 

in Columbus took its last ride in 1948. 


METROPOLITAN LIBRARY/PRESTON 

REICHARD COLLECTION. 

Opposite, bottom: By the late 1950s 

Columbus had done so much, so rapidly 

and so well that Look Magazine declared it 

to be an “All-America City.” Columbus liked 

the title and for the next several years 

called itself “The All-America City.” 

This is a statue of Christopher Columbus 

that stands on Statehouse Square. 



After the war, a new Columbus company 

offered yet another alternative. An all-metal 

Lustron house could be built quickly and the 

cost of the porcelain panels covering its outside 

was quite inexpensive. The houses boasted 

internal radiant heating and magnets to 

hang pictures where nails could not be used. 

The Columbus company advertisement 

described the advantages. 

Here is America’s new standard of living. 

It offers cheerful convenience, room for living, 

the strength and permanence of modern steel 

construction—without the penalty of price. 

Above: Through much of the 1950s, many 

people still did much of their shopping in 

downtown Columbus. Here Easter shoppers 

crowd High Street in April 1950. 



Below: Millions of servicemen came home 

after World War II looking for wives, cars, 

and homes. At times there seemed like there 

were not enough of any of them. To help 

meet the demand for housing, the newly 

formed Lustron Corporation in Columbus 

began making and selling houses that were 

mostly metal. The company was not 

successful but many of their houses are 

still around. 



C H A P T E R X 

8 9

✧ 

Top: The Great Southern Shopping Center. 



Above: A number of new shopping centers 

were built in the 1950s to meet the needs of 

a rapidly growing city. Among them was 

Great Western by the Casto Company. 

The center was opened in 1954 and 

included the “Walk of Wonders” miniature 

models of the Wonders of the World. 



Below: To serve the new residential 

subdivisions around the city, new shopping 

areas began to be built. The first of a new 

generation of shopping centers, Town and 

Country, was completed by the Casto 

Company in 1949. 



Hundreds of the houses were sold and can 

still be found across America. Unfortunately, 

to be profitable the company needed to sell 

tens of thousands of the houses rather than 

hundreds and the company soon went out 

of business. 

The people who did make money selling a 

great many houses worked with different 

rules than the developers of the past. 

Recognizing the enormous pent up demand 

for new housing and the availability of 

inexpensive financing through the GI Bill and 

Federal Housing Administration loans, new 

builders built new houses in groups that they 

called “communities” or “neighborhoods.” 

Because the houses were built on inexpensive 

land and with the same general floor plans, 

the houses could be built quickly and sold at 

relatively low prices. Ranch, townhouse and 

split level designs were always popular. 

Aided by the National Defense Highway 

Act, which used federal money for interstate 

highways, and the rise of shopping centers 

the number of new suburbs several miles 

from downtown began to grow. The freeways 

meant that the thirty minute journey to 

work could now be made from Worthington, 

or Reynoldsburg or New Rome—places 

thought to be out in the country only a few 

years before. 

While many people were involved in building 

highways, one man in particular made 

shopping centers the magnet which kept suburban 

people in suburbia. His name was Don 

Casto. About the same time he was helping 

bring the Port Columbus Airport into being, 

Casto pioneered a strip of stores with parking 

in Grandview Heights near Columbus. In 

1948, he opened Town and Country, the first 

modern automobile-based shopping center 

in the city. Its success would lead to other 

Casto centers. They included Northern Lights, 

Graceland and the Great Eastern, Great 

Western and Great Southern shopping centers. 


90

✧ 

Left: The National Interstate and Defense 

Highways Act of 1956 transformed 

America. Over the next two decades large 

interstate highways would permit people to 

live farther than ever from where they 

worked. And freeway construction would 

divide entire urban neighborhoods as was 

the case when Interstate 70 passed through 




T H E 

C I T Y 

C E N T R A L 

R E B U I L D S 

All of this movement to the edges of 

Columbus and beyond led to a precipitous 

decline in the population of the central city. A 

popular view of planners and government 

officials was that when parts of a city became 

“blighted,” the diseased section of the city 

needed to be removed. Across America the 

program was called Urban Renewal. In 

Columbus, it was called Slum Clearance and 

Redevelopment or SCAR. Beginning in the 

early 1950s, plans were made in concert with 

freeway construction to level certain sections 

of town and rebuild them as part of a new 

downtown. Sixty acres on the southeast side 

of downtown were acquired and the venerable 

1850 Central Market was removed to 

make way for a new bus station. On the north 

side, most of the old Flytown neighborhood 

also was removed. 

Many people noticed the important 

progress Columbus was making. Look magazine 

was impressed enough to give Columbus 

an All-America City award in 1958. 

Columbus was not the first All-America City 

nor would it be the last. In fact Columbus 

would win the award again. But few places 

took the award as seriously as Columbus did. 

Columbus was a place in search of an image 

of itself to project to the world. For a time in 

the early 1900s, Columbus had been the Arch 

City. But by the 1950s, the arches had been 

gone for decades. So when Columbus got a 

new title, the name stuck. For the next twenty 

years, Columbus was the All-America-City. 

But not everyone was thrilled with the 

city’s progress in reshaping itself. Some people 

were angry and upset that whole neighborhoods 

were being removed. And the point 

was not lost on a significantly larger African- 

American population, boosted by wartime 

Below: Accompanying freeway construction 

was a federal, state and local policy of 

Urban Renewal. In Columbus it was called 

Slum Clearance and Rehabilitation (SCAR) 

and took more than sixty acres of downtown 

in the Market Mohawk project. Reacting to 

the loss, nearby residents quickly bought, 

fixed and resold houses to prove a 

neighborhood need not be lost. The homes 

were saved and came to be called 

German village. 




9 1

✧ 

Above: More than nice neighborhoods were 

saved in Columbus. In the late 1960s, 

the 1928 Ohio Theatre was threatened. 

A grassroots community movement raised 

money and the theatre was saved. 

It soon became the home of the 

Columbus Symphony. 



Below: Mayor M. E. Sensenbrenner presided 

over a period of unprecedented population 

and geographic growth in the 1950s and 

1960s by requiring subdivisions taking 

sewer or water service to be annexed to the 

city. Columbus would become the largest 

city in land area in Ohio. 



migration, that some of the areas being 

removed and the sites of new freeways were 

the homes of black Columbus. Old organizations 

like the NAACP and the Columbus 

Urban League were joined by new organizations 

born in the “Civil Rights Revolution” of 

the Deep South in opposing the displacement 

of their community. Groups like the Reverend 

Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian 

Leadership Conference worked with groups 

like the Congress of Racial Equality in seeking 

a new future for the African-American community 


Joining them were a not insignificant number 

of white people who also felt the loss of 

whole downtown neighborhoods to be a 

tragedy. Many people not only made their 

views known, they began acting upon them. 

Fearful that the old German neighborhood 

might be the next target of urban renewal, a 

number of people in the 1950s began buying 

houses, fixing their exteriors and reselling 

them. By 1960, a German Village Commission 

was in place regulating owners’ use of their 

property and a German Village Society would 

soon be active. 

In the 1960s, organizing for historic 

preservation of the built environment was a 

relatively new idea in Columbus. There had 

been efforts over the years to attempt to save 

individual buildings from time to time. The 

battle to save the historic Kelley Mansion in 

1963 had been unsuccessful. The house was 

removed stone by numbered stone from its 

site on Broad Street by Memorial Hall and the 

stones were placed in storage. They are still 

in storage. 

But it says something about the success of 

historic preservation in Columbus that by 

1969, a movement to save the historic Ohio 

Theatre succeeded admirably. The 1928 

movie palace was saved and is now the home 

to the Columbus Symphony. In 1977, the 

Columbus Landmarks Foundation was 

founded to further historic preservation in 

Columbus. In 1978, Victorian and Italian 

Villages on the near north side became preservation 

districts. They would not be the last by 

any means as Columbus became quite successful 

in saving its older neighborhoods. 

Looking back over fifty years of success in 

historic preservation, the German Village 

Society today declares that “German Village, 

Columbus’ premiere downtown neighborhood 

is one of the preeminent historic districts 

in the United States. German Village is 

233 acres of ‘living history’ where the old 

meets the new and the result is a vibrant and 

charming community.” 

But none of these efforts would have mattered 

much had it not been for the selfdescribed 

“dynamic” mayor of his “dynamic” 

city. Maynard E. “M. E.” Sensenbrenner was a 

mayor like none the city had seen for some 

time. Short, thin and not all that imposing in 

appearance, Sensenbrenner had come to 

Columbus from Circleville and had made a 

success of himself as a Hilltop businessman. 

Quite patriotic, he was a man of enormous 

energy and was deeply committed to his 

adopted town. Entering politics, he surprised 

many people by winning the mayoralty in 

the early 1950s. Forced to sit out a term after 

taking the blame for the west side flooding 

of a stream called Dry Run, Sensenbrenner 

returned as mayor in 1964 and would serve 

until 1971. 

Like many successful politicians, Mayor 

Sensenbrenner knew his limitations and 

looked for good people to advise him as to the 

direction he should take. These men working 

with many others established a political 

dynasty that would eventually come to control 

county as well as city government. Their 

advice to the mayor was succinct—annex, 

and then annex some more. 


92

Many large cities in Ohio and across 

America were being slowly strangled by a ring 

of new suburban communities that were preventing 

further urban growth and taking 

some of the most affluent taxpayers in the city 

with them. In Columbus, this process was 

checked by linking approval of sewer and 

water line extensions to annexation to the city. 

A developer could and sometimes did build 

subdivisions with septic tanks and wells. 

But they were never as popular as places 

whose homes had city sewer, water and police 

and fire services. With this policy in place, 

Columbus soon grew to become the largest 

city in land area and ultimately the largest city 

in population in the state. 

As Columbus entered the 1960s, it was 

growing for a number of reasons. A wise policy 

of annexation combined with inner city 

rehabilitation and revitalization put the city 

in position to be able to grow. Probably the 

most sophisticated freeway system in Ohio 

saw major roads coming into Columbus from 

every direction with traffic easily diverted to 

any part of the city by a fifty-five mile outer 

beltway surrounding the city as Interstate 270. 

✧ 

Left: German carriage ride from the past. 



Right: German village was not the 

only neighborhood helped by historic 

preservation. In the late 1970s two 

neighborhoods bracketing High Street in the 

Short North—Victorian and Italian Village 

(seen here)—also became quite successful. 




9 3

✧ 

Right: The Ohio State University grew in 

the years after World War II. From 17,500 

students in 1940, the campus exploded to 

26,000 students by 1950. By 1952 it was 

clear that filling the stadium on an autumn 

afternoon would not be a problem. 




Below: Legendary football player, Chic Harley. 



Bottom: The Ohio State University 

basketball team leaving for California, 1960. 



T H E I M P O R T A N C E O F A 

G R E A T U N I V E R S I T Y 

Still, even with space and access, a city 

needs people in order to grow. Columbus 

would soon see them for a number of reasons, 

the most important of which was 3.3 miles 

north of the Statehouse Square along High 

Street. Since 1870, the country home and 

extensive farms of William Neil, “the Old 

Stage King,” had been the home of The Ohio 

State University. 

Ohio State has been such a large part of the 

recent history of Columbus, Ohio, that it is 

sometimes easy to forget that it was not all 

that long ago when the campus and student 

body were rather small. For most of the early 

history of the university, the campus was the 

home of a few hundred and then later a few 

thousand students. Affluent residents of the 

city often built large spacious homes near the 

small university in exclusive neighborhoods 

with names like Indianola, Northwood Park 

and Dennison Place. The University area was 

a nice quiet place near a nice quiet campus. 

Some of that calm began to dissipate in 

the early twentieth century when football 

games—especially those featuring the legendary 

Chic Harley—began to make a lot of 

noise at Neil Park along High Street. The 

growing success of Ohio State’s teams would 

support the construction of a new Ohio 

Stadium that would draw even more 

thousands of people to athletic contests. But 

for all of that, Ohio State was still a small 

school in a state rather filled with colleges. 

All of that changed at the end of World 

War II. 

The GI Bill of Rights provided a means 

for thousands of veterans of limited means 

to come to Ohio State—among many other 

places—and complete a college education. 

The campus grew in size and complexity as 

a result of these new students. But the real 

growth of the land grant college would really 

begin after most of the veterans had received 

their education and left the campus. The 

continued growth Ohio State owed its success 

to World War II—but for different reasons. 

Many of those veterans returning home 

after World War II found their dream in a 

new house, a new car and a new wife. The 

result was also new kids. Most people had 

put off family building during the Depression 

for economic reasons. During the war, most 

men were elsewhere. Now in the years 

between 1946 and 1964, America saw an 


94

extraordinary surge in the birth rate. It came 

to be called the Post-War Baby Boom and it 

would affect the culture and society of 

America for many years. 

By the early 1960s many of these young 

people of the postwar generation began to 

attend college. Because it was inexpensive 

and because it was THE state university, 

many young people came to Columbus. By 

1965 the campus at Ohio State was the home 

to more than 50,000 students. 

And it was an interesting time—to say the 

least. Many of the young people coming of 

age after World War II had grown up as the 

children of affluence with advantages their 

Depression born parents had never had. 

Many of these new children from the era 

of the 1960s embraced the open culture of 

that time. Of course, many more did not. But 

the acceptors of the status quo are often 

forgotten because they make so little noise. 

In an oral history interview in 1985, former 

OSU President Novice G. Fawcett remembered 

the students of the 1960s. “The greatest 

satisfaction I had during my years at the 

University was working with students. I was 

always available to students…I had great faith 

in the students. In every student body there is 

always a small minority of people who think 

otherwise…Most of the students wanted to 

continue with their academic studies, but a lot 

of them got caught up in one of these movements 

or the other.” 

There were a number of movements to 

choose from. The Civil Rights Movement in 

the South was complemented by the Free 

Speech Movement in the North. And with 

protest about the Vietnam War thrown in after 

1965, it would be only a matter of time before 

the gigantic campus would explode. On April 

28, 1970, twenty thousand students and their 

friends appeared on the Oval in the center of 

the Ohio State campus and began a protest 

that would eventually become the greatest civil 

disorder in the city since the 1910 streetcar 

strike. By the time it ended, the campus had 

been closed, the National Guard was called in, 

and hundreds of people had been arrested. 

It was a difficult time but the university 

worked its way through its difficulties. As it 

did, it became increasingly clear that places 

like Ohio State made Columbus a rather 

distinctive sort of city. Now Columbus was 

about to succeed while much of the rest of 

the state fell behind. 

More than once in its history, Columbus 

had proven itself to be a special place. It was 

about to do so once again. 

✧ 

In the early twenty-first century, the campus 

of Ohio State continued to grow. In 2002, 

there were more than 48,000 students 

attending the main campus. By the time 

Ohio played Penn State in fall of 2010, 

the enrollment had climbed to 56,000. 

Even a greatly enlarged stadium had no 

trouble staying filled. 




9 5

C H A P T E R 

TEST CITY TO BEST CITY 1970-1990 

X I 

T H E T E S T C I T Y 

✧ 

The F & R Lazarus Company has been an 

innovator as well. Founded by Simon 

Lazarus in 1851 as a men’s store, the 

founder’s sons, Fred and Ralph, made 

“Lazarus” into the biggest department store 

in the city. Succeeding generations founded 

Federated Department Stores and a 

national business. 



In the years after World War II, the United States became the strongest economic power on 

Earth. Most of the success of American business can be directly traced to a striking evolution of 

American trade and commerce. The movement to a consumer based economy had started in the 

1920s and continued through the Great Depression and World War II. In the 1950s and 1960s, 

dozens of companies began to make their money selling lots of products to lots of people. 

In a real sense this was the golden age of the department store and the supermarket and 

Columbus, Ohio, had a large number of both. Founded in an abandoned roller rink near OSU, 

Big Bear stores became one of the biggest supermarket chains in the Midwest. And the venerable 

F & R Lazarus Company began a whole chapter of department store success by complementing 

its huge downtown store with shopping center locations. 

To compete in an increasingly crowded marketplace, the purveyors of everything from laundry 

soap to candy bars were forced to advertise in all sorts of places from billboards to newspapers 

and from radio and TV shows to free samples hung in a bag on a door knob. All of this promotion 

cost a lot of money. Many manufacturers wanted to know whether a product would sell before 

releasing it a waiting world. What was needed was a “test market.” 

By the end of the 1960s, one of the most commonly used test markets in America was 

Columbus, Ohio—so much so in fact that it came to be called “Test City USA” by Reader’s Digest 

magazine. Columbus was used so often because its population was a veritable cross-section of 

America. It had a population of working people and a large number of government, service and 

commercial employees. The city’s still active downtown was ringed by both older established 

neighborhoods and brand new subdivisions. Furthermore, the city was also politically diverse. 

Columbus was not unique in being so diverse, but it was one of the largest cities close to the 

commercial and industrial Northeast and Midwest with these traits. 


96

In an interview in 2009, OSU professor 

Neeli Bandapudi explained the appeal of 

the capital city to America’s marketers. 

“So Columbus, Middle America, it was the 

idea that it truly was representative of the 

broader trends of the nation.” 

But by the 1970s, much to the chagrin of 

marketers and advertisers working in Columbus, 

the city was no longer the test city it once 

was. In fact, the city was no longer a mirror of 

most of America. The people of Columbus were 

younger, better educated and generally made 

more money than most of the people in cities 

of comparable size across the country. In short, 

Columbus was no longer a versatile test city 

because of its continuing economic prosperity. 

This extraordinary success was all the more 

remarkable when one considers the condition 

of the rest of the country and the Midwest 

specifically in the 1970s and 1980s. It was 

not a very pleasant time for a lot of people. 

The great industrial cities of the East and 

Midwest were in decline. Many companies 

were moving their factories to the South and 

West where regulations were few and labor 

was considerably cheaper. In time, many of 

those same factories that brought benefit to a 

“New South” and a “New West” moved even 

farther away to Latin America, to Canada and 

even to Asia. And competitors from the rest of 

the world were providing a new challenge 

to American products and services. All of 

these difficulties were compounded by high 

priced oil controlled by the Organization of 

Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). 

Very few cities were able to meet these 

formidable challenges and emerge successfully. 

Columbus, Ohio, was one of them. There were 

a number of reasons why. 

First and foremost Columbus had always 

had something of a diversified economy. 

Manufacturing had never composed the majority 

of business in the town. The commercial, 

transportation and government sectors had 

always been strong. While Columbus never 

grew quite as fast as other industrial cities, 

it never suffered quite as much in hard times. 

But the secret to success in Columbus was 

more than simple diversity. The city was 

innovative too. Since 1929, Columbus had 

been the home of the Battelle Memorial 

Institute. Originally a metallurgical research 

organization, Battelle had become the largest 

✧ 

Top: In the early 1970s, the City of 

Columbus was still reasonably well 

populated during a working day like this 

one at Broad and High Streets in 1974. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF ESTHER A. MILLER. 

Above: Columbus had always had its share 

of innovators. Big Bear opened its first store 

in 1934 near OSU and was the first selfservice 

supermarket in the Midwest. 



C H A P T E R X I 

9 7

✧ 

Above: Columbus has been a favorable 

market for new restaurant ideas for almost 

a century. The White Castle Company was 

founded in 1921 and came to Columbus in 

1934. A former executive with Kentucky 

Fried chicken, Dave Thomas decided he 

wanted to open his own chain. Taking his 

daughter’s name, he opened the first 

Wendy’s across from Memorial Hall in 

Columbus in 1969. 


METROPOLITAN LIBRARY/NICK TAGGART COLLECTION. 

Below: Children’s Hospital was founded in 

1894 with nine patient beds. In 2007, a gift 

of $50 million from the Nationwide 

Foundation led to its renaming as 

Nationwide Children’s Hospital. It is 

consistently ranked as one of the best 

hospitals in America. 



private research organization in the world. 

With its neighbor, The Ohio State University, 

Battelle pointed the way to new types of 

business in Columbus. 

While other Ohio cities were desperately 

seeking manufacturers to replace lost jobs, 

Columbus became the home to Chemical 

Abstracts Service, the OCLC library cataloging 

center, and Time-Warner communications 

with its innovative QUBE cable television 

service. And even more traditional businesses 

like the Limited Stores, Nationwide Insurance, 

Cardinal Health and Worthington Steel were 

successful because they did a number of 

new things with flair and style. 

In addition, education has always been 

important in Columbus. Like most of the 

rest of the state, central Ohio is home to a 

number of colleges and universities. They 

include some like Capital, Franklin, Otterbein 

and Ohio Dominican that have been here 

for more than a century and others like 

Columbus State and DeVry that are more 

recent in origin. 

Columbus also has a long history of innovation 

in health care. The establishment of 

Starling Medical College in 1848 when 

Columbus was a city of a few thousand people 

began a tradition of excellence that would 

include what would eventually become 

Nationwide Children’s Hospital as well as a 

host of other excellent health care providers. 

And then there is food and its preparation. 

As people who operate certain eating 

places will tell you, many successful chains 

like McDonald’s and Burger King are NOT 

“fast food” restaurants. They are “fast service” 

restaurants. Having settled that issue, it 

should be pointed out that Columbus is 

corporate home to several of the best ones. 

As early as 1929 the White Castle Company 

moved its business to Columbus from its 

birthplace in Kansas City. In 1969 former 

Kentucky Fried Chicken executive Dave 

Thomas started his own restaurant and 

named it after his daughter—“Wendy’s Old 

Fashioned Hamburgers.” 

Remarking on his success, Thomas later 

explained, It all comes back to the basics. 

Serve customers the best-tasting food at a 

good value in a clean, comfortable restaurant, 

and they’ll keep coming back. 


98

Columbus became the largest city in Ohio 

in land area with its aggressive annexation 

policies. It became the largest city in population 

by being a good place to work in a lot of 

different kinds of places. 

D O W N T O W N 

C H A L L E N G E D 

Despite this success and economic stability, 

the 1970s and 1980s still proved to be 

years of challenge to the City of Columbus. 

While the city continued to grow in size and 

population, much of that growth was taking 

place away from the downtown. A whole new 

generation of shopping centers—Northland, 

Eastland and Westland—was built even 

further from downtown. Unlike the older 

shopping centers, the new ones eventually 

would all be covered to provide comfortable 

year round shopping. And they began to 

draw more and more customers away 

from downtown. 

The availability of inexpensive 

land meant that whole new 

factories were built not near the 

old working class neighborhoods 

but along the distant Interstate 

270 Outerbelt corridor. 

While some historic districts 

near downtown prospered in 

the 1970s and 1980s, many of 

the neighborhoods adjacent to 

downtown were not German, 

Victorian or Italian Village. And 

to be fair, many of them did not 

want to be. As business shifted from downtown 

to the suburbs, more and more property 

owners began to tear down old buildings 

that lacked tenants and replace them with 

parking lots that were easier to maintain. 

There were some success stories. In 1974, 

the 1895 Wyandotte Building, Columbus’ first 

skyscraper, was renovated. And even though 

the landmark Neil House hotel on Statehouse 

Square was removed, the Huntington Center 

that replaced it became a landmark in its own 

right. The old headquarters of the Columbus 

Area Chamber of Commerce was removed 

and the Rhodes Office Tower that replaced it 

became the tallest building in the city. Even 

venerable Central High School was saved 

from the wrecking ball after it closed. But over 

the 1970s and 1980s, more and more empty 

blocks began to appear in the downtown 

cityscape. Perhaps the best known symbolic 

loss to downtown came in 1976. 

✧ 

Top, left: The third Neil House Hotel had 

stood across High Street from the Statehouse 

since 1924. In the early 1980s it was 

replaced with the thirty-seven story 

Huntington Center which opened in 1984. 

The Center is the fourth tallest building in 

the city. 



Top, right: In 1969 the 1885 Columbus 

Board of Trade building was removed and 

replaced with the James A. Rhodes State 

Office Tower. A statue of Governor Rhodes, 

the longest serving governor in state history, 

stands in front of the building. 



Below: Central High School.. 


METROPOLITAN LIBRARY/DAVID LUCAS COLLECTION. 


9 9

✧ 

Above: Plans to build a new convention 

center in the 1970s originally included the 

retention of part of the Union Station 

Arcade. Plans changed and an unannounced 

demolition proceeded quickly in October, 

1976. When the destruction was halted only 

one great arch remained. It now stands in 

McFerson Park in the Arena District. 




Below: Court ordered desegregation of the 

Columbus Public Schools began in 1979. It 

proceeded in a peaceful and orderly way. 



The Beaux Arts Union Station Arcade had 

been planned to have been incorporated 

into a new civic center being developed on 

the site of the old train station. Immediately 

to the south along High Street, Nationwide 

Insurance had made a major commitment to 

stay in the downtown and it was hoped that 

the new convention center would incorporate 

the best of the old and the new. 

It was not to be. In October 1976, the 

Arcade was removed. By the time demolition 

could be stopped, only one great arch of 

the old arcade remained. The arch would be 

saved and rebuilt elsewhere. The movement 

to preserve it led directly to the establishment 

of the Columbus Landmarks Foundation in 

1977 and the birth of a modern movement in 

Columbus pledged to historic preservation 

and sound new design. 

The social fabric of the city was tested in 

these years. While Columbus had its share of 

low-to-moderate-income neighborhoods, the 

city had not seen the intense inner city violence 

that had characterized much of the rest 

of urban America in the 1960s. 

While there had been instances 

of civil disorder in those years, 

they were few and far between. 

Even so, the imposition of 

court ordered busing for the 

purpose of school desegregation 

in 1979 became a cause for 

concern among many residents 

of the city. America’s experience 

with forced busing had not been 

pleasant. In many cities—north 

and south—the reaction had 

been violent. School officials, 

civic leaders, and most importantly 

the people of Columbus, 

were determined to see busing 

proceed peacefully. And it did. 

In releasing the Columbus 

Public Schools from court 

ordered busing in 1985, Federal 

Judge Robert Duncan observed 

that the “defendants have had 

significant success in doing what 

many view as impossible.” 


100

The peaceful implementation of busing in 

Columbus was not all that surprising to many 

people living in the city. It was yet one more 

example of how the city’s groups—public and 

private—were generally committed not to 

partisan advantage but to the betterment of 

the city even as the city’s leadership changed. 

Democratic control of city hall changed 

with the election of Republican Tom Moody 

as mayor of Columbus. He would be followed 

by two other Republicans—Greg Lashutka 

and Dana Rinehart and the composition of 

City Council would change as well. But the 

generally cooperative relationship between 

private and public Columbus would make 

possible some innovative responses to the 

problems facing the city. 

In addition to keeping old businesses and 

finding new ones, the major challenge facing 

Columbus in these years was to reverse the 

decline of downtown. In the early 1970s 

agreement had been reached that only way to 

effectively revive a declining downtown was 

to make it competitive with the suburbs. 


R E B O R N 

It was not that there were no people downtown. 

Thousands of people came downtown 

every day to work, and dine and even occasionally 

shop. The major great old theatres—the 

Ohio and the Palace—had been restored and 

still drew large audiences from time to time. 

And special events like the Greater Columbus 

Arts Festival and the Red, White and Boom 

celebration on the Fourth of July drew hundreds 

of thousands of people to the riverfront. 

The problem was not special events. 

Columbus was very adept at staging special 

events. The problem—as one wag put it— 

was Tuesday night. On an average Tuesday 

night, one could “shoot a cannon up High 

Street and not hit anything.” 

To resolve the problem the City of 

Columbus acquired four city blocks east of 

High Street and immediately south of the 

Statehouse. The city cleared the area and 

transferred it to the newly created Capitol 

South Urban Redevelopment Corporation. 

“Capitol South” as it came to be called would 

rebuild the area, first with a rather unsuccessful 

roller skating and ice rink called the 

Centrum and then with a very successful 

multilevel enclosed shopping mall called 

City Center. 

From the time it opened in 1989, City 

Center was quite obviously the best place to 

shop in central Ohio and thousands of people 

came to Columbus from across the state to 

visit it. 

✧ 

Top, left: On June 15, 2000, five Columbus 

mayors met socially one with another at the 

Ohio Statehouse. Left to right: Tom Moody, 

Greg Lashutka, James Rhodes, Dana 

Rinehart, Michael Coleman. 



Top, right: While people still came to 

Columbus for special events, getting them 

downtown on weekday nights was a 

problem. Acquiring three blocks south of the 

Statehouse, the Capitol South Community 

Urban Redevelopment Corporation opened 

a combination skating rink and roller rink 

on the site in 1979 while other uses were 

being planned. Called The Centrum, the 

rink was heavily used at first—as can be 

seen in this 1980 holiday picture. 




1 0 1

By 1990, the City of Columbus had demonstrated 

time and again over the previous twenty 

years that the people of the town had the 

ability to respond effectively and well to difficult 

problems as diverse as central city decline 

and school desegregation. Columbus also had 

amply demonstrated that it knew how to manage 

large public events. Many of these—like 

the Arts Festival—were located downtown. But 

others were located elsewhere around the city. 

✧ 

The Nationwide One Building. 




102

In 1973, one of the best known sports 

figures in the history of the city—golf legend 

Jack Nicklaus—decided to bring a major 

professional golf tournament to the city. The 

development of the Memorial Tournament led 

to the building of the Muirfield golf course. 

The golf course led to the construction of 

the Muirfield residential community and the 

transformation of suburban Dublin, Ohio, 

from a sleepy village with quaint stone houses 

to one of the fastest growing areas in the 

state and home to numerous companies. They 

included Dave Thomas’ Wendy’s International. 

And anyone seeking instruction in how to 

handle large crowds of enthusiastic people on a 

sustained and regular basis need only visit the 

Ohio State Fair in Columbus every summer or 

any OSU home football game in the fall. 

✧ 

Probably the largest single one night 

gathering in Columbus in recent years is 

the annual “Red, White and Boom” 

Independence Day celebration. The one in 

2006 is seen here. One will usually find 

about 500,000 people at the annual event. 




1 0 3

✧ 

Top, left: The decision by golfing legend 

Jack Nicklaus to sponsor the Memorial 

Tournament at the Muirfield Village 

Golf Club near Dublin in 1976 led to 

commercial, residential and recreational 

development in much of northwest 

Franklin County. 



Top, right: To celebrate the 500th 

anniversary of the voyage of discovery of 

Christopher Columbus, the largest city 

named for the explorer held a major 

horticultural exhibition called Ameriflora ’92 

in Franklin Park. The exhibition ran from 

April 20, 1922, to October 12, 1992, and 

attracted 5.5 million visitors. 



Right: Battelle Memorial Institute.. 



Below: As part of the Quincentennial of the 

arrival of Christopher Columbus in 

America, the city acquired an exact replica 

of his flagship, the Santa Maria, in 1992. 

It is moored just north of Broad Street 

Bridge at Battelle Riverfront Park. 



The 500th Anniversary of the arrival of 

Christopher Columbus and his band of 

adventurous explorers was observed in 1992. 

In several parts of America, various events— 

social, cultural and literary—centered on the 

event. Variously called the Quincentennial or 

the Quincentenary—depending on who 

was talking—the celebration of the coming 

of Columbus was eagerly 

anticipated by some, especially 

people of Italian 

descent, and bitterly 

detested by others, especially 

Native Americans. 

Columbus, Ohio, had 

its share of both. But as 

the largest city anywhere 

named for the explorer, a 

lot of people felt that the 

500th anniversary was a 

good time to hold an event 

in honor of the “Admiral 

of the Ocean Sea.” It was quickly decided not 

to erect another stature of Christopher 

Columbus—the city already had three. 

A major event of the celebration was an 

internationally sanctioned floral exhibition. 

“Ameriflora” was held at Franklin Park and 

the event spurred a massive expansion in 

size and scale of the venerable 1895 Franklin 

Park Conservatory. Ameriflora was quite successful 

and attracted several million visitors 

to the city. 

The other notable arrival in the city during 

the 500th anniversary was a replica of 

Columbus’ flagship—the Santa Maria. 

Moored just north of 

the Broad Street Bridge 

near Battelle Riverfront 

Park, the ship became 

and remained a popular 

tourist attraction. 

As Columbus entered 

the 1990s, the city 

seemed poised to continue 

to enjoy continued 

remarkable growth 

and economic success. 

And it would—but not 

without a few slight 

turns and a few bumps 

in the road. 


104

C H A P T E R 

X I I 

THE CITY RISING 1990-2012 

A P R O S P E R O U S D E C A D E 

The 1990s were years of change in much of America as well as in Columbus, Ohio. The 1980s 

had posed economic and social challenges to much of the country. Occasional military 

confrontations notwithstanding, the decade of the 1990s was one of general economic 

prosperity. Not since the 1960s had the country seen such continued economic growth. Many 

people looking for work were able to find it—especially in the high technology “dot.com” 

companies that came to capture the imagination of investors and customers alike. 

While the West and the South benefited most in growing these new businesses which 

specialized in a savvy understanding of both media and technology, cities like Columbus did not 

do all that badly. The high concentration of educational and research institutions which had 

been a hallmark of the city since the end of World War II was helpful to the new companies of 

Columbus. And older more established companies in retail and service industries also prospered. 

What was hidden in the success of the new economy was the continued decline of the old 

manufacturing businesses that once had been the core of the industrial Midwest. In 1988 the 

large White Westinghouse plant on the far west side that had been operating in the city since 

1954 closed for the last time and its large factory building became a warehouse. The century old 

Jeffrey Manufacturing Company had been acquired by Dresser Industries in 1974. In 1995, 

the thirty-two buildings constituting most of the closed factory were demolished. The site would 

remain vacant for a number of years. A better ending followed the closing of the local Lennox 

Industries factory near The Ohio State University in 1994. Within two years, the site had become 

the home of the Lennox Town Center shopping mall. 

✧ 

An awesome rainbow broadcasts a Clippers 

game at Huntington Park on 

April 20, 2009. 



C H A P T E R X I I 

1 0 5

✧ 

Above: The 1990s continued to see a 

loss of industry in the city. The Jeffrey 

Manufacturing Company had been part of 

the near north side of Columbus for more 

than a century when it was acquired by 

Dresser Industries in 1974. In 1995, the 

entire site was leveled. 



Below: Columbus had opened a new 

convention center in the Ohio Center 

adjacent to the Hyatt Regency Hotel in 

1980. But more space was needed. 

A strikingly modern new center was opened 

in 1993 and expanded in 1999. 



In fact one could trace the growth of the 

city by following the trail of its major retail 

centers. The great enclosed shopping malls of 

the 1960s and 1970s that had once replaced 

an earlier generation of unenclosed strip 

malls now saw themselves superseded. A 

whole new series of shopping centers began 

to be built around and beyond the northern 

tier of Interstate 270. In 1997, The Mall at 

Tuttle Crossing opened on the northwest side 

of the city. Similar in look and concept to 

City Center in downtown Columbus, Tuttle 

Crossing was followed in 1999 by a development 

that was more of a new community 

than a shopping center. 

Beginning in the 1980s, retailer Leslie 

Wexner had partnered with developer Jack 

Kessler in the acquisition of a large amount of 

land near rural New Albany in northeast 

Franklin County. Beginning in 1991, the New 

Albany Company transformed the small village 

into a fashionable residential community 

with large tracts of commercial office space 

and the Easton Town Center. Easton was 

and is not so much a shopping center as a 

shopping experience. It describes itself as a 

“1.7 million square foot urban town center 

featuring pedestrian friendly streetscapes, 

open air gathering places, fountains, children’s 

parks and more than 170 best-in-class retail, 

dining tenants.” 

Easton was soon followed by Polaris 

Fashion Place on the north side in 2001. 

While a more traditional multi-story mall in 

general appearance, Polaris offered more 

amenities and a wider variety of shopping 

than had previously been the case in many 

Columbus retail locations. The combination 

of these new shopping areas proved to be too 

much for Northland Mall. The shopping center 

closed in 2002 and by 2004 most of its 

buildings would be demolished. 

The success of the new shopping malls 

soon attracted a wide variety of other businesses 

large and small to nearby locations. But 

the new shopping centers, like the ones that 

preceded them, were not so much a cause 

as an effect. The suburban population of 

Columbus was moving inexorably to new suburbs 

near and then beyond the Interstate 270 

Outer Belt. That is where new businesses were 

locating and the stores were moving to where 

many of their customers lived and worked. 


R E I N V E N T E D 

The success of the fringes posed a conundrum 

to the civic leaders working to maintain 

and enhance the urban core of Columbus. By 

the early 1990s, it was clear that, while City 

Center was still thriving and many people were 

still coming daily to downtown and would 

continue to do so, that a formidable economic 

challenge to the urban center was emerging in 

the suburbs. In the belief that the core of 

Columbus could and would be as successful 

as the suburbs, a number of important and 

valuable projects went forward in the 1990s. 


106

One of the great strengths and successes 

of Columbus in the years after World War II 

had been its historic districts. The initial 

districts—German, Victorian and Italian 

Village—had been adjacent to downtown. 

Split from the city by the freeways encircling 

the downtown core, these neighborhoods 

had nevertheless increased the population of 

the areas around the core. The success of 

these neighborhoods led to the creation of 

many more in many other parts of the city. In 

the case of the Brewery District—created in 

1993—the historic area was primarily commercial 

rather than residential and provided 

an example of a whole new sort of historic 

property preservation. 

Historic districts have at times in American 

history been somewhat controversial as low 

to moderate income people living in older 

neighborhoods saw their communities being 

“gentrified” by middle class newcomers. 

Sometimes this did happen. But in many cases 

it did not and neighbors old and new learned 

to live one with another. The neighborhoods 

were saved and strengthened the nearby 

central city. 

So too did the convention center—in a 

rather lengthy and somewhat convoluted way. 

Columbus has been a convention city for 

quite a long time. All of those railroads passing 

through Columbus and later freeways and 

air traffic made Columbus a good place to 

hold a meeting. In the mid 1800s, meetings 

were held in any place with a lot of room—a 

church, a school or even a theatre. By the late 

1800s, large public meetings were often held 

in public auditoriums. The Board of Trade had 

one attached to their building on Broad Street. 

When not in use for conventions, its alternate 

use can be deduced from the still surviving 

Ringside Café on Pearl Alley. A real addition 

was made to convention trade with Memorial 

Hall at the turn of the century and with 

Veterans Memorial Auditorium after World 

War II. But by the late 1960s, it was clear a 

new convention center was needed. Battelle 

Memorial Institute provided much of the capital 

needed to build one adjacent to a new 

Hyatt Hotel on the site of the old train station. 

Unfortunately, the rapid growth of the city 

and its conventions soon showed that center 

to be too small as well. In the early 1990s, 

architect Peter Eisenmann designed a new 

convention for the city in the deconstructionist 

style for which he had become wellknown. 

Controversial in appearance, the new 

✧ 

In 1989, a major shopping mall called City 

Center was opened in downtown Columbus. 

For the next several years it was the place 

to shop in central Ohio. Then in 1997, a 

new mall called Tuttle Crossing opened on 

the northwest side in 1997. It was followed 

by another innovative mall called Easton 

Town Center—seen here in 1999. 




1 0 7

✧ 

Top: The Scioto River at dusk in 2008. 



Above: Franklinton had not seen the kind of 

renovation dollars that poured into other 

neighborhoods near the downtown after the 

success of German Village because it was 

still prone to possible flooding. Things began 

to change in the 1990s with the beginning of 

construction of a major flood protection 

program. “The Floodwall” was completed 

in 2004. 



Below: The Ohio Statehouse in 2008. 



center was nevertheless provided much needed 

convention space and was extended with 

an addition in 1999. The success of the convention 

center sparked a revival in the last 

public market in the city which was across 

the street. The North Market had been located 

on the site of the old North Graveyard 

since the cemetery was abandoned in 1876. 

The Market burned after World War II and 

was replaced by a rather large Quonset Hut. 

Now the market would be revitalized. In 

1995, the North Market reopened in a former 

warehouse building adjacent to its longtime 

former site. The Quonset Hut was removed to 

make way for a parking lot. 

And this was not the only success to come 

to the north side of downtown. In 1832 the 

State of Ohio had left the original Ohio 

Penitentiary site and built a new prison far 

from the city at what is now the corner of 

Spring Street and Neil Avenue. The prison 

stayed there for more than 150 years. By then 

it had become an altogether unsavory and 

unhealthy place indeed. Replaced by a new 

prison at Lucasville, the “Pen” stood empty 

until 1995 when it left state hands. In 1997 

the prison was leveled and became part of a 

new development—the Arena District. Efforts 

to bring professional hockey to Columbus 

were successfully led by local industrialist 

John McConnell. The result was the arrival of 

Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team and the 

construction of Nationwide Arena as a place for 

them to play in 2000. When the Arena opened, 

John McConnell said, “Columbus has been 

good to me. I think this is good for Columbus.” 

Surrounding the new facility, a new area of 

shops, offices, apartments and condominiums 

called the Arena District came into being and 

was a successful part of a revitalizing downtown. 

But it was only one part. 

Some of the most important changes to downtown 

were being undertaken by government. 

The Ohio Statehouse is and always has 

been the preeminent symbol of state power 

and authority in Columbus. Begun in 1839 

the building had taken twenty-two years to 

complete and had been in continuous use 

ever since. By the late 1980s state leaders 

were convinced the great building needed a 

makeover. Over most of the next decade it 

got one. By the time the work was done in 

1996, the Statehouse had been returned to 

the way it looked in the late 1860s. It had 

cost more than $100 million to do it, but 

most people who have seen it come away 

convinced it was worth the money. 

Other parts of the downtown were seeing 

some change. The combined impact of several 

cultural organizations on the east side of 

downtown was significant. But that impact 

was muted because of the lack of an organized 

way to promote all of the schools, 

colleges, museums and library facilities in 

the area. The Discovery District became the 

marketing vehicle to let most of the rest of 

Columbus know what this remarkably 

creative area was all about. The District and 

its constituent organizations became much 

more strongly supported as a result. 

The Center of Science and Industry, on 

the other hand, literally went in another 

direction. Housed in the former Memorial 

Hall, the Franklin County Historical Society 


108

had transformed itself in 1963 into the 

Center of Science and Industry or COSI. By 

the 1990s, the leaders of COSI felt a new 

home was needed. That home would take 

part of the front of the 1924 Central High 

School and wrap an entirely new building 

around it along the Scioto Riverfront. 

Opened in 1999, the new COSI was a wonder 

to behold. In the years that followed, 

WOSU Public Media partnered with COSI 

and constructed a broadcast studio within 

the museum building. 

All of this helped spark a rediscovery of 

the Franklinton neighborhood in the late 

1990s. In 1997, Franklinton celebrated the 

two hundredth anniversary of its establishment 

by Lucas Sullivant in 1797. A statue of 

the explorer was unveiled along the riverfront. 

Until then, there had been three statues 

of Columbus in the city but none of the man 

who had built the first town. 

It was not hard to see why. A lot of people 

had simply forgotten about Franklinton. 

Neighborhoods in every other direction had 

been restored, rehabilitated and renovated over 

the years—but most of Franklinton had not. 

There was an important reason why—water. 

Franklinton had flooded many times and 

might flood many more. While that was 

possible, people wishing to renovate found 

it almost impossible to do so. All of that 

began to change in the 1990s with the slow 

laborious construction of a multimillion 

dollar Flood Wall to protect the Franklinton 

Community. Completed in 2004, the Flood 

Wall has permitted rehabilitation and new 

construction to go forward. 

B E Y O N D 

M I L L E N N I A L 

T H E 

M O M E N T 

By the turn of the Millennium, Columbus 

and central Ohio were moving forward in a 

variety of positive ways. Much of the rest of 

the state continued to suffer from the loss of 

business and the migration of people to places 

with better prospects. And one of those places 

was Columbus. 

The events of September 11, 2001, awakened 

a new spirit in Columbus as it did in 

most other American communities and one of 

the object lessons of those days was that it was 

important for America to be strong and fair at 

home it if it wished to be strong and fair 

around the world. 

This point was especially well-taken in 

Columbus which began to see significant 

immigration for the first time in many years. 

Because of its educational and research facilities, 

Columbus had had a more diverse 

population than most Ohio cities. But the 

numbers of recent immigrants were relatively 

small. That changed in the years after 1990. 

Asian immigration increased as a number of 

Asian companies began to build factories and 

produce products in the state. Latin immigration 

also increased. While still small, the 

Latin population doubled over the last 

decade. And in the same years, Columbus, 

Ohio, became the home of the second largest 

Somali population in America. 

In 2000, Columbus inaugurated a new 

Mayor. Michael Coleman had worked his way 

up through Columbus City Council and developed 

an ability to work with the widest variety 

✧ 

Above: In 2000, Michael Coleman became 

the fifty-second mayor of Columbus, and is 

currently serving in the post. 



Bottom, left: The Latino community of 

central Ohio is growing rapidly. Each year 

the Latino Festival draws thousands of 

people to the Riverfront. Seen here in 2010, 

the festival has become an anticipated 

downtown event. 



Bottom, right: One of the fastest growing 

new populations in Columbus consists of 

relatively recent arrivals from Somalia. 

Today Columbus, Ohio, has the second 

largest Somali community in America. 

Somalian Flag Day was celebrated on the 

Statehouse grounds on July 1, 2009. 




1 0 9

In his 2011 State of the City address, Mayor 

Coleman reiterated his continuing commitment 

Rebuilding neighborhoods is among the 

most important work we do, and the most 

difficult work we do. True neighborhood 

revitalization does not take place overnight. 

It requires dedication, patience and a strong 

spirit. But when it is done successfully, 

we strengthen our city, bringing new hope to 

our residents. 

✧ 

Above: The King Arts Complex opened in 

March, 1987, after a $2.7 million 

renovation of the 1925 Pythian Theater on 

the Near East Side of the city. With an 

additional $1.8 million renovation, Phase II 

opened in October, 1989 creating a 60,000 

square foot facility. The King Arts Complex 

is a major center for cultural and 

educational activities in the City 




Right: The historic Lincoln Theatre in 2005. 



Below: Weinland Park is a neighborhood in 

transition. Long a working class area 

adjacent to factories along the railroad, the 

area saw significant change as the factories 

closed. Now a multifaceted partnership of 

The Ohio State University and other local 

institutions is involved in a long term effort 

to help the people of Weinland Park reach 

community goals. 



of people—a skill that would come in handy as 

he was re-elected twice over the next decade. 

One of the things Coleman and a number of 

civic leaders wanted to accomplish was the 

continued revitalization of inner city neighborhoods. 

On the Near East Side of Columbus, a 

number of initiatives would be undertaken 

with the best known project being the renovation 

of the historic Lincoln Theatre—a project 

finally completed in 2009. Similar intensive 

work to bring communities together and move 

forward was undertaken in places as diverse as 

Weinland Park in the North, the Hilltop to the 

West and in the Far South Side of Columbus. 

As Ohio celebrated its Bicentennial in 

2003 and Franklin County celebrated its two 

hundredth birthday in the same year, it was 

becoming increasingly clear to governmental 

and private leaders in Columbus that the key 

to the downtown was housing—and a certain 

sort of housing at that. 

Columbus had lost much of its downtown 

population in the years after World War II. But 

it had not lost all of it. Downtown had always 

been a continued to be a home to people of 

both high and low incomes. The loss of so 

many residents in downtown had made much 

of the surviving housing rather inexpensive. 

In addition, the wealthy had always been 

able to find a place to live downtown. In 

former years the better hotels had served 

that purpose and more than one governor 

spent his entire term at the Neil House 

Hotel. The hotels were always complemented 

by a bit of luxury housing. In 

recent times, the Waterford had opened 

in 1979 next to the Cultural Arts Center. 

In 2001, it would be followed by 

Miranova a little farther down the river. 

But what was missing was housing 

to induce the middle class to 

return to the city they had left 

for the suburbs. A series of 

inducements—to both developers 

and their customers— 

were created with a goal to 

provide housing for 10,000 

middle class residents by 

2010. It was sometimes stated 

that with that many people, 

it might be possible for a 

genuine nightlife to reemerge 

in downtown Columbus. 


110

✧ 

Top: In 1997, Nationwide Insurance 

announced it would a build a major new 

Arena in downtown Columbus as part of an 

effort to redevelop the former site of the 

Ohio Penitentiary. The Columbus Blue 

Jackets played their first game (seen here) 

on October 7, 2000, in Nationwide Arena. 



Middle: The Columbus Crew Professional 

Soccer Club was granted a franchise in 

1994 and played its first game in 1996. 

Since 1999 the team has played in 

Columbus Crew Stadium near the Ohio 

State Fairgrounds. To date, the team has 

won five major trophies including the Major 

League Soccer Cup in 2008. 



Bottom: Fans of The Ohio State 

University Buckeyes. 




1 1 1

✧ 

Clockwise, starting from top left: 

As Columbus moved into the twenty-first 

century, it was recognized that attracting 

new residents to downtown was critical to 

its revival. To complement existing upscale 

projects like the Waterford (1979) and 

Miranova ( 2001) hundreds of new rental 

and sale units would be needed as well. 

Until the Recession of 2008 set in, 

substantial progress had been made to reach 

that goal. 



Initial efforts to repopulate the downtown 

were quite successful and hundreds of new 

residents moved to new homes in the downtown 

over the middle part of the decade after 

2000. But the magic goal of 10,000 was not to 

be easily reached. By late in the decade, a 

saturated real-estate market slowed as the 

Great Recession of 2008 held America in its 

grip. But even in those difficult times, the 

number of people living downtown and 

returning downtown continued to increase. 

The last few years in Columbus have in 

some ways been years of transition. City 

Center, increasingly unable to compete 

against the newer centers to the north, closed 

and was razed in 2009. But in its place a new 

meeting place in downtown called Columbus 

Commons with a band shell and a carousel 

was coming into being. 

Complementing a new Main Street Bridge 

is a new series of parks, plazas and bikeways 

along the Riverfront from the Arena District 

to the cultural Arts Center. It is called the 

Scioto Mile. 

While one area in the heart of downtown 

was being transformed, another area near 

it was being reborn. Nationwide Realty 

Investors, the developers of the Arena 

District, opened the first phase of Grandview 

Yard in 2010. 

The Ohio State University completed the 

enclosure of the open end of its horseshoe 

The Scioto Mile is a major redevelopment of 

the riverfront from the Arena District to the 

Cultural Arts Center. Opened in the 

summer of 2011, the Scioto Mile includes 

water features, plazas, paths and bikeways. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF CAPITOL SOUTH. 

Columbus City Center closed in March, 

2009. Demolition of the mall while 

retaining its parking garage was completed 

in March 2010. Replacing the mall was nine 

acres of green space called Columbus 

Commons when it opened in May, 2011. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF CAPITOL SOUTH. 


112

✧ 

Greater Columbus Arts Festival, 2004. 




1 1 3

✧ 

Above: The Topiary Park, located in 




Below: Opened in 2009, the Grange 

Insurance Audubon Center transformed 

part of the industrialized Whittier Peninsula 

into a conservation and nature based 

learning center through the cooperative 

efforts of the City of Columbus Recreation 

and Parks Department, Metro Parks and 

Audubon Ohio. 



football stadium in 2001 and immediately 

filled it with even more enthusiastic fans. 

This is a town that sometimes wistfully wishes 

to be known for something other than college 

sports. Nevertheless, if it is sports by 

which the place is known, it would be well if 

their teams won. And in the case of The Ohio 

State University, generally they do just that. 

As is sometimes the case, the other teams 

in town even get a new place to play. Minor 

league baseball did in 2009 with the opening 

of the Huntington Center in the Arena District 

for the Columbus Clippers. The Columbus 

Crew professional soccer team also got a new 

home just north of the fairgrounds in 1999. 

And has been the case since Columbus 

was founded the city always is looking to the 

future. Columbus was founded in 1812 as a 

planned city with a dream of future greatness. 

And for most of its history, it has been a place 

where great plans have been made. In the 

1820s, Ohio wished to link its few thousand 

residents to the fortunes of the east with a 

grand canal system. Columbus with a population 

of less than 2,000 wanted to make sure 

it was not left out. And it wasn’t. 

In the 1830s Ohio had the audacity to 

propose building a Statehouse second only 

to the U.S. Capitol in a town of mud streets 

full of pigs and people. In the 1850s we 

were planning parks and numbers of public 

institutions in a country where most cities 

had few if any of either. In the years after 

the Civil War, railroads changed America 

and streetcars transformed Columbus, and 

the city reinvented itself once again—with 

occasional rhyme if not always with reason. 

The result was a city that really needed a plan 

and in 1908 it got one. 

Ignoring some of the 1908 plan, much of it 

later came into being in the streets structures 

and parks of 20th Century Columbus. And 

then there was the Metropolitan Committee 

that not only made plans but also made sure 

they were followed. 

Should it really be all that surprising that 

in a time when times are hard and people are 

in need of hope as well as help, we will once 

again do a bit of planning and—unlike many 

places—actually do what we plan to do. 

One group of public and private leaders 

calls itself Columbus 2020 and hopes to 

create 180,000 new jobs in central Ohio by 

that date. Another group calling itself 

Columbus 2050 is looking at how the city 

might look in that year and steps to take to 

make it so. 

And then there is 200 Columbus. 

On February 14, 2012, Columbus will 

celebrate its two hundredth birthday. It will 

be an occasion to look back at who we 

have been, look around at who we are, and 

look forward to who we might be. 

It will be a very good time—as most times 

have been in this good place and “most 

delightful country” 


114

✧ 

Top: What Columbus may look like in the 

future as foreseen in the 2010 Downtown 

Strategic Plan for the city. 


DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION. 

Middle: Scioto Mile Promenade at night. 



Bottom, left: Columbus Commons. 



Bottom, right: Columbus, the celebration of 

200 years of Ohio’s capital city will look 

back in pride as we remember who we have 

been while we look forward with 

anticipation to the world we will soon call 

our own. It has been a long road to this 

good place, but our journey has really 

only just begun. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF 200 COLUMBUS. 


1 1 5

✧ 

The columns and arch are all that remain of 

Union Station which stands in contrast to 

nearby Nationwide Arena, 2006. 




116

SHARING THE HERITAGE 

H i s t o r i c p r o f i l e s o f b u s i n e s s e s , o r g a n i z a t i o n s , 

a n d f a m i l i e s t h a t h a v e c o n t r i b u t e d t o t h e 

d e v e l o p m e n t a n d e c o n o m i c b a s e o f C o l u m b u s 

Quality of Life ..........................................................................1 1 8 

The Marketplace ........................................................................1 4 4 

Building a Strong Columbus.........................................................1 7 6 

S H A R I N G T H E H E R I T A G E 

1 1 7

✧ 

Skating in downtown Columbus. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE COLUMBUS METROPOLITAN LIBRARY. 


118

QUALITY OF LIFE 

H e a l t h c a r e p r o v i d e r s , s c h o o l d i s t r i c t s , 

u n i v e r s i t i e s , a n d o t h e r i n s t i t u t i o n s t h a t 

c o n t r i b u t e t o t h e q u a l i t y o f l i f e i n C o l u m b u s 

Nationwide Children’s Hospital ....................................................1 2 0 

Metro Parks ..............................................................................1 2 4 

Columbus Blue Jackets ................................................................1 2 6 

Ohio Education Association .........................................................1 2 8 

City of Dublin ...........................................................................1 3 0 

OhioHealth ...............................................................................1 3 2 

Columbus Police Reserve .............................................................1 3 4 

Cardinal Health, Inc. .................................................................1 3 6 

Columbus Academy ....................................................................1 3 8 

Isabelle Ridgway Care Center ......................................................1 4 0 

Girl Scouts of Ohio’s Heartland Council ........................................1 4 1 

Columbus Clippers .....................................................................1 4 2 

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium .......................................................1 4 2 

Columbus Metropolitan Library ...................................................1 4 3 

Center of Science and Industry ....................................................1 4 3 

Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E 

1 1 9

NATIONWIDE 

CHILDREN’S 

HOSPITAL 

For more than a century, Columbus, Ohio 

has been home to a pediatric hospital where 

everything matters in improving child health. 

Although it is now the nation’s second largest 

children’s hospital, Nationwide Children’s 

resides in the same downtown setting in 

which it was founded in 1892. 

When a group of central Ohio women 

established Children’s Hospital 120 years ago, 

it was done with the belief that everything 

matters in the care of a child. To this day, 

Nationwide Children’s embodies this promise 

every day, ensuring everything will be taken 

into consideration to make children well. This 

promise stems from its century-old mission to 

provide the best care for all children regardless 

of their family's ability to pay, a commitment 

that has never changed. 

Having remained accessible to patients 

across central Ohio for generations, Nationwide 

Children’s has proven its commitment to provide 

local families with exceptional care 

without needing them to travel exceptional 

distances. Yet the hospital has become more 

than a community treasure. Nationwide 

Children’s has become a homegrown resource 

with riches to share. It has drawn patients 

from every state and around the world. It is 

ranked as one of America’s best children’s hospitals 

by U.S.News & World Report and Parents 

Magazine, as well as a top 10 recipient of the 

National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds to 

free-standing pediatric research centers. 

Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s new 

12-story main hospital draws attention to the 

amazing growth of a pediatric facility that 

started with just nine beds. 

As the City of Columbus celebrates its 

bicentennial in 2012, Nationwide Children’s 

celebrates its 120th year in central Ohio. 

The Hospital’s reputation as a growing 

and passionate leader in pediatric care is 

engrained in its history and came from humble 

beginnings. When the hospital first 

opened, all beds were filled two 

months after opening. Demand was 

such that even at the first annual 

meeting, the trustees were already 

developing expansion plans. 

At the turn of the twentieth century, 

the hospital had an operating 

budget of 56 cents, which was only 

possible after its president had 

written a check for $10 to cover 

a shortfall of $9.44. When the 

president was asked about the situation, 

he said, “We may be poor in 

funds, but we are rich in resources. 

What we lack in currency, we more 

than make up for in character.” 

And so began Children’s Hospital’s 

world-class attitude. 


120

Over the next several decades, Children’s 

Hospital grew tremendously with local philanthropy. 

The constant desire to expand and be 

of greater service to the Columbus community 

brought significant changes, and with each 

milestone, Children’s advanced, eventually 

becoming the first pediatric center in Ohio to 

be certified as a pediatric Level 1 trauma 

center in 1991. 

Advances rapidly continued. In 2004, 

Children’s Hospital’s outpatient laboratory 

became the first national pediatric reference 

lab. In 2005, Children’s became the first freestanding 

pediatric hospital in Ohio to achieve 

Magnet status, which measures quality patient 

care and innovation in nursing practice 

In 2006, the hospital marked a transformational 

milestone in central Ohio philanthropy, 

receiving a $50 million gift from the 

Nationwide Foundation. To honor the vision 

of Nationwide Insurance’s leadership, hospital 

trustees unanimously elected to change 

the name to Nationwide Children’s Hospital. 

The hospital’s current five-year strategic 

plan, to be fully completed in 2014, is 

Nationwide Children’s most recent commitment 

to optimal health for children in central 

Ohio and beyond. 

The strategic plan is designed to extend 

expert pediatric care across all horizons of a 

child's development helping them to reach 

their full potential and optimal quality of life. 

The first goal is always to ensure every child 

the best hospital experience and to extend 

this outstanding care between and after treatment. 

Yet what sets Nationwide Children’s 

strategic plan apart is its ambitious goal to 

improve child health beyond the traditional 

reach of the hospital. 

Nationwide Children’s serves as a catalyst 

and coordinator for the long-term health of 

all children in the central Ohio community. 

Working beyond its walls, the hospital 

embraces the responsibility of caring for all 

children, not just those who come through 

the main campus. An integrated health care 

delivery system and a network of health care, 

academic and community partners allow 

powerful preventative care. Advocating for 

nutritious school lunches and leading the 

fight to end child abuse, allows Nationwide 

Children’s to play a part in making sure 

children reach their full potential. 

Nationwide Children’s doctors represent 

every major pediatric subspecialty. They have 

achieved at the highest level, with vision 

and relentless determination. They could 

pursue their life’s work at literally any 

hospital they choose. Yet, they’ve all chosen 

Nationwide Children’s. This talent has built 

Children’s signature programs, including 

heart, cancer, gastroenterology, neurosciences 

and neonatology care, which are internationally 

recognized for boldly raising the 

standard of pediatric care. 


1 2 1

Nationwide Children’s also has a passion 

for answers and, alongside Battelle and 

Ohio State, is one of central Ohio’s top 

three research centers. The Research Institute 

at Nationwide Children’s Hospital is also an 

international leader in pediatric research and 

is one of the nation’s top ten free-standing 

pediatric research centers based on National 

Institutes of Health funding. The Institute 

works to enhance the health of all children 

by engaging in high-quality, cutting-edge 

research. More than 100 faculty scientists 

focus on discoveries to improve child health 

and support an environment for training 

and mentoring the next generation of 

scientists in pediatric research. Nationwide 

Children’s doctors are also scientists, with 

forty percent of research faculty serving as 

practicing physicians. 

Nationwide Children’s is more than a hospital 

at the corner of Livingston and Parsons 

Avenues. Sixty-eight facilities extend out across 

Ohio and beyond to provide pediatric expertise 

whenever and wherever it’s needed. With 

more than one million patient visits in 2012, 

the hospital is growing to meet a growing need. 

At 1.3 million square feet, the main campus 

expansion is the largest pediatric construction 

endeavor in the nation to date. The expansion 

has added 2,000 more hospital and research 

jobs and will generate a projected $1.3 billion 

in new regional economic activity. 

The centerpiece of the expansion is the 

new main hospital. At 750,000 square feet, 

the 12-story inpatient building is connected 

to the current facility. Imagine a unique combination 

of cutting edge medical facilities, 

a first-class hotel, an inspiring museum and a 

blossoming garden and you’ll be close to the 

design of this new structure. 

Beyond the underground parking garage 

providing direct access to the main hospital, 

patients and families are immersed in a healing 

environment. Educational exhibits and natureinspired 

niches along with panoramic views of 

the outdoors give rise to a hospital atmosphere 

meant to inspire hope and comfort. The firstfloor 

acoustic ceilings decrease ambient noise 

so that families and visitors can concentrate on 

finding their way through the cheerful halls. 

The entire new main hospital is equipped with 

wireless internet access. Expansive views of 

nature-inspired design elements bring a sense 

of the outdoors in. Whimsical animal features 

engage the imagination. 

Parents, children, nurses and doctors provided 

input on patient room design. The 

result is a patient room that mimic a child’s 

bedroom. Large windows allow natural daylight 

to spill in. Sound-absorbing materials 

reduce ambient noise. These details do more 

than inspire a healing atmosphere for patients 

and families. They ensure a safer environment 

for the delivery of care. 

This commitment to detail carries from 

the latest addition to Nationwide Children’s 

research campus. 

From cascades of natural light to laboratories 

designed for collaboration, every detail 

has been considered in the construction of 

research facilities. The hospital’s third research 

building houses a 75-seat conference facility 

with videoconferencing capabilities and laboratory 

space for research faculty. Initiatives 

housed in Research Building III include 

preterm birth and prematurity, cardiovascular 

and pulmonary diseases, child safety and 

injury prevention and computational biology 

and mathematical medicine. This $93 million 


122

world-class facility supports 680 new jobs in 

research and brings Nationwide Children’s 

pediatric research space to more than 500,000 

square feet. 

A place that feels like home couldn’t be 

complete without a spacious front lawn. The 

new front lawn to the hospital adds close to 

six acres of greenspace to the campus. The 

park is designed to provide activity space for 

patients and families with benches, serene 

gardens, walking pathways and a maze. 

Additionally a new environmentally friendly, 

LEED-certified Central Energy Plant powers 

the entire campus. 

Every detail is taken into consideration 

beginning the moment patients and families 

pull up to the hospital. The inpatient visitor 

garage is located under the new green 

space and provides 420 parking spaces connected 

via tunnel to the new tower. Because 

convenience matters. 

Together, the stunning new facilities, ambitious 

strategic plan and world-class clinical 

care and research programs have created an 

unsurpassed atmosphere of care. 

From Nationwide Children’s humble beginning 

to its long-held place in the national spotlight, 

the hospital has become a Columbus 

landmark. Nationwide Children’s is proud to 

call Columbus home and will continue to provide 

outstanding, accessible care to patients 

across central Ohio and around the world for 

coming generations. Continuing in the spirit 

of passionate founders, Nationwide Children’s 

embodies the belief that when a child needs a 

hospital, everything matters. 


1 2 3

METRO PARKS 

✧ 

Above: Picnics were a popular activity for 

visitors to Blacklick Woods, the first Metro 

Park that opened in 1948. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF METRO PARKS. 

Below: Bison were re-introduced at Battelle 

Darby Creek Metro Park in 2011, after 

an absence of more than a hundred years, 

to demonstrate the natural role of large 

herbivores in the prairie ecosystem and 

educate visitors about our nation’s 

largest mammal. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF KIM GRAHAM. 

The largest metropolitan park district in the 

state, Columbus and Franklin County Metro 

Parks features more than 26,000 acres of land 

and water in 16 natural area parks where 

visitors can get out, get active and connect with 

wildlife and the wonders of the natural world. 

Each year over 6.5 million visitors spend time 

in the parks. The park system provides vital 

health and social benefits for individuals and 

the community while having a positive impact 

on the economy of Central Ohio. 

Each month park naturalists offer more than 

300 free programs for preschoolers through 

senior citizens, ranging from full moon hikes to 

searching for owls and other wildlife, and from 

wildflower walks to identifying waterfowl, all 

aimed at helping visitors discover the wonders 

of the outdoors. When Blacklick Woods, the 

first Metro Park, opened in 1948, it was 

considered “out in the country,” and many 

people thought that no one would travel twelve 

miles from downtown Columbus and then 

drive down a two-lane dirt road to get to the 

park. Today Blacklick Woods is one of the 

busiest parks, attracting a million visitors a 

year. The park features two golf courses that 

have achieved award-winning certification as 

“Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Courses” for 

their environmental management practices. 

In addition to featuring picnic and play 

areas, the parks offer lodges that can be rented 

for family gatherings or company outings. 

Fishing, canoeing and kayaking are among 

the favorite activities in the beautiful streams 

and lakes at several parks. More than 175 

miles of trails for biking, hiking, rollerblading 

and jogging are available, as are trails for 

horseback riding, exercising your pet or 

cross-country skiing. 

Interested in history? You will enjoy Slate 

Run Living Historical Farm, where visitors can 

explore Ohio’s agricultural past while strolling 

through the farmhouse, barns and fields. You 

will even see costumed staff doing chores as 

they were done in the 1880s, before gaspowered 

tractors and electrical refrigerators. 


124

The park system is also home to one of Ohio’s 

largest botanical gardens. Nestled within a 

scenic nature preserve, the 121-acre Inniswood 

Metro Gardens is a continual source of 

inspiration for Ohioans of all ages. Streams and 

woodlands filled with wildflowers and wildlife 

provide a majestic backdrop to the beautifully 

landscaped flowerbeds, rock gardens and lawns. 

Dedicated to the enjoyment, cultivation and 

preservation of nature’s treasures, Inniswood 

boasts more than 2,000 species of plants, 

specialty collections and several theme gardens, 

including the rose, herb and woodland rock 

gardens. Visitors will enjoy the seasonal beauty 

of the gardens and natural areas as they stroll 

along three miles of trails and paved pathways. 

For more than forty years Metro Parks has 

worked with sixty other agencies and private 

organizations to preserve, protect, and restore 

the scenic Big Darby Creek Watershed so that 

this and future generations may benefit from 

its rich diversity. Recognized nationally as one 

of a dozen “Last Great Places” in the Western 

Hemisphere, the Big Darby Creek system 

boasts a remarkable array of fish and wildlife, 

many of which are threatened or endangered. 

Metro Parks has also been a partner in 

the Franklin County Greenways Initiative, an 

extensive network of recreational trails along 

some of the area’s most valuable natural 

resources. The trails provide opportunities for 

people to enjoy the many streams and forests 

in Central Ohio. Metro Parks maintains over 

sixty miles of Greenway trails. 

The parks got their start when local and 

statewide garden clubs, the Columbus Chamber 

of Commerce, Columbus City Council, 

Columbus and Franklin County Planning 

Commission, Wheaton Club, and many other 

proponents of creating a park district attended 

a public hearing held August 14, 1945. With 

no formal opposition, the park district was 

established and three citizens were appointed to 

the first board of park commissioners. Park 

commissioners are volunteers who serve without 

pay and make the policy decisions needed to 

chart the future course of the Metro Parks. 

Since that day, Metro Parks has grown 

steadily, now operating sixteen natural area 

parks and providing more than 175 miles of 

trails, and working to conserve and enhance 

habitat for the more than 2,400 species of 

animals and plants that thrive within the parks. 

The system’s first urban park, Scioto Audubon, 

opened near downtown Columbus in 2009, 

with Metro Parks joining with the City of 

Columbus and Audubon Ohio to turn a 

blighted once-industrial area into a green oasis. 

This park features one of the largest free 

public outdoor climbing walls in the country, 

and is home to the Grange Insurance 

Audubon Center, a sustainably designed 

18,000 square foot urban ecology-learning 

center. Metro Parks spent millions of dollars 

and obtained grant money for structural 

demolition and brownfield remediation to 

clean up the ninety-four-acre park. 

The importance of Metro Parks is reflected 

in the tremendous increase in the number of 

visitors—from 200,000 in 1953 to 6,855,800 

in 2011 as well as by overwhelming support 

by Franklin County voters over the years in 

support of the Metro Parks levy. 

For more information about Metro Parks, 

please visit www.metroparks.net. 

✧ 

Above: Metro Parks offers more than 175 

miles of trails where visitors can enjoy 

nature as they hike, bike and jog. These 

scenic paths wind through wetlands, 

woodlands, meadows and fields and past 

streams, rivers and lakes. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MARGARET WALKER. 

Below: Metro Parks ponds, streams, 

forests, and fields provide a safe haven for 

barred owls and thousands of other species 

of wildlife. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF KARL HASSEL. 


1 2 5

COLUMBUS 

BLUE JACKETS 

✧ 

Above: Blue Jackets majority owner and 

Founder, John H. McConnell, is joined by 

NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman, for the 

ceremonial puck drop prior to the franchise’s 

inaugural game vs. the Chicago Blackhawks 

on October 7, 2000. 

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF GREG BARTRAM. 

Bottom, left: Rick Nash, the top overall pick 

of the 2002 NHL entry draft is a five-time 

All-Star and the Blue Jackets’ all-time 

leader in goals, assists and points. 

Bottom, right: Fans during a Blue Jackets 

home game at Nationwide Arena. 

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF GREG BARTRAM. 

On June 25, 1997, the National Hockey 

League awarded the city of Columbus an 

expansion franchise that would begin play 

in 2000. On October 7, 2000, the Columbus 

Blue Jackets took the ice for the first time at 

Nationwide Arena in the capital city’s brandnew 

Arena District, ushering in a new and 

exciting chapter in central Ohio sports history. 

Local business leader and philanthropist 

John H. McConnell was the driving force in 

bringing a major league sports franchise to 

Ohio’s largest city. An early investor in the 

Columbus Crew (MLS) and a former minority 

owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, he led a 

group of investors whose efforts brought the 

NHL to the city. 

Since the Blue Jackets began play, over 

seven million fans have attended games at 

Nationwide Arena witnessing countless memorable 

moments. The club’s first team, under 

head coach Dave King and led by goaltender 

Ron Tugnutt and leading scorer Geoff 

Sanderson, posted a 28-39-6 record with its 

71 points among the highest ever accumulated 

by an NHL expansion team. 

The Blue Jackets posted their best season 

in 2008-09, compiling a 41-31-10 record 

and 92 points to earn a Stanley Cup Playoffs 

berth under head coach Ken Hitchcock. 

Goaltender Steve Mason burst onto the scene, 

posting a 33-20-7 record with a 2.29 goalsagainst-average, 

.916 save percentage and 


126

league-leading 10 shutouts on his way to 

earning NHL rookie of the year honors. 

During its first decade, a number of memorable 

players have called Columbus home. 

They include early fan favorites like Tugnutt, 

Sanderson and Tyler Wright; All-Stars Espen 

Knutsen and Ray Whitney; long-serving 

Jackets like David Vyborny, Jody Shelley 

and Rostislav Klesla; and new favorites 

such as former Ohio State All-American 

R. J. Umberger and Jared Boll. 

However, no player has stood taller than 

Rick Nash, who Columbus selected with the 

first overall pick of the 2002 NHL Entry Draft. 

He made his NHL debut at the age of eighteen 

and scored a goal in his first game against the 

Chicago Blackhawks on October 10, 2002. 

The following year, he became the youngest 

player in NHL history to lead the league in 

goals when he scored forty-one. 

Nash has taken his place among the 

NHL’s elite players, appearing in all five All-Star 

Games played since 2002 and representing 

Canada at the 2006 and 2010 Olympic Games, 

winning a gold medal in the latter. He has led 

Columbus in goals every season since 2003-04 

and in points in four-straight from 2007-11. 

Off the ice, Nash also won the NHL Foundation 

Player Award in 2009 in recognition of his work 

in the central Ohio community. 

The team’s arrival also brought an influx of 

development and community pride, as well 

as national and international attention, to 

Columbus. Nationwide Arena was the site 

of Team USA’s training camp in August 2004 

in advance of that year’s World Cup of 

Hockey Tournament and the Blue Jackets 

welcomed the hockey world to central Ohio 

in June 2007 for the NHL Entry Draft. 

The club’s commitment to the community 

has been reflected by the work of the 

Columbus Blue Jackets Foundation. Since its 

inception 2000, the foundation has donated 

$3.5 million to various central Ohio nonprofit 

organizations in support of its four pillars 

of giving: pediatric cancer, education, children’s 

health and safety and the development 

of youth and amateur hockey. The club’s 

work on behalf of the latter has seen the 

number of youth hockey players registered in 

the Columbus-area grow from 150 in 1995 to 

over 4,500 today. Central Ohio was home to 

just two sheets of ice in the early-1990s compared 

to thirteen today. 

The arrival of the Blue Jackets and 

Nationwide Arena has meant much more to 

central Ohio than what has happened on the 

ice. Economic impact studies conducted by 

the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at the 

Ohio State University in April 2009 concluded 

that the team and arena had driven a local 

economic impact of more than $2 billion 

since 2000 including: $850 million in spending 

directly attributable to the Blue Jackets, 

Columbus Destroyers (Arena Football Team 

from 2004-08) and Nationwide Arena, $160 

million in indirect spending at area hotels and 

restaurants via out-of-town visitors attending 

games and events at the arena and the generation 

of approximately $4 million in local 

income tax revenue since the fiscal year 2002. 

“Taken as a whole or separately, the results 

speak for themselves,” said Blue Jackets 

President Mike Priest, praising the “incredible 

partnerships and remarkable leadership” 

of the late John H. McConnell, current owner 

John P. McConnell and others who have been 

instrumental in giving Columbus the NHL 

franchise and Nationwide Arena. “Today our 

entire community benefits from their vision, 

and we are happy to be a part of the growing 

strength of our downtown.” 

✧ 

Left: Former Ohio State All-American 

R. J. Umberger joined the Blue Jackets in 

2008 and has set a franchise record by 

playing in 246 consecutive games between 

2008 and 2011. 

Right: Nationwide Arena has hosted 

numerous special events since 2000, 

including the NHL Entry Draft in June 

2007, and serves as the anchor of 

Columbus’ vibrant Arena District. 


1 2 7

OHIO 

EDUCATION 

ASSOCIATION 

✧ 

Below: Left to right, OEA President Patricia 

Frost-Brooks, Columbus Education 

Association President Rhonda Johnson, 

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel and 

Principal Andrew Smith visit a South 

Mifflin STEM Academy classroom as the 

2010 school year begins. 

Since 1847 the Ohio Education Association, 

formerly the Ohio State Teachers’ Association 

(OSTA), has advocated on behalf of its members 

and for strong public schools in Ohio. In 

1851 the OSTA set broad goals: to build a 

strong public sentiment for schools, to promote 

the adoption of a better plan of school 

organization, and to improve teachers and 

elevate the profession of teaching. Over the 

past 175 years, the organization has continued 

these early aims, elevating public schools 

through sound instruction and curriculum; by 

standards of teacher preparation and teacher 

certification; and improved working conditions 

with a state minimum salary schedule and state 

teacher’s retirement system. 

The organization’s first president, Samuel 

Galloway, served as Ohio Secretary of State 

during most of his term. Some years later 

President Abraham Lincoln called upon him 

for advice on the issuance of the Emancipation 

Proclamation. Other early highlights included 

a self-reporting plan of school control, which 

was outlined in 1857 by James A. Garfield, 

then an Ohio teacher in his twenties, who 

would later become U.S. President. 

Teachers in Ohio who felt an interest in 

their profession and the improvement of the 

state’s schools were encouraged to attend the 

first OSTA convention and assist in organizing 

the association and promoting its interests. 

Early on, “teachers’ institutes” promoted 

professional development of teachers and 

helped to encourage statewide association 

unity; professional development days continue 

throughout Ohio today. 

The OSTA recognized the importance of 

political action to achieve better teaching and 

school organization and funding. The initial 

focus was on teachers’ institutes, then on 

normal schools for professional education of 

teachers, both aimed at improving teaching. 

OSTA worked toward state support of teacher 

training and establishing state-funded normal 

schools, resulting in passage of a supporting 

law in 1902. A survey in 1913 examined 

school conditions in Ohio, leading to a 

complete revision of rural education, and to 

minimum standards of teacher preparation 

and changes in teacher certification requirements, 

all embodied in what became known 

as the Cox School Code. In part this 1914 


128

legislation created positions of county and district 

school superintendents, and for the first 

time based teachers’ certificates on holding a 

college diploma with required academic and 

professional courses. 

In 1920, when the minimum Ohio teacher 

salary was set at $100 per month, membership 

surged from 12,000 to 21,309, then in 1930 to 

over 40,000 classroom teachers, administrators, 

elementary and high school principals. 

The Department of Classroom Teachers was 

formed as its own group, separate from administrators, 

principals and superintendents in 

1924. OEA’s legal services, school law expertise 

and consultation programs began in 1954. 

OEA’s new headquarters building was constructed 

in 1965 at 225 East Broad Street in 

Columbus. In support of changing times, OEA 

created an Urban Affairs Committee to assist in 

dealing with problems that arose in city schools 

in the 1960s. Field operations for local advocacy, 

political action and negotiations were built 

with a commitment to teacher rights. 

The average teacher’s salary in the 1970s 

was $8,798. Through successful lobbying at 

the federal level, an exemption was secured to 

avert a wage freeze that potentially would 

have affected all Ohio teachers. The state minimum 

salary schedule was implemented 

through extensive lobbying, resulting in 

salary increases for 37,000 teachers in 486 

school districts. Superintendents, principals 

and other administrators split from OEA in 

1969-70. By the mid-1970s—before any 

statutory provision for public employee 

bargaining was enacted—OEA helped win 

negotiation agreements for local associations 

in two-thirds of the state’s school districts. 

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in 1975 that 

negotiated master agreements and binding 

arbitration were legal and enforceable. 

During the fifteen-year period between 

Ohio’s first strike at Tallmadge in 1966 and 

the passage of Ohio’s Public Employee 

Collective Bargaining Law in 1983, teachers 

in every major city in Ohio went on strike, 

peaking in 1969-70 with twenty-eight walkouts. 

In the 1980s, the Ohio Supreme Court 

ruled in favor of four cases involving OEA 

members, establishing legal precedents in 

areas of fair dismissal and salary credit for 

teaching experience. OEA’s membership level 

continued to grow when it expanded to 

include school support personnel. 

As OEA continued its advocacy for school 

funding in the 1990s, the Ohio Supreme 

Court affirmed the trial court’s decision in 

DeRolph versus State of Ohio, finding that 

the State failed to meet the requirement to 

fund a “thorough and efficient system of 

common schools.” OEA continued promoting 

educator standards and public accountability. 

Current OEA goals include ensuring public 

education funding, preserving collective 

bargaining rights and the economic security 

of OEA’s 130,000 members; and offering 

great public schools for every student. These 

are in keeping with the OEA mission: To lead 

the way for continuous improvement of public 

education while advocating for members 

and the learners they serve. 


1 2 9

CITY OF DUBLIN 

✧ 

Above: The Artz Quarry operated at the 

north end of the Village of Dublin on the 

west bank of the Scioto River. Much of the 

stone was used to build many of the 

limestone fences in the town. The original 

stone fences are still seen throughout the 

town today. 

With a long and colorful history and a continuing 

story of service to its more than 

40,000 residents and 60,000 corporate citizens, 

the city of Dublin is a vital part of the 

metropolitan Columbus area. The land that is 

now Dublin can trace its recorded history to 

1795, when Lieutenant James Holt acquired 

title to 889 acres here. By 1803 the Sells family 

of Pennsylvania owned 800 acres of the 

property, and six years later Ludwick Sells and 

his wife Katherine traveled by flat-bottomed 

boat on the flooded Scioto River to build their 

log cabin home and the Black Horse Tavern, a 

way station for travelers along the Scioto Trail. 

John Shields, an early visitor, surveyed 

and platted Sells’ land into small lots that 

became Dublin. Legends about the name’s 

origin vary, but all of them agree that it was 

chosen to honor Dublin, Ireland. Early settlers 

included George Michael Karrer, Charles 

Mitchell, Samuel Davis, Henry Coffman and 

Holcomb Tuller. 

Fertile land along the Scioto produced 

wheat, alfalfa, corn, clover, timothy, hay 

and other crops. Early businesses included 

Edward Eberly’s blacksmith shop, John 

Ashbaugh’s pottery, and a sawmill operated by 

Henry Shout, who floated large quantities of 

lumber down river to Columbus. 

Limestone, the residue from the bottom 

of a vast sea in centuries past, was 

quarried and dressed in Dublin for use in 

constructing buildings, bridges and fences 

beginning in the mid-1800s. The Pinney 

family, Eli, Earl and Frank, were among the 

best-known stonemasons. 

Dublin was one of three sites considered 

“finalists” to become state capital in 1912. 

According to legend, Dublin lost the honor to 

Franklinton (which would later become 

Columbus) in a high stakes poker game. The 

representative favoring the third contender, 

Worthington, was the first to fold, leaving 

Sells facing Franklinton’s proponent, a 

Dr. Smith. When the players showed their 

cards, Sells confidently turned over three 

kings, a ten and a two, but Dr. Smith showed 

three aces, a jack and a three. Is the 

story true? No one really knows, but 

however it happened, Columbus became the 

state capital. 

While Dublin may have not been selected 

as the state capital, in 1966, it was chosen as 

the site for Jack Nicklaus’ world-class golf 

course, Muirfield Village Golf Club. It was 

Jack’s desire to create a tournament that would 

remember and honor the great golfers of the 

past, and those individuals who built the 

foundation to a game that today is played and 

enjoyed by millions around the world. Thus, 

the Memorial Tournament was born. The 

course was officially dedicated on Memorial 

Day, May 27, 1974. 


130

In 2013, Muirfield Village Golf Club will 

host The Presidents Cup when the biennial 

competition returns to the United States. 

Dublin is the only city in the world to have 

hosted the top three international matchplay 

golf tournaments—The Ryder Cup, 

The Solheim Cup and The Presidents Cup. 

In addition to the Memorial Tournament, 

the city hosts numerous other special events, 

ranging from the Dublin Kiwanis Frog Jump 

to the Dublin Irish Festival. Dublin is a great 

destination for leisure and business travelers 

alike with its attractions, restaurants, shopping 

and hotels. 

The Dublin Convention and Visitors 

Bureau, a nonprofit organization, was founded 

in 1988 to help market and promote Dublin, 

Ohio as a travel destination. The Bureau has 

developed innovative programs and sports 

marketing packages to attract visitors from 

various markets. The Bureau is funded by a 

portion of a bed tax that is levied on visitors to 

Dublin’s hotels. This bed tax revenue generates 

approximately $2 million each year and helps 

fund a variety of local events and programs, 

including the Dublin Arts Council, which 

offers Central Ohio’s most vigorous public art 

program, “Art in Public Places.” 

Located in the northwest area of metropolitan 

Columbus, Dublin’s central location and 

energized corporate climate attracts national 

and international companies. Wendy’s 

International, headquartered in Dublin, has 

become one of the city’s largest employers. 

Other internationally recognized companies 

such as Cardinal Health, Verizon and Ashland 

are headquartered in Dublin. 

The city’s recreational programs and 

extensive parkland acquisitions enrich both 

green space and leisure-time activities. With 

a proactive police presence, Dublin is 

recognized as one of the safest cities in 

Central Ohio. The city also has an aggressive 

capital improvements program financed by a 

two percent income tax, which allows Dublin 

to invest in infrastructure to accommodate 

development and maintain a high quality of 

life for residents and corporate citizens. 

In fact, in the 2009 National Citizen 

Survey, the residents of Dublin rated their 

community higher as a place to live than 

residents in any other city in the United 

States. The city’s scores are significantly 

higher than the norm for such surveys, 

according to Tom Miller, president of the 

National Research Center, Inc., an independent 

organization that conducted the survey. 

“Clearly something remarkable is happening 

in Dublin, demonstrated by empirical evidence 

that residents truly appreciate so many 

aspects of community quality,” Miller said. 

✧ 

Above: Field of Corn, 1994. 

Below: The 18th Hole, the Memorial 

Tournament, Muirfield Village Golf Club. 


1 3 1

OHIOHEALTH 

OhioHealth has a long history of delivering 

on its mission to improve the health of those 

it serves. A faith-based, not-for-profit family 

of leading healthcare providers, OhioHealth is 

the largest health system in central Ohio. 

What started as a single hospital in 1891 has 

grown into a system of providers with collective 

strengths and specialties that together 

make up a complete array of high quality care 

and services for the community. 

With 8 member hospitals, 

including 5 in central Ohio and 3 

in the region, more than 40 care 

sites and countless programs and 

services that deliver the highest 

quality care and service to its 

patients and visitors, OhioHealth 

is more than a health system, 

it is a belief system. Together, 

OhioHealth’s more than 16,000 

associates, 2,000 physicians and 

3,000 volunteers, plus the 

patients, families and communities 

it serves believe in the power of their shared 

strength—the power of WE. 

Many people know OhioHealth’s central 

Ohio hospitals by name: 

• Riverside Methodist Hospital 

• Grant Medical Center 

• Doctors Hospital 

• Grady Memorial Hospital 

• Dublin Methodist Hospital 

What they may not know, however, is that no 

matter which facility or service patients choose 

within the OhioHealth system—whether it is 

home health, an OhioHealth Neighborhood 

Care center, or a hospital—they have access to 

the most advanced technologies and most 

knowledgeable physicians and associates. 

“All members of our community deserve 

access to high quality healthcare services. 

As a not-for-profit health system, we have 

grown to provide the care our community 

members need close to where they live, 

and developed programs and services that 

help them achieve their best health,” says 

Dave Blom, OhioHealth’s president and chief 

executive officer. 

From providing the most advanced, worldclass 

care for patients with acute illnesses like 

heart disease or cancer, to offering preventive 

care and health and wellness programs, 

OhioHealth is committed to providing the 

highest quality care. OhioHealth was named 

one of the top ten health systems in the country 

for clinical performance by Thomson 

Reuters for the third year in a row–a further 

reflection of the quality and value it provides. 

One of the most tangible measures of 

OhioHealth’s value to the community is the 

amount of “Community Benefit” it provides 

annually. Even in challenging economic times, 

OhioHealth has succeeded in fulfilling its 

health ministry mission and providing 

responsible stewardship of community 

healthcare dollars. 

In Fiscal Year 2010 (July 2009 to June 

2010), OhioHealth provided $191 million in 

Community Benefit–a $22.9 million increase 

over the previous year. 


132

OhioHealth’s Community Benefit 

includes $81.2 million in charity care, 

$35.1 million in net unreimbursed cost 

of medical education, and $2.0 million 

in community health services, just to 

name a few of the ways OhioHealth 

brings value to the community. 

Every dollar OhioHealth earns is 

reinvested in the communities it serves 

to improve quality of care and enhance 

service to patients and families. Instead 

of paying dividends to shareholders or 

owners, OhioHealth uses its earnings to 

provide a wide array of community benefits, 

including subsidizing essential community 

health services such as trauma centers, poison 

control or psychiatric service that some 

patients may not otherwise be able to pay for 

on their own. 

“There is nothing more important than the 

health of our community members. Because 

we work together as a family of healthcare 

providers to be stewards of our resources, we 

are able to deliver on our commitment to the 

communities we serve and reinvest into community 

health in a number of ways that make 

a significant impact,” says Dave Blom. 

Additionally, OhioHealth supports a broad 

range of vital community outreach services, with 

particular emphasis on the most vulnerable and 

historically underserved community 

members. Through 

investing in research, innovation 

and technology, and medical 

education and training, 

OhioHealth works to advance 

medical knowledge and support 

a strong network of highly 

skilled healthcare professionals 

in central Ohio who provide 

the care needed to keep the 

community healthy. 

Employing 16,000 associates 

and working with 2,000 

physician partners, OhioHealth 

is an economic driver in central 

Ohio. As a large organization 

in the community, it is an important part of 

the strength of the local economy, creating a 

substantial economic impact. 

OhioHealth’s belief in the power of WE is 

the driving force in how it cares for the health 

of those it serves. Bringing together the collective 

strengths and specialties of the people 

and facilities that make up the system allows 

OhioHealth to do more for more people and 

to make the community strong, vital, healthy 

and whole. 

As OhioHealth continues to grow, its focus 

on delivering the highest quality care at the 

lowest cost will be essential for the health of 

its patients and the future of the community. 

WE includes the patients and community 

members who trust OhioHealth physicians and 

associates to care for them and those they love, 

and with them, OhioHealth is working to make 

the community healthier. And that is an invaluable 

investment in the future of central Ohio. 


1 3 3

COLUMBUS 

POLICE 

RESERVE 

Excellence in Service. 

The Columbus Auxiliary Police was organized 

in 1945 as part of the Civil Defense 

Administration for use in civil defense 

emergencies during World War II. It was 

abandoned after the war ended, but was reactivated 

in 1951 by the Columbus Division of 

Police. The unit came under the direct control 

of the chief of police in 1954, and continued 

to work the streets armed only with a nightstick 

and a flashlight. Members were trained 

in the use of firearms in 1961, and permitted 

to carry their weapons while on duty. 

The Reserve unit, with volunteers from all 

walks of life, augments the division of police by 

aiding its personnel, providing additional patrol 

officers on precinct cruisers normally staffed 

by a single patrol officer. The volunteers, who 

serve without pay, maintain full time employment 

outside the division, while fulfilling an 

interest in police work and community service. 

Tragedy struck the Reserve in 1969 when an 

armed robbery suspect shot and killed Sergeant 

Lawrence Kipfinger in the line of duty. He was 

buried with full police honors, and his name 

appears on the Columbus Police Memorial. 

The dedicated men and women of the 

Reserve attend the Columbus Police Academy 

in the evenings and weekends, and after graduation 

each of them completes field training and 

a one-year probationary period. They are fully 

trained to meet the State of Ohio’s standards for 

police officers, and receive the same training as 

full time division officers. In 2003 the chief of 

police authorized the Reserve to carry their 

firearms while in an off-duty status within the 

corporate limits of the city of Columbus. 

Officers purchase their own uniforms and 

firearms, and must donate a minimum of eight 

hours a month to the division, as well as being 

required to attend monthly training sessions and 


134

complete all Division mandated training and 

firearms qualifications. The Reserve Unit meets 

or exceeds all standards established by CALEA. 

Members are authorized to work special 

events within the city upon approval by the 

police chief. Those working such approved 

special events are compensated at the current 

special duty rate, with twenty-five percent 

of these earnings deposited directly to the 

Reserve Police Operating Fund for use in purchasing 

uniforms and equipment for the unit. 

Reserve officers are held to the same moral 

and ethical standards as the division of police 

sworn personnel, and they must abide by 

the division directives. In 2005 the Columbus 

Police Reserve celebrated sixty years of 

“Excellence in Service” to the Division of Police 

and Police and the citizens of Columbus. 

The chief of police appoints the commander 

of the unit, and that commander is given 

the rank of colonel. Current and past commanders 

of the unit are: 

• Major Roland Sedgwick, 1951-1954 

• Major Ember Schaer, 1954-1956 

• Lieutenant Colonel Robert G. Hutchinson, 

1956-1970 

• Colonel George Gladdon, 1970-1972 

• Colonel Lincoln R. McFarland, 1972-1974 

• Colonel David Stewart, 1974-1980 

• Colonel Robert E. Reiss, 1980-1984 

• Colonel Rocco A. Eramo, 1984-2000 

• Colonel Michael York, 2000-present 

Members serve without pay, and must possess 

both a valid State of Ohio driver’s license 

and personal vehicle insurance. Approval 

from both the chief of police and the city safety 

director is required. A member must take 

an oath of office and commit to three years as 

a Columbus Police Department Reserve officer. 

The service commitment requirement is 

waived if the member is accepted for full time 

employment as a Columbus police officer. 

“From the first group of auxiliary officers, 

who worked the streets unarmed and without 

the powers of arrest, the unit has evolved into 

professionally trained and fully certified law 

enforcement officers who are granted full 

powers of arrest,” said Colonel York. “I am 

truly proud of all those who serve now, and 

those who have selflessly served before us.” 

Any person over age twenty-one interested 

in becoming a Police Reserve officer must 

apply on a standard form available by contacting 

the Columbus Police Reserve at 

www.cpdresv.com. After returning the completed 

personal history questionnaire, the 

applicant will be subjected to a criminal 

record check, a background investigation, an 

in-home interview, a polygraph examination, a 

physical exam, and an oral board review. Upon 

successful completion of the requirements, the 

candidate will be accepted for training. 

This consists of over 650 hours of classroom 

and practical training conducted by experienced, 

certified instructors. The training sessions 

are usually conducted from 6 to 10 p.m., 

Monday through Thursday, though many eighthour 

Saturday sessions are also scheduled. Most 

of the training is held at the Columbus Police 

Training Academy at 1000 North Hague Avenue 

in Columbus, Ohio. This training is in excess of 

the State of Ohio minimum standards. Upon 

graduation, Police Reserve officers are certified 

by the Ohio Peace Officer Training Council. 

While on duty, the Police Reserve officer has the 

same authority, arrest power, and responsibility 

as a full-time police officer. 

For more information, call 614-645-7136, 

or visit on the Internet at www.cpdresv.com or 

www.columbuspolice.org. 

✧ 

Opposite, clockwise, starting from the 

top left: 

Excellence in Service. 


POLICE DEPARTMENT. 

Current Staff: Colonel Mike York, retired 

Colonel Rocco Eramo, Major Dave Bowers, 

Major Bruce Hamler, Captain Dave 

Kienzel, Captain Rebecca Kienzel, Captain 

Charles Smith, Lieutenant Pam Badgley, 

Lieutenant Jack Bledsoe, Lieutenant John 

Dimond, Lieutenant Robert Livingston, 

Sergeant Robert Hurford, Sergeant Thomas 

Chilicki, Lieutenant Dallas Baldwin, 

Sergeant Tony Luzio, and Sergeant 

Dave Ross. 

Sergeant Harry West working Red, White 

and Boom. 

Lieutenant John Dimond guarding cars at 

the Columbus police impound lot auction. 

Captain Dave Kienzel working traffic at 

WCMH Channel 4 Toy Drive with 

Brutus Buckeye. 

Below, left: Sergeant Harold Rausch working 

Operation Safe Child booth. At Scioto 

Super fest. 

Below, center: Reserve officers in 

classroom training. 

Below, right: Reserve police 

officers inspection. 


1 3 5

CARDINAL 

HEALTH, 

INC. 

Cardinal Health, Inc., is a Fortune 19 

healthcare services company that improves 

the cost-effectiveness of healthcare. As the 

business behind healthcare, Cardinal Health 

helps pharmacies, hospitals and ambulatory 

care sites focus on patient care while 

reducing costs, and improving efficiency and 

quality. Cardinal Health employs more than 

32,000 people worldwide. 

Cardinal Health helps healthcare providers 

focus on what is most important—improving 

people’s lives. The company is an essential 

link in the healthcare supply chain, providing 

pharmaceuticals and medical products to 

more than 60,000 locations each day. It is 

also a leading manufacturer of medical and 

surgical products, including gloves, surgical 

apparel and fluid management products. 

Pharmacies, hospitals, ambulatory care centers 

and clinics rely on Cardinal Health to 

help improve quality, safety and productivity. 

When Robert D. Walter bought a small, 

regional food distribution company in 1971, 

he set in motion a growth story few entrepreneurs 

in business can match. At age 25, with 

an engineering degree from Ohio University 

and an MBA from Harvard Business School, 

he returned to his hometown of Columbus, 

Ohio, and opened a small distribution company 

he named Cardinal Foods. Less than 10 

years later, his company became a prominent 

regional food distributor. A transformational 

acquisition occurred in 1979, when the 

company purchased a drug distributor in 

Zanesville, Ohio, and changed its name to 

Cardinal Distribution to reflect distribution 

capabilities outside of the food industry. 

While small, this acquisition provided a new 

growth platform for the young company. 

Cardinal Distribution had its initial public 

opening in 1983. Its common stock opened 

on the NASDAQ at $1.03 per share. Its 

fast-growing pharmaceutical distribution 

business expanded further during the next 

decade, with the acquisition of more than 

a dozen U.S. drug distributors, which 

expanded service to the Northeastern United 

States, including markets in New York 

and Massachusetts. 

By 1987, Cardinal Distribution was recognized 

as a leading wholesaler in each of its 

regional markets. The company’s pharmaceutical 

distribution business had grown to be 

almost twice the size of its food distribution 

business, and in 1988, the company sold its 

food distribution business to focus solely on 

the fast-growing healthcare industry. 


136

The company grew rapidly over the next 

few years, with revenues in 1991 exceeding 

$1 billion. Cardinal Distribution also expanded 

through the formation of National Specialty 

Services, Inc. of Nashville, Tennessee, which 

opened up a new offering for pharmaceuticals 

that require specialized distribution capabilities. 

The company also expanded through the 

opening of distribution centers in Mississippi 

and Florida, bringing a broad-based presence 

in the Southeastern region. 

Through additional acquisitions including 

Whitmire Distribution Corp. of Folsom, 

California; Humiston-Keeling, Inc. of Calumet 

City, Illinois; and Behrens Inc. of Waco, Texas; 

Cardinal Distribution became the third-largest 

pharmaceutical distributor in the United 

States and had grown from a regional distributor 

to a national healthcare services provider. 

In 1994, the company changed its name to 

Cardinal Health, reflecting its commitment to 

the healthcare industry. It began trading on 

the New York Stock Exchange under the 

symbol CAH, and Cardinal Health had established 

itself as a leader in the drug distribution 

business with a nationwide presence and 

annual revenues of approximately $6 billion. 

In 1999, Cardinal Health merged with 

Allegiance Healthcare Corp., a manufacturer 

and distributor of medical-surgical and laboratory 

products and services, which had been 

serving hospitals since 1922. The combination 

of Cardinal Health and Allegiance created 

a healthcare supply chain services company 

that could offer a one-stop shop for both 

pharmaceuticals and medical products across 

the United States and Canada. 

In 2009, Cardinal Health spun off 

CareFusion Corp., a division of the company 

that offered medical devices that promoted 

medication safety, as well as respiratory 

equipment and infection prevention products. 

This allowed Cardinal Health to focus on its 

core capabilities of healthcare distribution 

and services. In 2010, Cardinal Health 

became the first U.S. healthcare distributor to 

expand outside of North America with its 

acquisition of Yong Yu, which created a platform 

for growth in the fast-growing Chinese 

healthcare market. 

Today, Cardinal Health provides an integrated 

offering of innovative products and 

services to help hospitals, pharmacies and 

other healthcare providers meet the growing 

challenges of a dynamic industry. As a multinational 

healthcare industry services provider, 

Cardinal Health applies its resources, knowledge 

and expertise to help healthcare manufacturers 

and patient care providers meet 

their most pressing challenges of providing 

safe, high-quality and cost-effective care. 

Cardinal Health is also committed to giving 

back to the communities where its employees 

and customers live and work. The Cardinal 

Health Foundation supports programs that 

improve healthcare efficiency, quality and 

cost-effectiveness, and that promote healthy 

and vibrant communities. Since 2001, Cardinal 

Health and the Cardinal Health Foundation 

have contributed more than $150 million in 

cash and product donations to nonprofit 

organizations, domestically and abroad. 

Cardinal Health is located at 7000 Cardinal 

Place in Dublin, Ohio, and on the Internet at 

www.cardinalhealth.com. 


1 3 7

COLUMBUS 

ACADEMY 

✧ 

Top: Small class sizes means more 

individual attention for each Columbus 

Academy student. 

Above: Intellectual curiosity is the hallmark 

of a Columbus Academy education. 

In 1911 a group of area businessmen 

founded the Columbus Academy to provide a 

local educational option for boys in grades 

5-12. They adopted the independent country 

day school philosophy that academic 

preparation was a cooperative effort between 

the school and the home. Thus, Columbus 

Academy began as a college preparatory 

school dedicated to the highest standards 

of intellectual, social, moral, aesthetic and 

physical development. 

Columbus Academy’s first home was situated 

on four acres along Alum Creek on Nelson 

Road in Columbus and the number of students 

quickly grew in grades 5-12. The school’s first 

headmaster, Frank P. R. Van Syckel, instituted 

a strong liberal arts program coupled with 

vigorous athletic instruction, and he established 

a tradition of excellence that is reflected 

in the school’s motto, “In Quest of the Best.” 

In 1916 demand prompted the addition of 

a lower school so that area young men could 

complete their elementary and secondary educations 

at one institution. During the 1950s, 

Columbus Academy grew in several ways. 

Facilities—such as new classrooms, a pool and 

a new gymnasium—were built as the campus 

expanded to thirteen acres. A reputation for 

academic excellence was also growing, thanks 

in large part to the selection and retention of 

a highly qualified and dedicated faculty. 

Columbus Academy had the opportunity to 

become more and more selective regarding the 

composition of the student body: waiting lists 

for admissions were established. 

In the 1960s, the confluence of several factors 

(outdated facilities, a growing school population, 

and lack of space for science and other 

specialized programs) brought about another 

major change: relocation from the Nelson Road 

campus to 231 acres in Gahanna (eight miles 

northeast of Columbus). Funds were raised 

and a new five-building complex helped to 

double both the size of the student body and 

the faculty, as well as the curricular offerings. 

In the fall of 1990, eighteen females were 

admitted to the Academy and the school 

became a coeducational institution. By the 

1992-93 school year, females were admitted 

into every grade, and Columbus Academy 

graduated its first females in June of 1993. 

During this time, the student population grew 

from 595 to 825, and a major capital campaign 

was undertaken to enlarge the school to 

accommodate the increased student body. 

In recent years, the school’s enrollment has 

continued to grow, primarily due to the success 

of coeducation and the increased number 

of female students. The Academy’s current 


138

facilities include: distinct building areas for 

lower, middle and upper schools (263,569 

total square feet), 6 state-of-the-art computer 

labs and campus-wide wireless Internet 

access, a centralized performance and visual 

arts complex, a library for each division with 

online access to holdings, a large dining hall 

serving both family style and buffet meals, 

an indoor, 6-lane swimming pool, 3 developmentally 

designed playgrounds, 2 full-sized 

gymnasiums, a well-equipped fitness/weight 

room and a wrestling/multipurpose room, 

and lighted football, soccer and field hockey 

fields, 2 baseball diamonds, an all-weather 

8 lane track, 8 outdoor tennis courts and an 

on-campus cross country course. 

Currently, Columbus Academy operates as 

a PreK-12 coeducational independent school 

with 1,072 students (51 percent boys, 49 

percent girls with 25 percent students of 

color and 24 percent receiving $3.1 million 

in financial aid and tuition remission) 

and over 3,500 alumni. Of the 127 

full-time and 21 part-time faculty members, 

67 percent hold advanced degrees 

(master’s and/or doctoral) and the average 

teaching experience is twenty years. 

Fully coeducational for almost twenty 

years, Columbus Academy graduated its 

first class consisting of more girls than 

boys in 2007. The school, which promotes 

a well-rounded experience, has won over 

sixty state championships in a dozen 

sports, has students selected for state 

and national art awards on a yearly basis, 

and consistently has Central Ohio’s 

highest percentage of seniors recognized by the 

National Merit Scholarship Corporation. 

Columbus Academy has also made significant 

efforts in recent years to boost its financial 

aid offerings and to make the school more 

visible throughout Central Ohio. In May of 

2010, Columbus Academy was one of only 

three schools in the United States selected as 

a 2010 recipient of a $2 million endowment 

from the Malone Family Foundation to 

provide scholarships for top-level students 

with financial need. With the award, 

Columbus Academy became the only Malone 

Scholarship School in Ohio and one of just 

thirty-one nationwide. 

As the school celebrates its Centennial 

in 2011, Columbus Academy will be in an 

outstanding position to continue excelling for 

its next 100 years. 

✧ 

Above: Academy’s picturesque 231-acre 

campus is just ten miles from 


Below: Columbus Academy draws students 

from over fifty different zip codes in and 

around Central Ohio. 


1 3 9

ISABELLE 

RIDGWAY 

CARE CENTER 

by Guy S. Schley, Chaplain. 

✧ 

Isabelle Ridgway. 

The genius of the human spirit is our 

ability and capacity to serve. This capacity 

to serve is intrinsic and innate in the lowest 

of us; and the noblest of us, rich or poor, 

black or white, all have the God-given ability 

to serve. 

Consider this person of Columbus’ history, 

Mrs. Isabelle Ridgway. After the death of her 

husband, Mr. John P. Ridgway, Mrs. Ridgway 

transformed the pain of her tears into a passion 

of purpose as she embarked upon an 

endeavor that would define her Christian witness 

and work. Mrs. Ridgway realized 

that there was a need in the community 

for someone to care for and to 

serve the aging and ailing of central 

Ohio. She was inspired to serve the 

least of these in our community. 

What is so compelling and utterly 

amazing is that Mrs. Ridgway’s care 

and service to the aging population 

occurred during a period when there 

were no entitlement programs such 

as Social Security, Medicaid or 

Medicare. She inspired others to give 

of their time, talent, and treasure to 

meet the needs of the elderly. Women 

(black or white) in 1912 had no identity 

or status outside of their husbands. 

Mrs. Ridgway, with two strikes 

against her, started and inspired work 

that has outlived the normal span of 

her mortality. Mrs. Isabelle Ridgway 

was born in 1858, five years before 

the Emancipation Proclamation was 

signed and issued into law on January 

1, 1863 by President Abraham 

Lincoln. And though she died on 

April 4, 1955, at the age of ninetyseven, 

Mrs. Ridgway’s life work and 

witness continues at Isabelle Ridgway 

Care Center, as we embark upon 100 

years of service. 

The administration, staff, professionals, 

and Board of Trustees of 

Isabelle Ridgway Care Center strive 

to provide “warm, compassionate, 

culturally appropriate, family-friendly 

care and services to the aging population 

of central Ohio,” which is 

conducive to improving their health 

and well-being. 

Perhaps, this information about 

the Isabelle Ridgway Care Center’s 

history will inform your mind, 

inspire your heart and soul; hence, 

empower you to serve. 


140

On March 12, 1912, in Savannah, 

Georgia, Juliette Gordon Low announced, 

“I’ve got something for the girls of 

Savannah and all of America, and all the 

world, and we’re going to start it tonight.” 

Founded on the belief that girls should 

be given the opportunity to develop 

physically, mentally, and spiritually, the 

Girl Scouts was formed. 

By 1916, troops were organized 

throughout Ohio. In 1950, the Girl 

Scouts of the USA was chartered by 

the U.S. Congress, and several councils 

existed in Ohio. Over time, these 

smaller councils joined together to 

form larger councils. In a 2009 national 

realignment, three councils—from 

Columbus, Mansfield and Zanesville— 

joined to form the Girl Scouts of 

Ohio’s Heartland Council, headquartered 


The council now serves more than 

34,000 girls from kindergarten through 

grade twelve, and more than 9,000 

adult members and volunteers. Its thirty 

county region includes: Adams, Ashland, 

Coshocton, Crawford, Delaware, Fairfield, 

Fayette, Franklin, Gallia, Guernsey, Highland, 

Hocking, Holmes, Jackson, Knox, Licking, 

Madison, Marion, Morrow, Muskingum, Perry, 

Pickaway, Pike, Richland, Ross, Scioto, Union, 

Vinton, Wayne and Wyandot Counties. 

Celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2012, 

Girl Scouts of the USA now has a membership 

of more than 3.2 million girls and adults. 

In fact, more than 50 million women in the 

U.S. today are Girl Scout alumnae. 

The mission is: “Girl Scouting builds girls 

of courage, confidence, and character, who 

make the world a better place.” The organization’s 

guiding principles are the Girl Scout 

Promise and Law, which indicate the way 

Girl Scouts agree to act every day toward 

one another and other people. 

As the premier leadership development 

program for girls today, Girl Scouts provides 

activities in science and technology, business 

and economic literacy, outdoor and environmental 

awareness, the arts, and more. While 

providing girls with opportunities for fun and 

friendship, the focus is on the new Girl Scout 

Leadership Experience—a model that engages 

girls in discovering themselves, connecting 

with others, and taking action to make the 

world a better place. Even selling Girl Scout 

cookies is a business literacy program where 

girls learn five key business skills—goalsetting, 

decision-making, money management, 

people skills and business ethics. 

Ohio’s Heartland Council also operates 

seven camps throughout its region, including 

day and residential camps and a horse ranch. 

Camping provides girls with a powerful experience 

in independence, friendship and social 

character, outdoor exploration and environmental 

awareness in a safe environment. 

Girl Scouts from grades four through 

twelve can work to earn Girl Scout Bronze, 

Silver and Gold Awards as well. The Girl 

Scout Gold Award, for girls in grades nine to 

twelve, is the ultimate and highest recognition 

a Girl Scout can achieve and symbolizes 

exceptional achievement in leadership development, 

career exploration and community. 

From its willingness to tackle important 

societal issues, to a commitment to diversity 

and inclusiveness—Girl Scouts is dedicated to 

preparing the leaders of tomorrow. 

GIRL SCOUTS 

OF OHIO’S 

HEARTLAND 

COUNCIL 


1 4 1

COLUMBUS 

CLIPPERS 

A visit to beautiful Huntington Park 

immediately fills visitors with the great 

history of professional baseball in Columbus. 

Hundreds of photographs, memorabilia 

and artifacts of the great players, ballparks 

and lore that made our city famous are 

displayed here. 

Since the first game played in Columbus 

in 1866, fans have had the opportunity 

to cheer championship teams and future Hall 

of Famers from Pop Lloyd, Enos Slaughter 

and Willie Stargell to Derek Jeter and 

Mariano Rivera. 

Columbus has always been on the cutting 

edge of sports promotions, from having 

baseball’s first concession stand and Ladies’ 

Day over a century ago to the Knot Hole 

Gang and night baseball in the 1930s to 

the Clippers’ Dime-A-Dog Nights and 

Victory Bells of today. Over 29 million fans 

have attended professional baseball games 

in Columbus’ state-of-the-art ballparks, 

including The Recy, Neil Park 

and Cooper Stadium—affectionately 

called “The Coop.” 

Huntington Park continues this 

grand tradition with its state-of-theart 

amenities. The picturesque park 

was named Ballpark of the Year in its 

inaugural season. 

The Clippers, who won the 

Triple-A National Championship 

the following season, continue to 

carry on Columbus’ rich and deep 

baseball heritage. 

COLUMBUS ZOO 

AND AQUARIUM 

Founded in 1927 the Columbus Zoo and 

Aquarium gained international recognition 

and stature with the 1956 birth of Colo, 

the world’s first zoo-born gorilla. Today, 

the Columbus Zoo is a nationally and 

internationally acclaimed conservation 

center, housing more than 700 species, 

including thirty-seven endangered and 

threatened species. Annually, the Zoo 

supports more than seventy wildlife 

conservation projects around the world 

through its Conservation Fund and 

Partners in Conservation. 

In addition to its role as a global 

conservation leader, the Zoo is a 

renowned year-round education and 

recreation facility for visitors of all ages, 

backgrounds, and experiences. Each year, 

the Zoo attracts and educates more than 

2 million visitors and its mission is to enrich 

its community’s quality of life and to inspire 

a greater appreciation of wildlife for the 

advancement of conservation action. The Zoo 

resides on 580 acres, making it one of the 

fastest growing zoos in the world and the 

third largest municipally-affiliated zoo in 

North America. 

The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is an 

Association of Zoo and Aquariums (AZA) 

accredited institution, which requires member 

organizations to adhere to high standards in 

animal care and demonstrate strong programs 

in conservation, research, and education. 

For hours of operation, current events or 

exhibits or to plan your next visit to the 

Columbus Zoo, visit www.columbuszoo.org. 


142

Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML) is 

made up of twenty-one library locations, 3 million 

materials, dozens of educational programs, 

and a website at www.columbuslibrary.org. 

CML began as a reading room established 

by Columbus City Council in 1872. In 1906 a 

$200,000 Andrew Carnegie Grant funded construction 

of the first permanent library building. 

With a 2011 budget of $60 million and a 

staff of 350 full time and 250 part time 

employees, CML serves an economically 

diverse metropolitan area population of over 

1.7 million. 

In 2010 over 43,000 

customers used CML’s Job 

Help Centers to search 

for jobs, create and 

edit resumes and take 

advantage of staff and 

volunteers’ expertise. 

More than 53,000 kids 

used CML’s Homework 

Help Centers in 2010. 

HHCs offer computers, 

free printing, school supplies, textbooks, 

reference materials and trained staff 

and volunteers. 

CML was named 2010 National Library 

of the Year and received 5-Star ratings in 

2008, 2009 and 2010 from Library Journal; 

and has been ranked the number one library 

in the country by Hennen’s American Public 

Library Rating Index three times in the last 

ten years. Over 8 million customers visit 

the library, 16 million items are circulated 

and 10 million people visit its website 

each year. 

COLUMBUS 

METROPOLITAN 

LIBRARY 

Ranked as the number one science center 

for families by Parents Magazine, COSI is about 

inspiring interest in science and encouraging 

people to want to learn more about their 

world. With all of its hands-on experiments 

and exhibits, COSI makes learning about 

science fun! 

Maneuver, a Rover in a Martian landscape 

in Space, behold Poseidon’s majesty and 

experiment with water in Ocean, or learn 

about watershed creatures in LilyPad. Take 

a walk back in time in Progress, intrigue 

your techie side with the Gadgets exhibit, 

learn about your body, mind and spirit in 

Life, or experience larger than life science in 

Big 0 Park. 

COSI always has something going on in 

the halls, whether it is the many hallway 

exhibits or Science Ala Carte carts with roaming 

experiments. And do not forget to catch 

shows featuring rats playing basketball and 

the electrostatic generator—it is guaranteed to 

be a hair-raising time! Plus be sure to add on 

a giant screen movie in Ohio’s largest digital 

screen theater! 

Additional information is available by contacting 

COSI at 614-228-2674 or 888-819-2674, 

or on the Internet at www.cosi.org. 

CENTER OF 

SCIENCE AND 

INDUSTRY 

✧ 

The number one science center for families! 


1 4 3

✧ 

White Castle, a fast food hamburger restaurant chain. The company’s headquarters is in Columbus. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH PHOTO ARCHIVES. 


144

THE MARKETPLACE 

C o l u m b u s ’ s r e t a i l a n d 

c o m m e r c i a l e s t a b l i s h m e n t s o f f e r 

a n i m p r e s s i v e v a r i e t y o f c h o i c e s 

North American Broadcasting Company .........................................1 4 6 

Drury Hotels ............................................................................1 5 0 

The Flag Lady’s Flag Store ..........................................................1 5 2 

Capital Wholesale Drug Company ................................................1 5 4 

Nationwide ...............................................................................1 5 6 

Renaissance Columbus Downtown Hotel .........................................1 5 8 

Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP..............................................1 6 0 

The Westin Columbus Hotel .........................................................1 6 2 

Schoedinger Funeral and Cremation Service ...................................1 6 4 

U.S. Bank .................................................................................1 6 5 

Columbus Chamber of Commerce ..................................................1 6 6 

Experience Columbus .................................................................1 6 7 

Conway Center for Family Business ..............................................1 6 8 

Sugardaddy’s Sumptuous Sweeties ® ...............................................1 6 9 

Columbus Sign Company .............................................................1 7 0 

Limited Brands ..........................................................................1 7 1 

Heidelberg Distributing Company .................................................1 7 2 

Greater Columbus Convention Center ............................................1 7 3 

Center City International Tr ucks ..................................................1 7 4 

SPECIAL 

THANKS TO 

Columbus Sign Company 

T H E M A R K E T P L A C E 

1 4 5

NORTH 

AMERICAN 

BROADCASTING 

COMPANY 

✧ 

Right: Groundbreaking, left to right: 

Robert Fergus, John Fergus, George 

McConnaughey, Jr., Mayor Sensenbrenner, 

Bill Mnich, George McConnaughey, 

Roger Doerr, and John Gardiner. 

Below: In studio Sign-on, left to right: 

Norma Mnich with son Bill, Governor 

O’Neill, Bill Mnich and daughter Louise, 

April 1958. 

When WMNI, the first North American 

Broadcasting Company radio station went on 

the air in April of 1958, the Platters had the 

number one hit record with Twilight Time, 

Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo was playing at 

movie theaters, Gunsmoke was tops with 

television viewers, and everybody “liked Ike.” 

Broadcasting from the top floor of the 

Southern Hotel at the corner of Columbus’ 

Main and High Streets, the WMNI “sign-on” 

was preceded by several days of a countdown 

that included space age sound effects, and 

the launch of a satellite. William R. Mnich 

proclaimed the “…launch of a new sound 

around town, which you will hear for the 

rest of your life….” A message from Governor 

C. William O’Neill and some of the top hit 

songs of the day followed. 

Mnich was North American Broadcasting’s 

majority stockholder. Others, who owned 

twelve percent each, were John C. Fergus, 

Robert H. Fergus, John H. Gardiner, and 

Roger M. Doerr. Their construction permit 

was delayed by Purdue University’s objection 

that WMNI would interfere with the university’s 

station on the same frequency in Lafayette, 

Indiana. After hearings and a subsequent policy 

change, the FCC ruled in favor of WMNI. 

The rule change is notable because it essentially 

paved the way for the favorable decision. 

George C. McConnaughey, a Columbus 

lawyer and FCC chairman from 1954 to 1957, 

played a significant role in the process. 

Although his duties as chairman prohibited 

him from being involved on North American’s 

behalf, he ensured that the new company 

understood how to navigate the process. 


146

John W. Galbreath and his son, Dan M. 

purchased the interests of all the original 

minority shareholders in 1960, and in 1965, 

Mnich acquired the Galbreath interest to 

become the sole owner. 

The company signed WRKZ (originally 

WMNI-FM) on the air in 1962, broadcasting 

from the same site as WMNI, an antenna atop 

one of the existing towers. In 1974 the company 

built a new 500 foot tower dedicated to 

the FM, and it was the station’s primary facility 

until 1988, when it was relocated to the 

WBNS tower, where a number of FM and TV 

stations are located. 

WTDA (103.9 FM) went on the air under 

a time brokerage agreement in September of 

1998. North American Broadcasting acquired 

the station in March 1999. 

The station’s broadcast studios and business 

offices were located in the penthouse of 

the Southern Hotel from WMNI’s inception 

until December of 1984, when they were 

moved to the current facility at 1458 Dublin 

Road. The company maintains several transmitter 

facilities. WMNI’s remains in its original 

location on the north side of Grove City. 

WRKZ broadcasts from a tower adjacent to 

the WBNS-TV studios on Twin Rivers Drive, 

along with several other Columbus radio and 

TV stations. WTDA’s antenna is on the 

WOSU-TV tower just north of Westerville, 

which is the station’s city of license. 

Mnich managed day-to-day operations 

until his sudden death in December of 1981. 

His widow, Norma Mnich, assumed ownership 

and operational control, and continues as 

board chair. Their son, Matt, who was an 

account executive at the time of his father’s 

death, is president and CEO. Other officers 

are Nick Reed, secretary; Gerald Mosko, vice 

president/treasurer; Hal Fish, vice president 

of programming and operations; and Frank 

Fraas, vice president of sales. Company 

ownership remains within the Mnich family, 

which is represented by a board of directors 

composed of Norma Mnich, Matt Mnich, 

George C. McConnaughey Jr., Arthur D. 

Herrmann and Lee Guzzo. 

Mnich, the son of Czechoslovakian immigrants, 

enlisted in the U.S. Navy at age 

seventeen and served during World War II 

aboard a sub-chaser in the South Pacific. 

A graduate of Ohio University, he was student 

manager of the school’s radio stations in 

1949, when WOUB-FM became one of the 

first full-fledged education 

FM stations in the country. 

His commercial radio 

career included work at 

WBEX in Chillicothe as an 

announcer, news and sports 

reporter, sales, and ultimately 

as general manager. While 

there he had an ownership 

interest in WLMJ, Jackson. 

In 1954 Mnich married 

Norma Marchi of Columbus, 

who worked as a home economist 

for Philco in Chillicothe 

following graduation from the 

College of St. Mary of the 

Springs (Ohio Dominican 

College). A first generation 

Italian, her parents came to 

America from northern Italy. 

After the birth of their first 

✧ 

Above: WMNI tower delivery. 

Left: WMNI production studio. 

Below: WMNI early 1960s promotion. 


1 4 7

✧ 

Above: The Southern Theatre featuring 

WMNI’s Country Cavalcade. 

Right: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hal Fish, 

and Greg Moebius, WBZX, 1999. 

child, the family moved to Columbus where 

Mnich was a salesman for WCOL-AM. 

By the early 1970s, WMNI AM/FM were 

rooted in the Southern Hotel, where amenities 

were convenient for visiting guests, 

entertainers and even staff during weather 

emergencies. In addition, the Southern 

Theatre housed live performances, which the 

station could broadcast. The Mnichs bought 

the historical hotel and theater in 1974, and 

sold the hotel following Mnich’s death. 

Originally, WMNI aired top ’40s music, 

with some entertainers performing live in 

the studios, as well as a full complement of 

news, sports and community information, 

live play-by-play of Ohio State football and 

men’s basketball, the Indianapolis 500 and 

Columbus Jets baseball. 

In 1961, WMNI began playing big band 

music then became one of the first largemarket 

stations north of the Mason-Dixon 

Line to switch to country music. It soon 

became one of the most influential country 

music stations in the U.S., helping launch 

number one hits and the careers of top artists 

including Conway Twitty. As teenagers, 

Barbara Mandrell and her sisters traveled to 

Columbus in a station wagon driven by their 

father to perform shows promoted by WMNI. 

Nashville artists and producers knew that if 

a song was a hit in Columbus, it would be a 

hit nationwide. 

WMNI promoted sellout appearances by 

the biggest stars in the 1960s and early 1970s 

on the Shower of Stars Show or the WMNI 

pavilion at the Ohio State Fair. Governor Jim 

Rhodes, a country music fan, frequently 

visited the station’s shows at the Fair. Known 

as the “Home of the Country Gentleman,” 

WMNI hosted personalities including Carl 

Wendelken, Bill Andrick, Ron Barlow, Doc 

Lemon, Bill Weber, “Uncle Joe” Cunningham 

and Spook Beckman. A strong news team 

led by Martin Petree maintained the station’s 

commitment to news and information. 

WMNI was the first station to provide daily 

traffic coverage from its “Eye in the Sky” 

helicopter in the 1960s. 

In the mid to late 1970s, nationally known 

entertainers appeared before packed houses 

at the Southern Theater. The shows were 

broadcast on WMNI and distributed to 

hundreds of other radio stations over the 

Mutual Radio Network. 

WMNI music shifted in 1995 to “adult 

standards,” including top hits from Nat King 

Cole, Johnny Mathis, Frank Sinatra, Tony 

Bennett, and others. A similar music mix 

continues today. 

When WMNI-FM went on the air in 1962, 

few FM receivers were in use, and early shows 

were often a simulcast of WMNI programming. 

The station split away for specialized 

coverage of sporting or community events, 

and in the mid 1970s was the home of the 

Cincinnati Reds. Rebranded WRMZ-FM, it 


148

moved in 1978 from contemporary easy listening 

to Disco, then to a modern country 

sound as FM-100 by 1980, and became Magic 

99.7 in 1986, with new call letters, WMGG. 

When a “New Music Revolution” began in 

1992, WBZX 99.7 “The Blitz” led the way for 

listeners who wanted the “Grunge” sounds of 

Seattle, and harder-edged music from bands 

like Metallica AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne. 

The Blitz quickly became the top-rated rock 

station in Columbus and was instrumental in 

developing today’s “Active Rock.” It filled 

amphitheaters annually through the 1990s 

with its Blitz Anniversary Bash featuring 

up-and-coming artists like Kid Rock, Creed, 

Staind and Disturbed. Local personalities 

Suzy Waud and Mark The Shark hosted 

mornings and Ronni Hunter and Blazor rose 

to popularity along with the station. 

In 1998, The Blitz added The Howard Stern 

Show to its lineup. The often controversial 

“shock jock” was the perfect complement to 

The Blitz and Stern was the number one 

morning show for men ages 18 to 49 until 

Stern’s departure for Satellite radio in 2006. 

In an effort to differentiate itself from the several 

other stations offering “Grunge” music, 

The Blitz became “New Rock 99.7 The Blitz,” 

playing music primarily from the 1990s with 

emphasis on current Active Rock hits. 

This was successful, but after the “9/11 

attacks,” the radio broadcast industry faced 

financial challenges that were particularly 

daunting to a “New Rock” station whose target 

audience was men 18 to 34. To broaden 

its audience, WBZX, “The Blitz” became 

WRKZ “The Rock,” which featured a broad 

mix of rock music from the 1980s through 

the 2000s, targeted to a 25-54 year old audience. 

Audience ratings and revenue sagged, 

and in 2010, a Rock Town Hall Meeting was 

held live on the air at 99.7 FM to allow 

listeners to make suggestions. Their primary 

suggestion was: “Bring back The Blitz!” 

Voting via a website, BlitzorRock.com 

brought the rebirth of The Blitz, which has 

more than doubled the audience compared to 

The Rock’s final days. The Blitz, which 

retained the call letters WRKZ, quickly 

became one of the nation’s highest rated stations 

of its kind. 

WEGE went on the air in 1998 as 

“Eagle 103.9” FM. The Eagle’s mix of 

“Classic Rock ‘n’ Roll Hits” primarily from 

the 1970s featured artists like Fleetwood 

Mac, The Steve Miller Band and Boston. 

By the early 2000s, the Columbus market 

had become crowded with Classic Hits/ 

Classic Rock flavored stations. The Eagle 

shifted emphasis to “Rockin’ 80’s and 70’s” in 

2002 then experimented with variations of 

“Classic Rock” for two years. 

In 2004, North American Broadcasting 

introduced WTDA “TED FM” with the slogan 

“We Play Everything,” which was a popular 

format in other markets. Although the 

addition of The Bob and Tom Show improved 

morning ratings, TED FM never lived up to 

expectations. In 2007, the company debuted 

Columbus’ first FM “talk radio” station 

with “103.9 WTDA, Talk FM,” featuring 

The Glenn Beck Show and The 

Bob and Tom Show. 

Two years later The Glen Beck 

Show exercised its option to 

leave, moving to a cross-town 

rival, and North American 

Broadcasting moved The Bob 

and Tom Show to WRKZ “The 

Rock.” Talk FM was unable to 

recover its audience loss, and 

“Classic Hits” came to 103.9 in 

2010. This format features adult 

rock hits from the ’60s, ’70s and 

’80s. The station added local 

personality Greg Moebius as 

host of The Classic Five at Five 

each weekday afternoon, and 

103.9 again found a niche in the 

Columbus radio market. 

✧ 

Above: Blitz first anniversary show. 

Below: WTDA 2008 advertisement. 


1 4 9

DRURY HOTELS 

✧ 

Above: Lambert Drury hard at work on a 

Drury construction project. 

Below: The Drury family built their first 

Columbus hotel in 2002. 

With three Drury Hotels in Columbus, it is 

clear that the Drury family loves this Ohio 

city. The same spirit of determination and 

hard work that have driven Columbus for the 

last 200 years have also driven the Drury 

family from a small farm in the boot heel of 

Missouri to a hotel company with 130 

locations in 20 states. 

The Drury brand was not born in a 

boardroom or on a golf course, but in the 

small town of Kelso, Missouri, with a farmer 

and his family. Lambert Drury taught his 

children the value of hard work, resilience 

and family. When baseball-sized hail 

destroyed a season’s worth of crops, Lambert 

gathered ice from the fields and made ice 

cream for his children. The lesson of that day 

lasted long after the ice cream melted: face 

challenges head on and work hard to make 

the best of what you have been given. 

In the 1960s, Lambert and his sons started 

a local plastering and construction company. 

As their reputation for quality and fairness 

grew, so did their vision for serving the community. 

In 1962 the Drury family bought a 

108 room Holiday Inn, making their first 

entry into the hotel industry. 

Over time, the Drury’s 

became increasingly aware 

of the need for a valuefocused 

alternative to overpriced 

luxury hotels and 

cheap, dingy motels. Filling 

this void became, and 

remains, the Drury’s main 

objective in growing their 

family business. 

In 1973, the first Drury 

Inn was built in Sikeston, 

Missouri. Just off of I-55, 

the hotel marked the start of a fresh approach 

to the industry: build and operate hotels 

internally, cutting costs, and passing the savings 

on to their guests. 

Not satisfied to simply expand, the Drury 

family began innovating new ways to offer 

guests additional value. Twenty-five years ago, 

“free breakfast” raised eyebrows of those in 

the hospitality industry. “Free hot breakfast” 

blew their minds. In the 1990s, Drury became 

the first hotel in its segment to offer free hot 

breakfast seven days a week and, soon after, 

became the first to offer free long-distance 

calls and, eventually, free evening beverages. 

At Drury, The Extras Aren’t Extra® is not 

just a tagline, it is a business model. Drury 

became the first hotel to offer free high speed 

Internet in 2003. In 2010, Drury had another 

first, becoming the first hotel to offer free hot 

food in the evening. Now along with free alcoholic 

beverages and soft drinks, all Drury 

hotels serve free hot food from a rotating 

menu at their 5:30 Kickback ® . 

As Drury Hotels’ list of free amenities continued 

to expand, so did their locations. Not 

just a Midwest hotel company anymore, 

Drury operates multiple hotels in San 

Antonio, Atlanta, Houston, and many other 

cities throughout the United States. 

In search for another hub that provided 

travelers with not only a convenient stop on 

the road, but was also a vacation destination, 

the Drury family began plans to move into 

Columbus, Ohio. 

By the turn of the century, the Drury’s had 

purchased land in Columbus and were ready for 

construction. The year 2002 marked the opening 

of the very first Drury Inn & Suites in Columbus 

and the beginning of a very special relationship. 

Soon after, two more hotels followed. 


150

Drury has actively promoted the Columbus 

community through its Vacation Savings 

coupon guide. Partnering with the Columbus 

Zoo & Aquarium, Franklin Park Conservatory, 

Easton Town Center, the Columbus Crew, 

Columbus Blue Jackets, COSI, and more, 

Drury offers its guests special deals for these 

Columbus attractions. 

Like the city of Columbus, Drury understands 

that friendliness is more important than 

any attraction or amenity. All Drury team 

members practice the hotel system’s special 

breed of service: “+1 Service.” This Drury 

brand of service has helped the system earn 

five consecutive J. D. Power & Associate 

awards for “Highest in guest satisfaction 

among mid-scale limited service hotel chains.” 

As guests continue to book rooms at Drury 

Hotels, the Drury family is grateful that 

America’s Greatest Cities, like Columbus, 

have let them be a part of their proud communities. 

Drury strives to provide an enjoyable 

stay for their guests and relies heavily on 

the team members at each location to bring 

customers back again and again. 

Thirty-eight years and 130 hotels after 

Lambert Drury opened the first Drury Inn, 

the Drury family is grateful for the opportunities 

afforded to the entire Drury family— 

now 4,000 team members strong. President 

and CEO Chuck Drury remembers the humble 

upbringings of the company. 

“We really didn’t start out to build a hotel 

system across the country,” says Drury. “What 

we really wanted to do was provide the customer 

with quality service and amenities each 

and every day, each and every stay.” 

The same spirit that inspired Lambert 

Drury to turn hail to ice cream still inspires 

the Drury brothers today. The Drury family 

remains driven to provide quality rooms at 

affordable rates, add new, free amenities, and 

strive for an enjoyable stay for its guests. 

✧ 

Above: The Drury Inn & Suites in 

south Columbus. 

Below: Drury Hotels has been providing 

guests with clean, comfortable rooms 

since 1973. 


1 5 1

THE FLAG LADY’S 

FLAG STORE 

✧ 

Mary Haley Leavitt, with her son and 

daughter, Andy Leavitt and Lori Watson. 

Mary Haley Leavitt sells more than flags. She 

is an extraordinary vendor of patriotism and 

love of the United States. Her story is as tied to 

national allegiance as are the colors of Our Flag. 

And anyone who questions whether this devotion 

is merely a matter of good business— 

considering the business she is in—will discover 

from her life story that she is totally sincere. 

Mary’s commitment to the United States 

began in childhood. “Patriotism is in my blood,” 

she says. Her Irish father’s family served in the 

American Revolution, Battle of Tippecanoe, War 

of 1812, and her great-grandfather was a 

Captain in the Civil War. Grandma Haley always 

carried a hand-held U.S. flag in her purse. 

One day Mary asked, “Grandma Haley, why 

do you always carry that flag in your purse?” 

She replied, “Who knows, I may get a chance to 

wave it today.” Her mother had two rules in the 

Haley home: “Don’t let the flag touch the floor 

and don’t set anything on top of the Bible.” 

During WWII, when Mary was five, her 

brother (fifteen years older) was in the U.S. 

Navy serving in the south Pacific. Her mother 

displayed the flag, hung the blue service star 

banner in the window and dressed Mary in 

red, white and blue. Her father was an Air 

Raid Warden and, together, they gathered 

scrap metal for the war effort. They listened to 

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fireside 

chats over the Philco radio and stood and 

faced the east with their hands over their 

hearts when the National Anthem was played. 

As a “Railroader’s Daughter,” Mary remembers 

taking train trips to Indianapolis to 

visit her grandparents almost every weekend. 

“White-haired ladies gave their seats to servicemen; 

buffets were set up in the train station for 

them to have one more hot meal before heading 

off to war; every Saturday we walked through 

the biggest park from one grandparent’s home 

to the other and saw trucks with red crosses, 

ambulances, bands marching with ‘Old Glory’ 

leading the parade. When Our Flag passed us, 

everybody put their hands over their hearts.” 

Time marched on. Mary married her high 

school sweetheart, Tom. When he was transferred 

from “Good Ole Hometown Columbus” 

to Chicago, the family, which included three 

children, Lori, Andy and Charlie, lived in 

Libertyville because Mary loved the name. 

After completing high school, their son, Andy, 

joined the U.S. Navy and the Iranian Crisis 

occurred. In 1979, Mary got caught up with 

a message from a D.J. urging his listeners to 

“Fly your flag, put a candle in the window and 

a yellow ribbon around the tree.” Mary could not 

find her flag, nor did any merchant have the 

U.S. Flag in stock because it was not “flag season.” 

She went to a flag company thirty-five miles 

away, but he only sold wholesale. Explaining 

about her son’s service, Mary talked him into 

selling her a U.S. flag. While walking out, she 

got an idea and asked him if she could have 

twelve flags to sell door-to-door in Libertyville. 

He said, “Who do you think I am, the Avon 

Lady of the flag world?” He gave her twelve 

flags and told her to have the flags or the 

money to him the next Saturday. She had the 

money there in four days and he gave her 

twelve more…and the beat went on. 

Mary got a new idea: Watch for tattered flags 

flying from company flagpoles and sell them a 

new one. Her first stop was at a bank, where a 

Libertyville News reporter heard her sales pitch 

and wrote a story headlined “Woman Sells U.S. 

Flag Door-to-Door.” A reporter from the Chicago 

Sun Times called Mary the next week for an 

interview for President’s Week. The story and 

her picture were on the front page of the 

Midweek Magazine, entitled “Meet The Flag 

Lady.” On that day, February 15, 1980, unbeknownst 

to her, she began her “Journey to the 

Flag Lady’s Flag Store.” 

In 1982, Tom was transferred back to 

Columbus and Mary resumed her career as 

a legal secretary at Vorys, Sater, Seymour and 


152

Pease, and continued selling flags downtown 

during her lunch break. Her fervor for the 

American flag impressed Bob Caldwell, a 

Columbus car dealer, when she asked him if 

he would donate a large U.S.A. and Ohio flag 

to display in the new addition of Veterans 

Memorial. He not only donated the flags, he 

encouraged her to sell flags full-time, and also 

offered to help jump-start her business. 

In 1985, as the business took over more 

rooms of their home, she followed Tom’s suggestion 

to open the first storefront on Indianola 

Avenue. The “1492” telephone number she 

requested was not available, but “1776” was—so 

263-1776 became the store’s telephone number. 

In 1986 she started the custom flag and 

banner business in a warehouse space along 

the railroad tracks behind the storefront. Tom 

used to say, “If we don’t have it, we’ll find it; 

if we can’t find it, we’ll make it.” In 1989 she 

took over the entire warehouse building and 

combined the retail and custom departments. 

The Persian Gulf situation occurred. 

Customers packed into her store “and my customers 

told me I was on TV more than Tom 

Brokaw,” Mary says. “They nicknamed us 

‘The Store with the Spirit.’” 

In 1992 the store moved to 4567 North 

High Street in Beechwold. She added a “Stars 

and Stripes” awning above the front and the 

two back entrances and it became known as 

“The Store with the Stars and Stripes Awning.” 

Mary heard someone mention she might have 

a hard time because the customers could not 

park in the front. She called a sign company 

to order a neon sign for her front window 

with “Park in the back.” The salesman said, 

“You mean, ‘Park in the rear?’” She said, 

“No, the opposite of ‘front’ is ‘back.’” 

The Flag Lady’s Flag Store is a drop-off point 

for her customers to “retire” their “Old Glory” 

which is no longer suitable for display and 

receive ten percent off their new one. “Our 

American flags are made in the U.S.A.” The 

business retail side has many other items, such 

as military flags and gifts; international, state, 

historical and church flags; bunting, grave 

markers, flagpoles, sports flags for schools, colleges 

and professional teams, and much more. 

The Flag Lady’s custom department has 

a resourceful graphic artist and skilled 

seamstresses, who will help our customers 

rally, motivate, celebrate and identify their 

idea with custom flags and banners, parade 

and podium banners, tradeshow exhibits, 

family crests and much more. Thousands of 

Ohio State University flags, sewn by The Flag 

Lady’s Flag Store, are sold each year and are 

another reason to visit the store. “For twenty 

years, Brutus Buckeye and the cheerleaders 

have entered on the football field with 

Buckeye flags made by The Flag Lady’s Flag 

Store. “We Flag the Team.” 

Mary says, “I can’t believe I started my journey 

to The Flag Lady’s Flag Store over thirty 

years ago.” She has been told she is one of 

the top five retail flag stores in the U.S.A. Tom, 

“the wind under my wings,” passed away in 

2001. The Flag Lady’s Flag Store is entrenched 

in the business with passion, love and enthusiasm. 

“Our store is about our customers, veterans, 

communities, businesses, corporations, 

schools and churches. We believe in customer 

service, quality products and timely deliveries.” 

All her children and grandchildren have 

participated in the business. Her daughter, 

Lori Watson, is vice president, joined in 1993. 

Andy, “The Flag Man,” is director of Home 

and Business Services Door-to-Door. “We are 

blessed with loyal, dedicated employees. The 

Flag Lady’s Flag Store is proud to be “Small 

Business America—the backbone of the U.S.A.” 

Mary is a founder of Clintonville Chamber 

of Commerce and National Independent 

Flag Dealers Association (NIFDA), which is 

dedicated to preserving manufacturing of 

the U.S.A. flag in the U.S.A. She serves on 

the Leadership and Safe Trust Committee of 

National Federation of Independent Businesses 

(NFIB)—“The Voice of Small Business.” Lori 

served as president of NIFDA for two terms 

and is serving on the board of directors of 

Clintonville Chamber of Commerce. 

“Our Flag represents our forefathers, who 

sacrificed their lives, fortunes and sacred 

honor for ‘We the People.’ It has no other 

character than that which we give it from 

generation to generation. God is chairman of 

the board; ‘Old Glory’ goes before us and is 

the backbone of our company.” 

“You are the ‘U’ in the U.S.A. and God 

Bless America!” 


1 5 3

CAPITAL 

WHOLESALE 

DRUG 

COMPANY 

✧ 

Above: Historic building at 343 North 

Front Street. 

Right: Grand staircase of the historic 

building that went to the second floor with 

the Capital Wholesale Drug Company and 

a beautiful brass rail. 

Below: The photograph was taken during 

one of the firm’s board of directors’ meetings 

in 1978 and features (from left to right) 

Linda R. Richards, treasurer; Dr. Marvin 

Roszmann, board member; Dan Scarberry, 

secretary; H. B. Henry R.Ph., chairman; 

George D. Richards R.Ph., president; George 

K. Richards, vice president; and David L. 

Franklin, vice president. 

Capital Wholesale Drug Company is a 

family owned distribution company founded 

in 1950 by George D. Richards R.Ph., Edwin 

Hoffman R.Ph., and Richard Longenbaker. 

At that time, Capital served hospitals and 

hundreds of retail pharmacies in Ohio. It was 

a time when most retail pharmacies were 

independently owned. 

Since 1950, Capital Wholesale Drug 

Company has moved once. Capital’s two 

locations reflect not only the growth and 

change of the business but also represent 

the rapid growth of the Columbus region. 

In 1950, Capital was located at 343 North 

Front Street, Columbus, Ohio. The building 

was originally constructed by the “Moline 

Plow Company” and later converted to be 

used for distribution. This historic building 

is still standing in the redeveloped central 

city area called the “Arena District.” In 1984, 

Capital moved to its current location at 

873 Williams Avenue in Grandview Heights, 

Ohio, and is once again surrounded by 

change. This warehouse district is being 

transformed into a multiple use area, 

“The Grandview Yard.” 

In the 1970s, when his partners retired, 

George D. was joined by his daughter Linda 

R. Richards and his son George K. Richards. 

A few years later, David L. Franklin joined the 

management team. 

The 1980s and 1990s were a period of 

consolidation at both the retail pharmacy 

and the drug wholesale level. The hundreds 

of independent retail pharmacies in the 

greater Columbus market dwindled to a 

handful as national chain retailers took their 

place. At the national level, the 200 drug 


154

wholesalers who were often family-owned 

also declined as the era of the national 

chain wholesalers evolved. It was a time 

when the local independent wholesaler had 

to search for new market opportunities. 

During this period Capital watched as 

the trade associations in which they maintained 

active membership also merged 

and Capital eventually became a member 

of Healthcare Distribution Management 

Association (HDMA), Washington D.C., 

which represents the collective interests of 

drug wholesalers with manufacturers and 

various government agencies. 

By the beginning of the new millennium, 

the number of authorized distributors of record 

(ADR) had declined to less than thirty drug 

wholesalers nationwide. Capital Wholesale 

Drug Company remains one of these top tier 

wholesalers and purchases directly from all 

major pharmaceutical manufacturers. 

The key to Capital’s success is daily focus 

on efficient operations and customer service. 

Capital has reinvented itself on multiple 

fronts, including information technology and 

expanding its geographic market area. The 

ever-increasing power of computers is a key 

component allowing Capital to be more 

efficient and to operate on smaller margins. 

The other factor that facilitates Capital’s 

success is its use of overnight delivery service 

provided by public carriers, which allows 

Capital to service pharmacies and hospitals 

in forty-eight states. Being in a single location 

is no longer an obstacle to participating in 

the national marketplace. 

Capital Wholesale Drug Company and 

the other drug wholesalers are an important 

link in the pharmaceutical supply chain: 

• Nearly eighty-six percent of prescription 

medicines sold in the United States are 

stored, managed and delivered by drug 

wholesalers on the way from manufacturers 

to pharmacy settings. 

• Wholesalers utilize cutting-edge technologies 

to further improve safety and security, 

streamline operations and inventory management, 

reduce errors and enhance 

patient health. 

• In emergencies, drug wholesalers leverage 

their logistics expertise to rapidly deliver 

medical supplies and disaster aid packages 

around the clock to affected communities. 

At ninety-one years young, George D. is 

chairman, and comes to work daily. The 

third generation of the Richards family 

has joined the company with the addition 

of his granddaughter Sarah Richards. At the 

end of the day, the company still flourishes 

because of the close-knit family and the sixty 

associates who identify with the concept of a 

“family business.” 

✧ 

Current location at 873 Williams Avenue in 

Grandview Heights, Ohio. 


1 5 5

NATIONWIDE 

✧ 

Above: Early headquarters of Farm Bureau 

Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, 

now Nationwide, included the Southern 

Hotel and this building on East 

Broad Street. 

Below: Murray Lincoln, long-time 

Nationwide president and one of the 

company’s founders, left, talks with farmers 

about doing business with Farm 

Bureau Mutual. 

Nationwide is one of the world’s largest 

insurance and financial service companies, 

with more than 15 million customers. It was 

founded on the idea that the company could 

help people do things together that they could 

not do alone. As a mutual company, it exists 

to serve the best interests of its customers. 

Leaders of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation 

(OFBF) were exploring insurance as a member 

benefit in 1925, when they were approached by 

the leader of another insurance company, who 

proposed a sponsorship agreement. The Ohio 

Department of Insurance nixed a deal with the 

out-of-state businessman, however, forcing 

OFBF, led by its executive secretary Murray 

Lincoln, to consider starting its own auto 

insurance company. 

OFBF believed that because Ohio farmers 

had fewer accidents than city folks did, they 

should pay less for auto insurance. Motivated by 

that belief, OFBF incorporated the Farm Bureau 

Mutual Automobile Insurance Company late in 

1925. The Federation loaned the new company 

$10,000 to open a one-room office in downtown 

Columbus with three employees. Twenty 

part-time agents, who volunteered to sell 

auto insurance policies without commission, 

obtained 1,000 applications, and Farm Bureau 

Mutual officially started business April 10, 1926. 

Ezra Anstaett, the company’s first employee 

and general agent, used his experience 

working with county farm boards to develop 

new and unique sales methods. He created a 

direct mail campaign, illustrated sales kits, 

sales training, sales manuals, and a weekly 

sales bulletin to inform and motivate the 

agency force, which had a slogan of “Fair, 

Frank, Firm and Friendly.” 

The company’s first office was in the 

Southern Hotel in Columbus. The first company 

car, a temperamental, 1926 two-door 

Nash, was acquired from a policyholder who 

had crashed it, then refused to accept it after 

the company had it repaired. 

Although it offered just auto insurance, 

and only in Ohio, the company was so 

successful that rural drivers in other states 

soon sought coverage. In response, the 

company expanded to seven other states 

by 1928. It added residents of towns and 

small cities in 1931, and metropolitan area 

residents in 1934. 


156

Introduction of a fire insurance company 

in 1934 followed by the purchase of a struggling 

life insurance company the next year, 

brought total personal protection to customers. 

Farm Bureau Mutual agents were first 

in the country to offer both property/casualty 

and life insurance to consumers. When World 

War II interrupted expansion, Farm Bureau 

Mutual operated in twelve states and the 

District of Columbia. Territorial growth 

resumed in 1951 and accelerated in 1956. 

Farm Bureau Mutual started a 5,000-watt, 

daytime-only radio station from a hotel in 

Worthington, Ohio in 1947, to promote its 

insurance products and Farm Bureau services. 

Its communications holdings grew to nineteenth 

in the nation. 

In 1955 the Ohio Department of Insurance 

forced a split of the insurance business from the 

OFBF. Under the new name of Nationwide, 

with Murray Lincoln as president, the company 

continued to innovate. It grew through multiline 

selling, pioneering the sale of life insurance 

and mutual funds by its agents. Although both 

the insurance and securities industries vigorously 

opposed this bold move, many leading 

insurance companies eventually followed 

Nationwide’s lead into mutual funds. Over the 

years, Nationwide expanded its businesses, 

either creating or acquiring other companies. 

Columbus has been home to Nationwide 

since its beginning, and the company has always 

given back to the community. In 1974, CEO 

Dean Jeffers’ commitment to urban renewal led to 

construction of the company’s new headquarters 

in downtown Columbus. This sparked development, 

leading to a new convention center, 

hotels, restaurants and other businesses. 

CEO Dimon McFerson directed Nationwide 

to build a civic arena to provide a home for 

the Columbus Blue Jackets of the National 

Hockey League in 1997. That led to creation 

of the Arena District, adding dining, businesses 

and urban housing. Located immediately 

northwest of Nationwide’s Home Office complex, 

the Arena District is developed, managed 

and marketed by Nationwide Realty 

Investors, its real estate development affiliate. 

The company’s long-standing support of 

Nationwide Children’s Hospital, highly successful 

United Way campaigns, blood donations 

and food drives cement Nationwide as 

the leading corporate citizen in Central Ohio. 

Today, more than 10,000 of Nationwide’s 

associates are located in central Ohio. The 

company’s full range of insurance products 

includes vehicles, homeowners, agribusiness, 

commercial and pet insurance. Its financial 

services include life insurance, annuities, 

mutual funds, retirement plans, and banking. 

Nationwide is committed to helping people 

protect the most important things in their 

lives—their families, property and financial 

futures. The company’s success has helped 

it protect and serve the communities where 

Nationwiders live and work and make a 

positive difference in the lives of others. 

Nationwide is proud of its history of community 

involvement, truly reflecting its On Your 

Side ® brand promise. 

✧ 

Left: In 1926, Ezra Anstaett, Farm Bureau 

Mutual’s first employee and general agent, 

signs the first policy issued by the company 

as Murray Lincoln and Ohio Farm Bureau 

President Lee Palmer look on. Today, 

Nationwide has more than 15 million 

policies in force. 

Right: Former Nationwide CEO Dean 

Jeffers displays the model for Nationwide’s 

current headquarters, which sparked the 

1970s revitalization of the northern part of 



1 5 7

RENAISSANCE 

COLUMBUS 

DOWNTOWN 

HOTEL 

When did you last discover a hotel that 

married purpose with panache so seamlessly? 

From where it sits on the corner of a fabulous 

downtown location, the Renaissance Columbus 

Downtown Hotel corners the market on bringing 

great minds together and ideas to life—in 

a most unconventional center. 

But the Renaissance Columbus Downtown 

Hotel is part of a bigger story: the Marriott story. 

The history of the Marriott hotel chain began 

with a nine-seat root beer stand, coined “the 

Hot Shoppes” opened in 1927 by J. W. Marriott 

and his wife, Alice Sheets-Marriott, in 

Washington, D.C. Despite the challenges of the 

Great Depression, hard work and intuitive 

business ingenuity enabled the Marriotts to 

thrive and build a chain of restaurants that 

would become the foundation of their business 

empire. In 1957, after beginning the company 

as a concept restaurant/café, they directed their 

endeavors to the lodging industry with the 

opening of the 500-room Crystal City Marriott 

in Arlington, Virginia. Widely known in the 

power circles of Washington, D.C., the Marriotts 

built lasting personal and business relationships 

with many renowned personages of the day. 

A biography of J. W. Marriott Sr., has been 

shown several times on the History Channel 

and on MSNBC. One of the remarkable stories 

from his youth occurred while he was still 

herding sheep for his family. At the time of the 

incident he was too young to be permitted to 

ride the train alone when a large flock of 

sheep was transported from Utah to Texas. 

Marriott rode his horse to meet the train when 

it made its final destination in Texas. Without 

human supervision during the trip, many of 

the Marriott family’s sheep and those of others 

got mixed, but when owners were called upon 

to separate them, Marriott did so without 

apparent difficulty. When his father asked 

later how he was able to do this, Marriott 

replied, “I just selected all the biggest sheep,” 

an indication of the keen business insight that 

would serve him well throughout his career. 

This insight, along with his defining principle 

of the hotel business: “Take care of your 

associates and they will take care of the 

guests” stands at the forefront of Marriott 

business successes almost a century later. 

Marriott now has 143 Renaissance Hotels 

across twenty-eight countries. Renaissance 

believes that travel (either on a jet stream in 

the clouds or across the fiber optic universe) is 

always a chance to find something wonderfully 

new and different. We created Renaissance 

for travelers. Those who seek new adventures 

and discoveries. 

With its enviable Capitol Square foothold 

among the city’s most dynamic business, 

entertainment and cultural hot spots, the 

Renaissance Columbus is the perfect location 

to explore and discover something new. Leave 

it up to our onsite Navigators to give you the 

local lowdown. They will lead the way to 

wonderfully new experiences with up-to-date 

recommendations on the best, most authentic 

and undiscovered things that Columbus 

has to offer. But there is plenty to discover 

without even leaving the hotel. 

It is usually the subtlest touches that make 

the biggest impressions. Our 376 guest 

rooms are sophisticated retreats, where 

comfort and technology peacefully coexist. 

Custom duvets and an abundance of plump 

pillows deliver the promise of a great night’s 

sleep. High-speed Internet access allows for 

an instant connection—to work, home or a 

favorite blog. And our suites? A whole new 

level of luxury defines our most spacious 

accommodations. Or, take a moment to enjoy 

the rarefied air of relaxation on our rooftop 

poolside patio. Some of Columbus’ best 

musicians entertain Renaissance guests here 

on seasonally warm evenings. 


158

But helping our guests discover Columbus 

is not the only way we are connected to the 

neighborhood. Always heavily invested in 

giving back to the community throughout 

its history, the Marriott family is involved in 

a wide variety of community and charitable 

activities. From education foundations to 

charitable organizations, awards for community 

service and accolades from many distinguished 

entities have lauded the Marriott 

family of businesses for their commitment to 

give back—best encapsulated in the second 

part of the company’s mission statement: 

Spirit to serve our Associates, Spirit to 

serve our Guests and Spirit to serve our 

Communities. Three of the prominent charities 

for which the Renaissance Columbus 

Downtown Hotel raises funds each year are 

Children’s Miracle Network, United Way, and 

the Ronald McDonald House, along with 

many other local organizations. 

Specific corporate awards—the Alice 

Marriott Award for Community Service and 

the J. W. Marriott Award of Excellence—are 

given annually to selected hotels. In 2010 the 

Renaissance Columbus Downtown Hotel was 

awarded the prestigious AAA Four Diamond 

Award. Only five percent of all hotels ever 

achieve a rating above three diamonds. The 

dramatic $16 million renovation, with its stylish 

and innovative indoor and outdoor event 

facilities, provides the perfect backdrop for 

business meetings and social gatherings. It was 

also selected from among fifty-four venues as a 

2010 winner in The Knot Best of Weddings for 

its wedding reception venue. This distinction 

was given by local brides in an independent 

survey by The Knot and Wedding Channel. 

At this stylish downtown hotel, which is 

located near many local attractions including 

Nationwide Arena, COSI, the Convention 

Center, and popular museums and theaters, 

guests are eligible for package deals, some of 

which include admission to these destinations. 

So are you ready? Ready to escape and 

try something new? Soak in the local flavor of 

Columbus. There really is so much to see and 

do, and we will navigate the local experiences 

just for you. Find our special deals and 

packages so you can take it all in on the 

Internet at www.renaissancecolumbus.com. 


1 5 9

PORTER WRIGHT MORRIS & ARTHUR LLP 

As a twenty-first century law firm, Porter 

Wright has proven to be a nimble, thoughtful 

partner evolving to meet the needs of its clients, 

from new entities to those it has represented for 

over a century. The diverse professional backgrounds 

of Porter Wright’s attorneys allow the 

Firm to provide advice that works in an everchanging 

business environment. The Firm has 

developed a portfolio of attorney experience 

focused on meeting both the business and legal 

goals of its clients, including former software 

engineers, former in-house counsel in various 

industries and experts in the fields of health 

care, nanotechnology and bioscience. It is this 

first-hand experience that gives Porter Wright 

attorneys a big-picture perspective. The Firm 

has the highest percentage of The Best Lawyers 

in America ® 2011 of all large Ohio firms and 

has been recognized as a leading law firm by 

BTI Client Service Leader, Chambers USA 2011 

and US News–Best Lawyers Best Law firms 2011 ® . 

Tracing its roots to 1846, Porter Wright has 

represented some of the most successful businesses 

in Ohio and across the nation. The Firm 

has provided service to its clients for more 

than a century and a half and is enduringly 

linked to the history of law in Ohio. 

The Firm’s founder, Richard Harrison, 

set up shop at a small desk in the London, 

Ohio, Courthouse 165 years ago. He traveled 

to surrounding small towns, assisting clients 

in resolving disputes and addressing legal 

issues. Harrison also served Madison County 

in the House of Representatives and later 

was a member of the Ohio Senate. As a 

Congressman during the Civil War, Harrison 

participated in deliberations that helped 

shape the country’s future. 

After retiring from public office, Harrison 

moved his practice to Columbus, Ohio, where 

it began to thrive. Harrison was named president 

of the Ohio State Bar Association, and the 

Firm played a key role in the Boesel railroad 

cases, which challenged the constitutionality 

of municipal use of taxpayer funds to develop 

railroad lines for future sale to railroad companies. 

Harrison quickly gained a reputation as 

one of the best lawyers in the state. 

As the nation expanded, the Firm’s representation 

of the railroad industry grew to 

include The Pennsylvania Railroad Co. and 

American Railway Express Co. By the turn of 

the century, the Firm had become counsel to 

P. W. Huntington & Co. Bankers, Columbus 

Iron and Steel Co., and Columbus Gas Light 

and Heating Co. The Firm also represented 

utility industry pioneers including Ohio Bell 

Telephone Co., The Columbus and Southern 

Ohio Electric Co., and Postal Telegraph Co. 

By the 1950s, the Firm’s clientele had 

grown to include The Klingbeil Company, 

The Columbus Museum of Art, Max & Erma’s 

and White Castle. 

The Firm gained national exposure through 

“The Harding Papers” case in the mid-1960s. 

Earl Morris, a Porter Wright partner who later 

served as Ohio’s first American Bar Association 

President, was deeply involved in the highprofile 

matter concerning the love letters of 

former President Warren G. Harding. At the 

time, the case brought together some of the 

most preeminent legal minds in the state. 

As the Firm’s statewide and national reputation 

grew, it undertook some of the most challenging 

issues of the times. In the late 1970s, 

partner Sam Porter defended the Columbus 

Board of Education in litigation related to 

desegregation of the Columbus Public Schools. 


160

When the Harvard Defense 

Fund and the NAACP filed suit 

against the Columbus Board of 

Education, the Board turned to 

Porter to lead the defense team. 

Porter recalls, “During the civil 

strife of the 1960s and 1970s, 

the school system became one 

of the battlegrounds.” Although 

considerable unrest surrounded 

these suits elsewhere, “...there 

was never any violence. All parties 

and lawyers maintained 

civility and decorum and the 

local media was very careful to 

report the issue objectively.” 

In 1977, the Firm achieved a significant 

milestone—merging to form Porter, Wright, 

Morris and Arthur. At the time, it was the 

largest merger of two law firms in Ohio and one 

of the earliest of such mergers nationally. It was 

a successful combination that has stood the test 

of time. In the years following, the Firm added 

offices in Washington, D.C.; Cincinnati, Dayton 

and Cleveland, Ohio; and Naples, Florida. 

In the early 1980s, Porter Wright had more 

offices in Ohio than any other law firm. The 

Firm’s strength proved critical in 1985 when 

The State of Ohio retained Porter Wright following 

the collapse of Home State Savings 

Bank, then the largest bank crisis since the 

Great Depression. The Firm’s work resulted in 

significant new legislation and recovery of 

over $200 million needed to protect Home 

State’s depositors. The year also marked the 

date the Firm moved into its current 

Columbus offices in the Huntington Center at 

41 South High Street. 

Since that time, Porter Wright has served 

clients in many important cases, including 

the representation of the Columbus-America 

Discovery Group in its efforts to win rights to 

the treasure discovered aboard the sunken 

ship, SS Central America, in the 1980s and 

1990s. Porter Wright has also helped entrepreneurial 

and technology companies to 

grow and expand their businesses, including 

Checkfree Corporation (now Fiserve), which 

grew to become a Fortune 500 financial 

services company. The Firm recently led the 

successful defense of a coal mining permit 

to mine under a National Natural Landmark 

forest, recovering $4.7 million from the State 

of Ohio for a regulatory taking of coal property. 

The Ohio underground mining industry 

views this as the seminal precedent protecting 

private property rights against regulation 

that effectively prevents mining. 

Managing Partner Robert “Buzz” Trafford 

notes: “For more than 150 years, our attorneys 

have worked to preserve the integrity 

and professionalism that was the hallmark 

of our founder—Richard Harrison. Through 

several wars, the Great Depression, recessions 

and years of social unrest, our firm has 

weathered change in the nation, state and the 

legal profession itself with resilience and 

growth. We recognize that the Firm’s success 

is due to our commitment to clients and 

community and to our adherence to the 

highest standards of the legal profession.” 


1 6 1

THE WESTIN 

COLUMBUS 

HOTEL 

A historic landmark elegantly styled for 

the twenty-first century traveler, The Westin 

Columbus offers today’s guests the utmost in 

gracious service and luxurious surroundings, 

as it has since the hotel’s grand opening 

in 1897. This AAA Four Diamond hotel for 

fourteen consecutive years is ideally situated 

in the heart of the downtown Columbus 

business district, within walking distance of 

the convention center, sporting and cultural 

venues, and some of the city’s finest shopping 

and attractions, including the State Capital, 

Arena District, Brewery District, German 

Village, Ohio Center of Science & Industry, 

Columbus Commons, the Scioto Mile, and 

the Short North Area. 

Originally known as the Great Southern 

Fireproof Hotel and Opera House, the building 

fulfilled a promise by city leaders to build the 

“showcase of the Midwest.” The decade before 

the hotel’s opening had been a tragic one for 

Ohio’s capital, with fires having claimed three 

other hotels, the Seneca, the Deshler, and the 

Vendome. This grand new hotel had been 

financed on the dreams of 400 men who 

invested $100 each toward its construction. 

Visitors at the building’s opening toured the 

gem of all lobbies, the café or supper room, 

lavatory, travelers’ exchange (containing railroad, 

ticket, telegraph, transfer company and 

telephone offices), check rooms and bar, 

billiard, reading and writing rooms, barber 

shop and five stores. Many had never seen 

such an outstanding example of French 

Renaissance architecture. They marveled at the 

open-air feeling as they strolled in the promenade 

on the second floor, which was reached 

either by the grand stairway or elevators. The 

promenade connected with spacious parlors 

offering views of High Street, as well as leading 

directly to the main dining room, maids’ dining 

room, ordinary (breakfast) room, private 

dining room and guest chamber corridor. 


162

As J. M. Lee, the general manager, 

welcomed the visitors, they 

marveled at the lobby’s extreme 

size. Its 46 by 90-foot expanse 

rose to the height of the second 

and third floors. A decorative 

arch screened and secluded the 

musicians’ gallery. With six fluted 

pilasters on each side and 

dome capitals surmounted by an 

ornate entendres, the dining 

room’s appearance was second to 

none in the country. 

Parlors were finished in white 

enamel and gold with unique 

designs. More than a few of the 

ladies present retired to the comfort 

of the seating arrangements 

there to escape from the men’s cigar smoke. 

At the time it opened, the Great Southern 

housed 222 guest rooms, with 2 club rooms, 

56 private bathrooms and 8 public baths. 

Guest chambers on the second, third, and 

fourth floors were finished in plain oak, with 

yellow pine completing the rest. The structure 

was far ahead of its time, housing the latest 

equipment for electric work, call bells, 

heating, ventilating and plumbing. The basement 

held huge coal-fired boilers in addition 

to the building’s water supply, provided by 

three separate wells. 

Then, as now, the hotel offered guests the 

utmost in gracious service and luxurious 

surroundings. The historic Westin Columbus 

is elegantly styled for the twenty-first century 

traveler. Its exquisite architecture includes 

original stained-glass windows and crystal 

chandeliers, with special touches reminding 

today’s guests that history provided the 

inspiration for this stately hostelry. 

With over 12,000 square feet of meeting 

space, The Westin Columbus can accommodate 

virtually any meeting or event imaginable. 

In addition to the grandeur and elegance 

of the stunning Grand Ballroom—the city’s 

premier event site—the hotel provides smaller 

meeting and breakfast rooms, as well as an 

exclusive boardroom for intimate meetings. 

Guests can enjoy a complimentary state-ofthe-art 

fitness center that is open twenty-four 

hours a day, as well as convenient access to 

multiple jogging paths, several unique golf 

courses, tennis courts and swimming facilities. 

Hotel services include twenty-four hour room 

service, running maps by Runner’s World, highspeed 

Internet access in the business center 

and free high-speed Internet access in public 

areas, air conditioned and handicap accessible 

facilities, dry cleaning and wake-up service 

availability, smoke detectors, safe deposit 

boxes, luggage storage, valet service, pay selfparking 

facilities, and much more. 

With 188 luxurious guest rooms, including 

twenty-one spacious suites, The Westin 

Columbus provides everything from rooms that 

are perfect for the solo traveler to the most spacious 

and luxurious suites and other accommodations 

available anywhere. Amenities include 

smoke-free rooms, windows that open, coffee 

and tea maker, mini bar and refreshment center, 

beds for babies, older children and pets, a 

restaurant and lounge, coffee bar, and many 

other luxurious features are also available. 

As a member of the Starwood family of 

hotels, The Westin Columbus offers Starwood 

Preferred Guest and Starwood Preferred Planner 

points. You may refer to The Westin Columbus 

website at www.westincolumbus.com or the 

Starwood website at www.starwoodhotels.com 

for special promotional offers for individual or 

group travel. 

The Westin Columbus is the hotel of 

choice for individuals or families, business or 

pleasure travelers. 


1 6 3

SCHOEDINGER 

FUNERAL AND 

CREMATION 

SERVICE 

In 1855, German immigrant Philip 

Schoedinger transitioned his cabinet making 

business into one making caskets. After 

Philip’s sons, George J. and J. Albert, joined 

the business a few years later, it saw such 

innovations as addition of the first automobile 

hearse, and at 229 East State Street, the first 

chapel built expressly for funeral service and 

one of the earliest in America of such magnitude. 

The bell tower there is a city landmark. 

Schoedinger was among the first companies 

offering an air-conditioned building, the first 

motor hearse in Central Ohio, and the first 

offering guaranteed advance funeral arrangements. 

Fifth and sixth generation family 

members, along with forty licensed funeral 

directors, now operate fourteen neighborhood 

chapels and four crematories under the 

Schoedinger name. 

cremation and memorialization services at 

three crematories used only for pets. Each 

family receives their pet’s cremated remains in 

a wood-stained ornamental urn, a paw print, 

fur clipping, and grief-support materials. 

Schoedinger pioneered advanced planning 

in the 1970s, being the first to offer guaranteed 

preneed plans. Pre-funding reduces 

assets and can help if a family needs to apply 

for Medicaid. The company is also Central 

Ohio’s only funeral home providing a fulltime, 

professionally trained bereavement 

specialist to help families deal with loss. 

This specialist often goes into schools to help 

children who have faced loss, frequently 

offering a H.U.G.S. program to teach children 

and their families how to talk about and deal 

with loss. 

Schoedinger designed 

the MourningStar funeral 

arrangement process that 

creates healing experiences. 

Through a unique life exploration process, 

families share about a life lived, and then 

work together to create opportunities to share 

memories, express emotions, and find comforting 

support. Whether you choose burial 

or cremation, the need for acknowledgement 

of the loss with family and friends is ever 

present. Together, they develop meaningful 

ceremonies to express a person’s individuality 

and find healthy ways to honor their life. 

For families who consider their pets to be 

family members, Schoedinger offers full pet 

Schoedinger holds Selected Independent 

Funeral Homes membership, available by 

invitation to only one funeral service in each 

community; has been recognized as one of 

the top three family-owned businesses in the 

country; was the inaugural recipient of the 

1999 Family Business of the Year Award 

given by the Family Business Center of 

Central Ohio; and won the 2000 Better 

Business Bureau of Central Ohio’s Integrity 

Award and CEO Magazine’s “Best Places to 

Work” Award. 


164

U.S. Bank operates under the secondoldest 

continuous banking charter in our 

nation. It was originally signed July 13, 1863 

by Hugh McCullough, the Comptroller of the 

Currency under Abraham Lincoln for the 

First National Bank of Cincinnati, National 

Charter #24. 

The bank entered Central Ohio on July 1, 

1985 with the acquisition of the Ohio State 

Bank/Columbus, first established in December 

1950. Deposits were approximately $240 

million with eighteen offices throughout the 

Columbus area. In 1988 all subsidiary banks 

of First National Cincinnati Corporation 

began to operate under the shared name Star 

Bank. On July 14, 1995, Star Bank acquired 

Household Bank/Columbus. This acquisition 

gave Star Bank/Columbus thirty-five fullservice 

banking locations. 

In 1995, Richard K. Davis, then executive 

vice president of Star Banc Corporation's 

consumer banking division, and now president 

and CEO of U.S. Bancorp, the parent company 

of U.S. Bank, said the acquisition served to 

reaffirm the company’s commitment to expand 

its banking presence and underscored its desire 

to be a more important part of Central Ohio. 

By early 1999, all Star Bank branches in 

Central Ohio were renamed Firstar Bank, 

following Star Banc Corporation’s $8 billion 

acquisition of Milwaukee’s Firstar Corporation. 

These branches became U.S. Bank in 2001 as 

a result of Firstar Corporation acquiring 

Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp. In December 

2007 the Columbus headquarters was moved 

from 175 South Third Street to the northwest 

corner of Broad and High Street, and proudly 

placed U.S. Bank’s name atop the One 

Columbus Building, a key downtown landmark. 

It also made headlines in 2010 when it 

donated more than $1 million dollars to The 

Ohio State University with the unveiling of a 

new U.S. Bank branch inside of the new Ohio 

Union. The U.S. Bank Conference Theater 

inside the Ohio Union can accommodate up to 

three hundred individuals for OSU lectures and 

community events. 

U.S. Bank, both locally and nationally, has 

undergone explosive growth over the past 

decade, and is now the fifth largest commercial 

bank in the nation. As of January 2011, U.S. 

Bank in Columbus has deposits of approximately 

$1.1 billion, operates 44 traditional and 

in-store/on-site branch locations and has 400 

U.S. Bank associates. U.S. Bank operates 331 

branches throughout Ohio. 

The following bank leaders have supported 

the Columbus community over the years in 

their role as market president: James Gatton, 

Linda Page, Tom Green, Bob McLaughlin, 

John Christy, Tom Lakin, Doug Wyatt, as well 

as Dave Sceva. Current U.S. Bank/Columbus 

advisory board members who also encourage 

a dialogue between the bank and its diverse 

community partners include: Jane Abell, 

John Cadwallader, Mike Crane, Pete Davies, 

Stephanie Hightower, Doug Mayr, Chuck 

Murlin, Larry Ruben, and Jim Wyland. 

U.S. BANK 

✧ 

Top, left: U.S. Bank regional headquarters 


Above: U.S. Bank operates today under the 

original First National Bank of Cincinnati 

National Charter #24, which is now the 

second-oldest continuous charter in the 

nation. It was signed on July 13, 1863 by 

Hugh McCullough, the Comptroller of the 

Currency under Abraham Lincoln. 

Below: Dave Sceva, former U.S. Bank 

Columbus market president (left), Dr. 

Gordon Gee, OSU president (center), and 

Kyle Grusczynski, U.S. Bank OSU branch 

manager (right). 


1 6 5

COLUMBUS 

CHAMBER OF 

COMMERCE 

✧ 

North Bank Park and the Columbus skyline. 

COURTESY OF RANDALL LEE SCHIEBER. 

A guiding force for more than 126 years, 

the Columbus Chamber continues to help 

grow the Columbus Region economy, one 

business at a time. 

From our establishment as the Columbus 

Board of Trade in 1884 and into the twentyfirst 

century, this organization has been the 

voice of business in Columbus—advocating 

for, leading and supporting the progress of 

business in this region, which is now home to 

2 million people and 60,000 businesses. 

Together with government and our partners, 

we have cultivated a diverse and sustainable 

economy. Indeed, Columbus is one of the 

fastest growing major metropolitan areas in 

the Midwest. 

Now, as we celebrate the city’s bicentennial 

and stand on the verge of the region’s boldest 

and most aggressive economic development 

strategy, Columbus2020, the Chamber is 

poised to play an even greater role. Within 

Columbus2020, we are singularly focused on 

helping businesses operating in the Columbus 

area prosper. The Chamber represents more 

than 2,000 member businesses, and our team 

of more than 20 business specialists and topical 

experts is driven to accelerate member success. 

That is because the Columbus Chamber 

has one purpose—to help businesses thrive. 

The team provides the resources, services and 

intelligence businesses need to overcome 

obstacles, take advantage of opportunities, or 

simply make a connection to get the job done. 

Each day, the Chamber serves its businesses 

through one-on-one counsel or small group 

discussions. Our staff helps make connections 

to people and information; deliver educational 

programming; find solutions to business 

issues; research and analyze business 

intelligence; alert the business community of 

important news and policy issues; advocate on 

behalf of businesses at the local, state and 

federal levels and more. Ultimately, we assist 

businesses by delivering programs and 

services that enable them to flourish in the 

new, dynamic world economy. 

The Columbus Chamber believes in 

Columbus, and our staff knows business. It is 

that simple. The Chamber team has the 

curiosity to learn about business, the smarts to 

analyze situations, the connections to critical 

resources, and the passion to deliver the best 

solution for each business and this community. 

We invite you to call on the Chamber as 

your business partner. 

The Columbus Chamber is located at 150 

South Front Street, Suite 200 and online at 

www.columbus.org. 


166

Columbus’ reputation as a convention 

capital began in 1840, with the great Whig 

Party convention. Columbus, then a city of 

just 6,000 residents, was unprepared for 

the 23,000 visitors who, exuberant about 

Ohioan William Henry Harrison’s presidential 

nomination a few months earlier, came to 

nominate Thomas (Wagon Boy) Corwin for 

governor. Conventioneers stayed in hotels, 

private homes, hallways, tents, and on seven 

boats docked on a branch of the Ohio Canal 

near downtown. 

Ohio’s central location along the Midwestern 

rail network and its small town atmosphere 

promoted Columbus’ popularity as a convention 

site. Other early conventions included the 1886 

organization of the American Federation of Labor; 

1890 organization of the United Mineworkers 

of America; and the Grand Encampment of 

the Union veterans’ group, Grand Army of the 

Republic, in 1888. For the latter event the city 

built four huge campgrounds and hosted an 

exposition of agriculture and industry celebrating 

the Northwest Territory’s centennial. 

An aggressive campaign for convention 

business began in 1910, and by 1915 larger 

hotels began to help fund the work. After 

operating under the Chamber of Commerce 

for two decades beginning in 1920, the 

Columbus Convention Bureau was incorporated 

in 1941 as a private, not-for-profit 

organization designed to promote Columbus 

as a convention destination. 

The Columbus Convention Bureau continued 

to operate on membership fees and 

contributions until the Hotel/Motel Bed Tax 

was enacted in 1969. When regular 

Bed Tax investment began in 1971, 

the word “Visitors” was added to the 

organization’s title. 

The Greater Columbus Convention 

Center was built downtown in 1993 

and expanded in 1999. The Greater 

Columbus Sports Commission (GCSC) 

was formed in June 2002 to focus 

on attracting regional, national and 

international sporting events. In 2003 

the Greater Columbus Convention & 

Visitors Bureau started doing business 

as Experience Columbus. 

Today the travel and tourism 

industry in Columbus and Franklin County is 

an important contributor to the community’s 

economy and quality of life, generating an estimated 

$7.3 billion in sales annually. 

Leisure tourists enjoy 

the city’s vibrant arts 

scene, a renowned zoo, 

top-ranked science center, 

exciting sports, lively 

urban entertainment districts 

and excellent dining 

and shopping. 

The Columbus convention 

package now 

includes nearly 24,000 

hotel rooms citywide, 

a state-of-the-art convention 

center with 

410,000 square feet of 

exhibition space and a convenient location 

within 550 miles of the nation’s population. 

The Hilton Columbus Downtown, a 532- 

room hotel across from the Greater Columbus 

Convention Center, will open in fall 2012 

during the city’s Bicentennial celebration. 

Experience Columbus generates revenue 

for the community by selling and marketing 

the area to attract conventions, meetings, 

trade shows and leisure travelers. Visitor 

spending helps support jobs, businesses 

and quality of life for a growing community 

of 1.7 million people. Experience Columbus’ 

headquarters is at 227 West Nationwide 

Boulevard. For more information, please 

visit www.ExperienceColumbus.com or call 

866-354-2657. 

EXPERIENCE 

COLUMBUS 

✧ 

Left: Columbus skyline. 

Below: The Greater Columbus Convention 

Center was built in 1993 and expanded in 

1999. On the left, the Cap at Union State is 

modeled after the city’s 1899 railroad 

station designed by famed American 

architect Daniel Burnham. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF RANDALL L. SCHIEBER. 


1 6 7

CONWAY 

CENTER FOR 

FAMILY 

BUSINESS 

✧ 

Above: CCFB co-founder Dick Emens greets 

participants at the Annual Family Business 

Awards Program. 

Below: Monthly educational programs 

provide timely information for Central 

Ohio’s family business leaders. 

The Conway Center for Family Business 

was founded in 1998 to provide education, 

networking and recognition to the more 

than 6,000 family-owned businesses in 

Central Ohio. Family businesses are widely 

recognized as a powerful economic driver, 

generating more than fifty percent of the 

country’s Gross Domestic Product and sixty 

percent of its jobs. 

Attorneys J. Richard “Dick” Emens and 

Beatrice “Bea” Wolper, together with family 

business owners, recognized the unique 

challenges family business leaders have in 

growing their businesses and transitioning 

them to the next generation. They established 

the not-for-profit organization to provide 

educational programs, peer group meetings, 

networking opportunities, and the region’s 

only annual awards program celebrating 

family-owned businesses and the benefits 

they bring to the Central Ohio economy. 

The Conway Center offers membership 

opportunities for family businesses and those 

with special expertise regarding familyowned 

businesses and is led by an advisory 

board comprised of family business owners 

and service providers. The Conway Center’s 

members range in size from firms with five 

employees to large corporations employing 

thousands. A generous $1 million grant in 

2007 by James R. Conway, the former owner 

of Marion Steel, and continuing support from 

the Conway family have helped the Center 

grow and expand programs and services. 

The Conway Center is the region’s go-to 

resource for challenges and issues specific to 

family businesses, and is recognized nationally in 

business and trade publications. Its educational 

programs include topics such as succession and 

planning, case studies, and other business issues 

addressed from a family business perspective. 

The Conway Center also partners with Ohio 

Dominican University, which has hosted the 

Center since 2000, to offer an undergraduate 

course on family business management. 

The Annual Family Business Awards 

Program celebrates the success of small, medium 

and large Central Ohio family businesses. 

Achievements in succession planning, communication, 

community engagement, reinvention, 

and milestones are recognized. 

In addition, peer group opportunities 

allow family business leaders with common 

interests to share their experiences in small 

group settings and receive guidance from 

experts in family business practices. Peer 

groups are available for next-generation leaders, 

women in family business, CEOs, CFOs, 

and those interested in growth/development 

and marketing/sales. 

Networking opportunities include the 

Annual Family Business Tour and Networking 

Event hosted by a different Central Ohio 

family business each year; this event gives 

members an opportunity to get a behind-thescenes 

look at their peers’ operations. 

More information can be found at 

www.FamilyBusinessCenter.com. 


168

Sugardaddy’s Sumptuous Sweeties ® is a 

business-meets-opportunity story with a 

twist. Sugardaddy’s was founded and initially 

developed as an online business in 2005 

at www.sugardaddys.com by Columbus 

residents’ Tom Finney and Mark Ballard to be 

the nation’s premier online brownie and 

blondie gifting and dessert company. 

Finney worked as a sales and marketing 

professional and loved to bake as a hobby. 

Ballard worked as an online retail executive 

and often traveled for work. After one trip to 

New York City, he told Finney, “Your brownies 

are better than many of the desserts I’ve 

enjoyed in New York City.” They wondered, 

“Could we put a new spin on brownies?” 

“Could they create a unique, upscale online 

gifting company with brownies as the star 

attraction?” Joining forces they channeled 

their respective passions and entrepreneurial 

spirit into something special—brownie and 

blondie desserts and gifts. 

Finney and Ballard found their niche in 

what they call “luxury” desserts. They settled 

on the round shape of their brownies and 

blondies to make every bite of the customer 

experience uniformly moist and delicious. 

While at the same time, their brownies earned 

the name “edgeless brownies.” Ingeniously, 

they use the “scraps” or cut-aways, as Ballard 

likes them to be called, to make other dessert 

items such as Brownie Trifles, Brownie Truffles, 

and Brownie Biscotti. Today, Sugardaddy’s is 

known not only for the best brownie and 

blondies a “round” but for being brownie innovators 

with such extended brownie products 

as Brownie Ice Creams, Brownie Bark, and 

Brownie Cheesecakes and with such brownie 

and blondie flavors as chocolate-chipotle, 

chai-spiced, and chocolate-bacon-toffee. 

Sugardaddy’s boasts twenty signature 

brownie and blondie flavors—made from natural, 

premium ingredients. All Sugardaddy’s 

brownie products are made in small batches, 

baked fresh each day, and only sold fresh. 

Sugardaddy’s ships nationwide “Oven to door 

in 24.” ® 

Sugardaddy’s validation came when 

Sugardaddy’s was selected as Green Room 

amenities for The Ellen DeGeneres Show 

(2006-2008); named “Best of the Best” 

SUGARDADDY’S SUMPTUOUS SWEETIES ® 

Brownies & Blondies by Food 

Network (2007); and crowned 

winners of Throwdown with 

Bobby Flay (2007). Since that 

time, Sugardaddy’s has been 

named “Editor’s Pick” by 

The Nibble.com (three times), 

Desserts Magazine, Chocolatier, 

Food 411, ChocolateGrail.com, 

Instyle, Midwest Living, 

Woman’s Day, Instinct, and the 

Washington Post. And, “Best 

Gift” by Today Show (twice), 

Instyle (twice), Instyle Weddings, 

Modern Bride, and Brides.com. 

Today, Sugardaddy’s operates 

as a multichannel business with 

three company-owned retail 

stores, its online store at www.sugardaddys.com, 

and a toll free number at 1.888.4 i want 1. 

Additionally, Sugardaddy’s sells and ships 

brownie and blondies “Oven to door in 24” ® 

through partnerships with NeimanMarcus.com, 

Saks.com, Foodzie.com, and GoldenEdibles.com. 

Plans are underway for a Sugardaddy’s franchise 

model to be launched in 2012. 


1 6 9

COLUMBUS SIGN 

COMPANY 

Rapid growth of the Columbus 

area in the early twentieth century 

created the need for identification 

through signage, leading to the 

founding of the Columbus Sign 

Company in 1911. Now the 

oldest operating sign company in 

Central Ohio, CSC continues to 

serve locally and beyond as an active 

community member. 

Founded by local businessmen 

Fred Schenck and Austin Wood, 

Columbus Sign included employees 

and friends, Herb Moesner and Art 

Hoy, who later took over ownership 

and control of the company. Each 

decade has brought challenges and 

opportunities, from the early days of 

hand painted show cards and window 

signs to the many changes in signage dictated by 

electricity, neon and the advent of automobiles 

of the 1920s. During the Great Depression of the 

1930s, the company often worked two-day 

work weeks to prevent laying off employees. A 

steady, but grim work source during that time 

was painting “Going Out of Business” signs. 

Throughout the years, Columbus Sign 

served as a “melting pot” for many individuals 

and small companies that eventually created 

several of the area’s other sign companies. It 

was during this time in the mid 1940s when 

Bill Hoy, Sr., and his brother, Bob, both of 

whom served in World War II, began to work 

in the sign industry. Bill remembers almost 

daily work at the AIU Building (Leveque 

Tower) of hand painting twenty-three karat 

gold leaf on doors and windows. Bill, the 

oldest, went to work for Columbus Sign. Bob 

(two years younger) worked in a separate sign 

shop that was located in the back area of the 

Columbus Sign building. Bob later founded 

Vacuform Corporation, one of the largest sign 

companies in Ohio during the 1970s. 

Columbus Sign has evolved through the 

decades and remained current with new 

technologies. Advanced technologies 

have changed the sign production 

methods drastically. Today, the use of 

computers, combined with custom 

hand-fabrication talents, is intertwined 

to achieve unique products. 

Columbus Sign is continuing this 

next century with the fourth 

generation of leadership. The family 

tradition started with the early years 

of Art Hoy, to the second generation 

of Bill Hoy, Sr., to the third 

generation of Bill and Mike Hoy, and 

now the fourth generation of David 

and Eric Hoy. The family business 

prides itself with the thousands of 

quality signs and displays that have 

been provided throughout these first 

one hundred years of business. 


170

In 1963 the term specialty retail was just 

beginning to permeate the fashion and retail 

world. It was also the year that a young 

entrepreneur from Columbus took 

a risk on this idea based on 

knowledge of his family’s retail 

business. It was a watershed 

moment that would forever change 

Les Wexner’s life. 

Armed with a bank loan and a 

$5,000 loan from an aunt, the OSU 

graduate became a shopkeeper 

by launching the aptly named 

“Limited” in Kingsdale Shopping 

Center. His vision for specialty retail 

would eventually pay dividends and 

ultimately redefine an industry. 

To understand Limited Brands’ 

success is to acknowledge the 

entrepreneurial spirit of its founder. 

Wexner’s vision has always been 

about defining what is next, taking 

calculated risks and being a source 

of good. That mindset led him to 

take his company public with six 

Limited stores so that others could 

share in the company’s success. 

The desire for next has been balanced by 

discipline, which is best exemplified by the 

company’s $1 billion international business 

before opening or acquiring a single store 

outside of the United States. 

This pursuit of excellence is what attracts 

retail’s best talent from around the world 

to Limited Brands, which today includes 

Victoria’s Secret, Victoria’s Secret PINK, 

Bath & Body Works, La Senza and Henri 

Bendel. Today the company boasts nearly 

3,000 stores nationwide, a 1,000 worldwide 

and nearly 100,000 associates who 

provide today’s woman with lingerie and 

personal care products that fit her 

inspirational lifestyle. 

Through every stage of the business, 

success has been led by a shared set of 

common values to improve the lives of our 

customers, associates, partners, shareholders 

and communities in which we live and 

work. Themes within the company’s values 

speak to the importance of passion, integrity, 

inclusion and loyalty—the latter reflecting 

Limited Brands’ dedication to Columbus for 

nearly fifty years and the commitment to give 

back to the community. 

Limited Brands is an entrepreneurial 

success story of remarkable scale. But this 

visionary story is still being written and 

international growth is positioned as the next 

exciting chapter. After all, it is what’s next. 

LIMITED 

BRANDS 


1 7 1

HEIDELBERG DISTRIBUTING COMPANY 

✧ 

Above: This 1921 photograph was taken in 

Cincinnati during Prohibition. Mozart’s 

tavern owner Albert Vontz (behind the bar), 

who later founded Heidelberg Distributing, 

stayed afloat by selling near-beer and root 

beer. His three-year-old son Al, Jr., sits on 

the bar near the cash register helping out. 

Below: Delivery trucks filled with wine and 

beer line the parking lot of the Heidelberg 

Columbus facility in 2007. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF TERRY WILSON. 

Heidelberg is a family-owned distributing 

company in the business of marketing and 

delivering the highest-quality beer, wine, 

spirits and other beverages throughout the 

states of Ohio and Kentucky. 

Our Columbus operation, centered in the 

middle of Heidelberg’s eight locations, is 

located on a sprawling piece of property on 

the west side of town off I-70. The company 

entered the Columbus market in 1989, leasing 

a 55,000 square foot building near downtown. 

At that time, we represented thirty suppliers 

and about 500 products. By 1999, 

Heidelberg Columbus had grown so quickly 

that the company built a 100,000 square foot 

warehouse-office facility to accommodate 

thousands of items. Expansion is scheduled 

again in 2012. 

Heidelberg was founded in 1938 by Albert 

W. Vontz, who had arrived in Cincinnati in 

1907 as a twenty-two year-old immigrant 

from Hanover, Germany. A trained brewer, 

he immediately invested in two local taverns, 

but Prohibition in 1919 and the Great 

Depression forced them to close. 

When Prohibition ended in 1933 Albert 

helped open Cincinnati’s Vienna Brewery, 

which he sold to his brother-in-law five years 

later. In 1938, he invested in a Dayton 

delivery branch for the Heidelberg Brewery 

located in Covington, Kentucky, popular for 

its Student Prince and Heirloom beers. He 

named the company Heidelberg Distributing 

and quickly added wine products to deliver to 

Dayton bars, restaurants and grocery stores. 

Albert’s only child, Albert W. Vontz, Jr., 

became active in the business in 1947 when 

he returned from World War II. With a graduate 

degree in economics, Al looked for every 

opportunity to expand. During the 1950s, 

wine products represented a large part of 

Dayton Heidelberg sales. In 1959, Al was able 

to purchase the Anheuser-Busch delivery 

branch in Cincinnati; in 1961, he purchased 

the Budweiser distributorship in Dayton. The 

firm has been growing ever since through 

aggressive product expansion and acquisitions. 

Third and fourth-generation family members 

continue to lead Heidelberg and are 

actively engaged in the day-to-day business, 

operating facilities in Columbus, Cleveland, 

Lorain, Toledo, Dayton, Cincinnati, Evendale 

and Covington, Kentucky. 

You will see Heidelberg Associates and 

products at numerous Columbus events and 

venues as we work alongside other Columbus 

partners to build a strong and vibrant community. 

Sales representatives and delivery 

associates call on every retailer with an Ohio 

liquor license in a thirty county area in central 

and southeast Ohio. 


172

A premier convention destination managed 

by SMG, the world leader in entertainment 

and conference venue management, 

marketing and development, the Greater 

Columbus Convention Center is owned 

and developed by the Franklin County 

Convention Facilities Authority. 

largest multipurpose ballroom, the crown 

jewel of the Greater Columbus Convention 

Center and beyond. The ballroom is equipped 

with spectacular LED lighting in the ceiling, 

capable of projecting thousands of color 

combinations and effects. 

A dedicated and flexible staff of 240 full 

and part-time employees and associates 

remains ready to host a variety of events, 

regardless of the challenges involved. In 2008, 

the building even reopened for business the 

morning after a sixteen inch water main break 

flooded its entire north part. 

GREATER 

COLUMBUS 

CONVENTION 

CENTER 

The center’s history dates to 1974, when 

Battelle Memorial Institute contributed $36.5 

million to develop a convention facility in 

downtown Columbus. The Ohio Center and 

its premier venue, Battelle Hall, opened in 

1980, and Battelle Hall quickly became a versatile 

venue embracing family shows, rock 

and pop music concerts, theatrical productions 

and sporting events. Battelle Hall later 

became the preferred place for large public 

assemblies, trade shows, cheerleading events 

and other athletic competitions. 

The long-planned Greater Columbus 

Convention Center, built on the site of a former 

train station, was designed to emphasize 

the city’s information age relevance. Railroad 

tracks, highways and cables converge as contemporary 

symbols inspiring the building’s 

design by architect Peter Eisenman, which is 

composed of long fingers twisting their way 

between the truck docks at the back and the 

abstract streetscape with front doors along 

High Street. 

Just five years after it opened in 1993, 

a major expansion and renovation project 

was approved to meet the overwhelming 

demand for this facility. Upon its completion 

in 2001, the Convention Center grew to 

nearly 1.7 million square feet. 

Through continued reinvestment, Battelle 

Hall was rejuvenated in 2010 by a $40 million 

transformation into Battelle Grand, Ohio’s 

The Center’s client list includes major 

national and state trade associations, some 

of the nation’s Top 200 trade shows, 

groups with international visitors, a bicycle 

motocross race in which a dirt track is 

sculpted within the exhibit halls, dozens of 

athletic competitions, and events ranging 

from small meetings to the Arnold Sports 

Festival attracting over 175,000 attendees in 

one weekend. U.S. presidents and presidential 

candidates have appeared there. 

ARAMARK, the facility’s exclusive caterer, 

prepares and donates thousands of individually 

packaged Thanksgiving meals and banquet 

food to charitable organizations. The staff and 

the facility also provide assistance to many 

other school, civic and charity groups. 

Greater Columbus Convention Center is 

located at 400 North High Street in Columbus 

and at www.columbusconventions.com. 

✧ 

Top: The Greater Columbus 

Convention Center. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF D. G. OLSHAVSKY. 

Above: Battelle Grand is the largest multipurpose 

ballroom in Ohio. 

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF ELLEN DALLAGER/ 

DALLAGER PHOTOGRAPHY. 


1 7 3

CENTER CITY 

INTERNATIONAL 

TRUCKS 

Founded on October 16, 1982, Center 

City International Trucks, Inc. (CCI) has 

always been committed to providing Central 

Ohio with a complete line of new and used 

trucks and services. CCI sells light, medium 

and heavy-duty International trucks, Isuzu 

trucks, IC BUS school buses, Continental 

Mixers and Workhorse utility trucks. Its 

leading parts and service department has over 

$1 million in inventory, and provides twentythree 

service bays for customers’ convenience. 

In the early 1980s, Branch Manager Jerome 

J. Wahoff bought International Harvester’s 

Columbus operations at 4200 Currency 

Drive. Ken Maykowski became secretary/ 

treasurer; Dan Shepherd, service manager; 

Bob Glancy, parts manager; and John Maxson, 

leasing manager. With a poor economy during 

its earliest days, the dealership sold just 

one truck in its first quarter, maintaining 

operations by building a strong parts and 

service business that continues to be an 

essential part of their business today. 

Wahoff had acquired thirty-three percent 

ownership by 1990, hired John Colston as 

secretary/treasurer to develop a plan to 

purchase the remaining stock over ten years. 

Business boomed in the 1990s, and in 1993, 

seven years early, Wahoff completed his 

purchase of the business. 

Dick Epp became sales manager in 1990. 

The Isuzu line of trucks was added and grew 

rapidly. Center City became Isuzu’s second 

largest annual sales leader in the country, 

winning the J. D. Power Award of Excellence. 

The dealership also began distributing Ward 

School Bus, which later became IC BUS. 

Under the leadership of Jim Stickel and Epp, 

this division was named 2009 IC Bus North 

American Dealer of the Year. 

On January 23, 2006, Wahoff sold the 

business to Timothy E. Reilly of Miami Valley 

International, making it part of the MVI 

Group. The group’s other Ohio locations 

include Dayton, Cincinnati, Lima, Findlay, 

Pataskala, Cleveland and Akron. The 

dealership employs over 100 personnel in 

Central Ohio, and has over $80 million in 

annual sales. 

Center City’s civic and community 

participation includes the Columbus 

Chamber of Commerce, Ohio Truck Dealers’ 

Association and Ohio Clean Fuels. CCI also 

works hand-in-hand with Eastland Career 

Center to develop training programs for their 

students. It also aids other truck-related 

organizations such as fairs in Franklin and 

Fairfield counties, food banks, fire-fighting 

groups, youth groups, and Toys for Tots. 


174

❖ 

The Huntington Center. 



1 7 5

✧ 

Marie Radar puts rolled steel on a 30 inch slitter for cutting at Worthington Industries, 1996. 



176

BUILDING A STRONG COLUMBUS 

C o l u m b u s ’ s r e a l e s t a t e d e v e l o p e r s , 

c o n s t r u c t i o n c o m p a n i e s , h e a v y i n d u s t r i e s , 

a n d m a n u f a c t u r e r s p r o v i d e t h e e c o n o m i c 

f o u n d a t i o n o f t h e c o u n t y a n d f u e l f o r t h e s t a t e 

The Cellar Lumber Company .......................................................1 7 8 

Smoot Construction ....................................................................1 8 2 

Ohio CAT .................................................................................1 8 4 

John Eramo & Sons, Inc. .............................................................1 8 6 

American Electric Power .............................................................1 8 8 

Capital Resin Corporation ...........................................................1 9 0 

Kirk Williams Company, Inc. .......................................................1 9 2 

Hamilton Tanks, LLC .................................................................1 9 4 

Fritz-Rumer-Cooke Co., Inc. ........................................................1 9 5 

Buckeye Shapeform ....................................................................1 9 6 

Central Aluminum Company ........................................................1 9 7 

Automation and Control Technology, Inc. .......................................1 9 8 

B U I L D I N G A S T R O N G C O L U M B U S 

1 7 7

THE CELLAR 

LUMBER 

COMPANY 

✧ 

Rachel Jones Miller painted this forty-foot 

mural depicting the history of Cellar 

Lumber Company in1978. The mural is 

located on three walls of the conference 

room of the company’s offices in Westerville. 

Any company that operates successfully for 

over a century is bound to be doing a great 

many things right. Certainly, that is the case 

with The Cellar Lumber Company, which has 

furnished lumber and building materials in 

Westerville, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus, since 

October of 1908. At that time Wilson F. Cellar 

and eleven investors pooled $5,400 to open 

the company. The property at College Avenue 

and Summit Street was purchased due to its 

border with the railroad, providing convenient 

access to inbound material. Cellar opened the 

doors less than thirty days after his marriage to 

Carrie Saunders. 

Frank Bookman was named as president, 

with Jos. J. Knox as vice president and Wilson 

Cellar as secretary-treasurer and general 

manager. Knox had formerly lived in 

Westerville. He owned and operated a large 

lumberyard on Columbus’ Cleveland Avenue, 

across from Fort Hayes. Cellar, who had left 

Otterbein College Department of Business in 

1902 to take an office position with the 

Hocking Valley Railroad, left there about a year 

later, when he became associated with D. H. 

Bard in the sawmill and lumber business at a 

site east of the Lincoln Street Cemetery in 

Westerville. After Bard’s death, Cellar formed a 

new company in 1908 at its current location. 

J. C. McLeod was Cellar Lumber’s first 

customer, with others among the earliest 

including the Westerville Creamery Co., 

Otterbein College, the Methodist and 

Presbyterian churches, the Village of Westerville, 

H. L. Bennett & Co., F. C. Arn, and the Culver 

Art & Frame Co. Westerville was just getting out 

of the mud. College Avenue had been paved 

only a short time. Dr. W. M. Gantz, a jovial 

dentist, was mayor. 

Mrs. Cellar, a bride of only thirty days when 

she became a director of the new company, 

recalled that her first dinner guest in her new 

home was a business associate her husband 

brought in without warning. She remembered 

that he was particularly fond of hot spiced 

cling peaches and attempted to get them off the 

seed by putting the whole peach in his mouth. 

Receipted bills in the company’s early 

records show that it sponsored space for 

advertising at the rate of 10 cents per inch. 

Other bills show the purchases of a curry comb 

for 10 cents and a bucket of axle grease from 

Bale and Walker Hardware Store for 25 cents. A 

blacksmith charged 20 cents to refit old shoes 

and $1.20 for four new ones. Corn and hay for 

the horse were other early items of expense. 

The first stocks of lumber were pine from 

Arkansas and hemlock from West Virginia and 

Michigan. Then, as now, red cedar shingles 

came from the Northwest. Redwood was just 

being introduced locally as a building material. 

Good carpenters earned 30 to 35 cents per hour, 

and good laborers from $9 to $12 per week. 

Stephen Rizer, one of the finest characters 

Westerville has ever known, was the first yard 

man and “pilot” for the horse and wagon. A 

devout Methodist and a faithful employee, he 

never talked politics on the job but was 


178

always ready to discuss religion and a better 

way of living. 

A fire in January of 1912 destroyed the office 

and largest shed and their contents. It was a 

very cold winter, and Westerville’s volunteer fire 

department responded promptly, only to find 

the hydrant adjacent to the lumberyard frozen 

solid. They did what they could, forming a 

bucket line from a nearby cistern. Cellar 

admitted to being a bit excited when he fell 

while jumping through an office window in 

trying to save books and records. This fire was 

a major disaster. Had it not been for the prompt 

adjustment by the insurance company, Cellar 

Lumber would have been unable to rebuild. 

Wilson’s brother, George B. Cellar, became 

associated with the company in 1914, and 

served for many years as manager. Early 

directors of the company included Mr. and 

Mrs. Wilson Cellar, George B. Cellar, Don P. 

Miller, H.O. Reece, manager of the Sunbury 

branch; J.B. Miller and Frank C. Arn. 

In 1919, Wilson began an expansion 

program, moving with his family to Circleville 

shortly after the purchase of stores in 

Chillicothe and Circleville, followed by the 

purchase of a store in Sunbury in 1923 and 

stores in Johnstown and Groveport in 1926. 

Later, yards were purchased in Frankfort and 

Canal Winchester, and one was started in 

Marengo. The Circleville yard was sold in 1927. 

With the exception of a few hard years, growth 

and expansion have continued, accomplished 

largely by plowing profits back into the business. 

In 1932, Cellar hired his nephew, Don Miller, 

a part-time student at Otterbein College. Miller 

soon began going to school for six months and 

working at the Chillicothe store for six months. 

In 1936 he returned to the Westerville store and 

was named its manager in 1938. He became 

secretary-treasurer of the entire company in 

1938, and general manager five years later. 

Cellar began spending winters in Florida as he 

phased in his retirement. When the Cellars 

made Florida their permanent home, they 

donated their house to Otterbein College. 

Miller served as general manager through 

the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s and was named 

president in 1970. During that period the stores 

were modernized with the introduction of 

forklift trucks and the addition of hydraulic 

dump beds on the delivery trucks. This 

modernization was accomplished with the 

immense help of Dick Longhenry. 

Miller and his wife Rachel had three sons, 

Bill, John, and Tom, and a daughter, Jean. All 

three of their sons have been involved with the 

company in various capacities over the years. 

✧ 

Above: Setting the corner stone at the 

Women’s Christian Temperance Movement, 

c. 1908. This photograph features Cellar 

Lumber’s first delivery vehicle and its 

“pilot,” Stephen Rizer. 


1 7 9

✧ 

Above: Wilson Cellar, Ernest McElwee, and 

Isaac Williams at the company’s Westerville 

office in 1915. 

John Miller came on the scene at Cellar 

Lumber in the 1950s, playing in the 

boxcars and hanging out in the sheds. His 

first paying job with the company was 

painting its numerous white picket fences. 

In 1961 he worked as a driver’s helper, 

assistant driver, and loaded and unloaded 

rock lath. After completing high school in 

1962 he served in the U.S. Army, returning to 

work at Cellar during the summers until he 

graduated from Miami University in April 

of 1967. He then worked for five years at 

Armco Steel in Middletown, Ohio, during 

which time he met and married Melinda 

(Mindy) Scott. 

In 1972, John was again hired at Cellar and 

returned to Westerville, where Don Miller 

planned to spend five years training him in 

management and knowledge of the business. 

Unfortunately, Don died during the first year 

of John’s apprenticeship. With the help of the 

employees and Scott Neely, an important 

supplier from Lima, Ohio, the company 

continued. John was named general manager 

in 1972, president in 1976, and CEO and 

chairman in June 2008. 

In 1948, as Cellar was writing the 

company history for the Public Opinion, he 

attributed Cellar Lumber’s success to its loyal 

and faithful employees. More than sixty years 

later, that has not changed. Two of those on 

hand representing Cellar Lumber at the 

Westerville Chamber of Commerce in honor 

of the company’s hundredth anniversary in 

2008 had also been on the payroll when 

Cellar made the statement in 1948. Dick 

Longhenry worked forty-eight years as yard 

foreman and manager of inventory control 

and safety and was a company director. 

Of most significance was his influence 

convincing John Miller to return to 

Westerville in 1972 to work for the company. 

Doyle Spangler worked in Westerville from 

1948 to 1963, and was instrumental in 

opening a new store in Circleville in 1963. He 

managed it until 1991, making it the top store 

in the company for many of those years. Upon 

retirement from management, he went into 

outside sales from 1991 until 2005. He still 

serves on Cellar’s board of directors. 

Key employees today include Tom Kramp, 

who joined the company in 1987. He was 

store manager in Westerville (1988-91 and 

1999-2010), and Circleville (1991-99); 

was named operations manager (2001), 

general manager (2003) and company 

president (2008). 


180

John and Mindy’s two sons are the thirdgeneration 

Millers and fourth-generation family 

members actively involved in the business. Both 

received their initial training with the company 

reporting to Pat Farington, who has been with 

Cellar since 1986 and is currently office and 

credit manager. Drew Miller began working 

part time with the company in 1992 and full 

time after graduation from Muskingum College. 

He managed the Sunbury store (2003-2006) 

and returned to Westerville to assist in the 

switchover from custom homes to consumer 

remodeling as the Sunbury store was retrofitted 

for roofing contractors. He has spent over half 

of his life working for Cellar Lumber Company 

and has been a director since 2006. Brian Miller 

began working part-time with the company in 

1995. After attending Miami University he 

worked for McCabe Lumber in Cincinnati from 

2005-2010, when he was hired back by Cellar 

and returned to Westerville. Currently manager 

of the Westerville store, Brian has been a 

director since 2006 and was named company 

vice president in 2010. 

Bryan Moehring came on board in 2011 as 

operations manager and to use his thirty-plus 

years of experience in the building materials 

supply industry to help expand current 

operations in the areas of commercial and 

installed sales, and help further expand into the 

remodeling supply arena. 

The ability to adapt to continuing changes 

in the industry has been instrumental in the 

longevity and continued success of the 

company. In addition to modernizing 

equipment in the yards and office procedures, 

the company has consolidated several stores 

and added new product lines over the years, 

reinventing itself to better serve a changing 

customer base. For many years Cellar Lumber 

catered primarily to home owners, farmers, 

and “mom and pop” contractors. By the 1970s 

to 1980s the main focus had gradually shifted 

towards custom homebuilders. With the rapid 

decline in demand for new homes following 

the recent housing bubble, the focus of Cellar 

Lumber has been adjusted yet again to better 

serve professional home remodelers, with 

plans to become more involved with 

commercial, industrial and installed sales. 

Looking back, the motto Carrie Cellar coined 

over one hundred years ago still holds true 

today: “Honest, Courteous Service Builds our 

Business.” A second motto has since been 

added: “Doing What’s Right Since 1908.” We 

believe that staying true to our core values of 

customer service and having a willingness to 

adapt to the continuously changing needs of the 

building industry will keep the company going 

strong the next hundred years. 

✧ 

Above: The Cellar Lumberyard, 1948. 


1 8 1

SMOOT 

CONSTRUCTION 

✧ 

Above: Ohio Union at The Ohio 


Below: Statehouse. 

When a company has operated successfully 

for more than sixty-five years, you know 

it is doing a good job. That is the case 

with Smoot Construction, which offers a 

comprehensive range of general contracting, 

design/build and construction management 

services to public and private clients. With 

offices in Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, 

Indiana and Washington D.C., the company 

has amassed a portfolio that represents an 

extensive range of expertise in the construction 

of aviation, civic/government, commercial/ 

corporate, cultural, healthcare, higher education, 

hospitality/resort, industrial, justice, 

K-12, parking, research, residential, retail, 

and sports projects. 

Combining successful project experience, 

with a profound sense of integrity, the firm 

applies a broad understanding of construction 

to develop and implement innovative 

and highly-effective approaches and techniques 

to bring greater reliability and economy 

to each client’s project. 

A profound spirit of teamwork in every 

department and at every level results in the 

hallmark quality of each Smoot project. Pride 

in workmanship is the rule within the Smoot 

organization resulting in pride of ownership 

for those who employ the company’s services. 

Smoot utilizes its professional construction 

staff as an extension of the client’s organization 

from the initial design coordination 

through bid packaging and management of 

contractors and subcontractors. Smoot’s 

proven management systems ensure the 

project is delivered on time and within the 

client’s budget. 

“It’s not the way we’ve built buildings that 

distinguishes our company; it’s the manner in 

which we’ve constructed our business,” said 

Lewis R. Smoot Sr., chairman and CEO of the 

company founded by his father, Sherman, in 

1946. He emphasized that the business has 

been formed “not by the characteristics of our 

projects, but by the character of our people.” 

The company’s guiding principles, summed 

up by the acronym, CHIPP, are Character, 

Humility, Integrity, Pride and Performance, 

Smoot explained. “These principles help us 


182

identify, hire and retain only the best 

people. They motivate us to maintain 

our record for never failing to deliver a 

project. They commit us to accountability, 

which fosters repeat business. And 

they give us the strength to reach out 

and actively support the communities in 

which we work and live.” 

He noted that a successful building is 

not born in the field, and that success 

is not always ensured through careful 

planning. Instead, success evolves from 

the shared goals and vision of every 

person within our organization. 

2010 marked significant milestones 

in the firm’s evolution. It was at this time 

the reins of leadership were handed off 

to the family’s third generation. Lewis R. 

Smoot, Sr., who has led the firm since 

1984, and who continues to serve in the 

dual capacities of chairman and CEO, 

handed over the title of president to 

his nephew, Mark Cain. Mark worked 

for the company in various capacities and 

tenures since the early 1980s and since 2005 

has served as CEO of Smoot Construction of 

Washington D.C. 

Mark noted that the company has grown 

and flourished because of the high standards 

of the entire Smoot team. These values 

extend through all phases of construction 

and include knowledgeable needs assessment, 

thorough on-site supervision, responsible 

and effective office management, and 

successful project completion. “Combining 

uncommon skills in construction engineering 

with our ability to solve problems, we meet 

project construction requirements with quality 

results—on time, within budget and 

according to specifications.” he added. 

The leadership transition also included 

expanding the administrative and business 

development roles of Lewis’ eldest son, Lewis 

R. Smoot, Jr., with his promotion to senior 

vice president. These three key individuals 

are joined by a cousin, Dana Smoot, who is 

an associate vice president and the firm’s 

Corporate Counsel. 

United with a corporate family, the firm’s 

new leadership structure combines the sound 

business acumen of a seasoned construction 

executive with the youthful energy of 

the family’s next generation and other 

corporate executives with many years of construction 

experience. 

Thank you for reading an abbreviated history 

of Smoot Construction. For more information, 

we would be pleased to have you visit 

our website: www.smootconstruction.com. 

✧ 

Above: The control tower at Port Columbus 

International Airport. 

Below: Jessie Owens Stadium at The Ohio 



1 8 3

OHIO CAT 

✧ 

Above: Innovative Caterpillar D7E Track 

Type Tractor powered by an Advanced 

Electric Drive Power Train. 

Below: Caterpillar C175 Standby Electric 

Power Generators at Nationwide Children’s 

Hospital in Columbus. 

As the exclusive, authorized distributor for 

Caterpillar Inc. in Ohio, Northern Kentucky 

and Southeastern Indiana, Ohio CAT provides 

sales, rentals, parts and service for Caterpillar 

equipment, engines and related products, 

conducting its operations through eighteen 

locations and three divisions, Equipment, 

Power Systems and Agri Business. 

Ohio CAT also operates CAT Rental Stores 

at eight of its locations, remanufactures and 

repairs all makes of hydraulic components at 

its Hydraulics Division in Bolivar, remanufactures 

and repairs fuel pumps, fuel injectors, 

turbochargers and water pumps for all makes 

of diesel engines at its two International Fuel 

Systems locations, and provides leasing solutions 

through its wholly owned subsidiary, 

OMCO Leasing Corp. 

Ohio CAT, originally and still legally 

named Ohio Machinery Co., was organized in 

Columbus in 1945 as a partnership among 

three individuals who had ventured to Ohio 

from Iowa. The company was incorporated 

the following year, and the headquarters was 

moved to the city of Independence in the 

Greater Cleveland area. In 1961 the founders 

retired, and Caterpillar changed the company’s 

territory to twenty-five counties in 

Eastern Ohio. At that time, Tom Taylor, Sr., 

who was involved in sales operations and 

management, and his son, Tom Taylor, Jr., 

bought the company, anticipating that 

Northeast Ohio, for the foreseeable future, 

would be the portion of Ohio with the most 

population and economic activity. 

In the 1950s, Ohio Machinery Co. was a 

pioneer in providing the major Great Lakes 

shipping companies with diesel generators 

for both the required electricity and the bow 

thrusters on commercial vessels transporting 

iron ore, limestone and other products across 

the Great Lakes region. Many of these generators 

remain in service today, and they continue 

to be serviced by Ohio CAT. 

In concert with post-WWII economic 

growth and infrastructure development, Ohio 

Machinery Co. grew rapidly and added 

numerous employees and locations in the 

1960s, 1970s and 1980s. A leased facility 

opened in Zanesville in 1962, and three years 

later a new facility was built and occupied 

there. In 1971 a sizeable new store was built 

and opened in Cadiz, where operations 

had previously been conducted in a shop 

with no electricity and only a dirt floor. The 


184

new facility significantly raised the company’s 

capabilities in selling and supporting 

Caterpillar’s larger equipment utilized in 

Eastern Ohio’s surface coal mining operations. 

Also in 1971, Ohio Machinery Co. 

moved its headquarters to its present facility 

in Broadview Heights, which boasts 91,000 

square feet of office space, warehouse space 

and service bays. 

A second facility was built in Broadview 

Heights in 1980 to accommodate Caterpillar’s 

increasing involvement in the commercial 

engine and truck engine markets. Ohio 

Engine Power was then formed in 1988 as a 

separate division, focusing on the sales and 

service of Caterpillar engines and related 

products. This division is now referred to as 

Ohio CAT’s Power Systems Division. 

Continued growth and expansion marked 

events during the next two decades, with Ohio 

Machinery Co. opening new facilities in 

Canton and Youngstown as well as Complete 

Hydraulic Service in Bolivar; acquiring Miller 

Tool Rental Inc. and a new rental services 

headquarters in Oakwood Village; opening a 

Painesville location; acquiring the International 

Fuel Systems (IFS) business from Caterpillar; 

and moving the Bolivar Hydraulics Division to 

a much larger, 53,000 square foot facility in an 

industrial park in Bolivar. 

Economic recession brought the closing of 

two Ohio CAT locations in 2009, Lucasville and 

Painesville. However, that same year the company’s 

first, dedicated Ag location opened in Upper 

Sandusky and a new CAT Rental Store opened 

in North Canton. Then, eighteen months later, 

a second dedicated Ag location opened in 

Washington Court House in early 2011. 

Tom, Sr., who is fondly remembered for his 

sales abilities, had worked with Northwest 

Engineering before joining the predecessor 

company to Ohio Machinery Co. to sell 

Caterpillar equipment in 1938. He was 

involved with the Caterpillar Dealer until his 

death in 1980 at age eighty-two. 

Tom, Jr. joined the company in 1959, after 

earning his MBA from the Wharton School at 

the University of Pennsylvania. He became the 

company’s president in 1969 and presided over 

three decades of organizational growth and 

facility expansion throughout Eastern Ohio. 

He is best known for his financial acumen, 

organizational skills and keen sense of humor. 

Ken Taylor became the third generation of 

his family to own and run the business after 

the untimely death of Tom, Jr. in 1994. Ken 

had worked at the company since 1988 in 

a number of capacities including parts and 

service, sales finance, machine sales, and 

product support management. Under his 

leadership, Ohio Machinery Co. acquired the 

Western Ohio Caterpillar territory in 2003, 

creating Ohio CAT, which was probably the 

single most important event in company 

history. With this acquisition the company’s 

territory expanded to 80 counties in Ohio, 

3 in Northern Kentucky, and 6 in Southeastern 

Indiana such that, today, Ohio CAT is considered 

a top ten Caterpillar dealer in terms of 

North American industry opportunity. 

✧ 

Above: Complete Hydraulic Service 

machine shop in Bolivar, Ohio. 

Below: Challenger 865C belted tractor 

pulling a Sunflower Disc Chisel. 


1 8 5

JOHN ERAMO & 

SONS, INC. 

✧ 


Founders Giovanni “John”, Rocco “Rocky”, 

and Cesidio “Joe” Eramo, 1992. 

Left to right: Tony Eramo, Bill Ditty, 

operator, Joe Eramo in the ditch, Warren 

Skiver and Ron Walker, 1977. 

John Eramo watching Joe Eramo in the 

ditch, 1968. 

Giovanni “John” Eramo’s original passport 

picture to the United States in 1932. 

A site development contractor specializing 

in installing underground utilities, earth moving, 

environmental projects, and general contracting, 

John Eramo & Sons, Inc. provides 

these services for residential and commercial 

developers, general contractors and municipalities. 

In keeping with the company’s motto: 

“Do It Right the First Time,” its goal is to provide 

its customers with quality service and 

product in a timely, cost-effective manner. 

The company was founded in November of 

1966 by Giovanni “John” Eramo and his two 

sons, Cesidio “Joe” Eramo and Rocco “Rocky” 

Eramo. Although he spoke no English, John 

emigrated from Alvito, Italy in the 1920s, in 

order to find work. He knew how to use a 

pick and a shovel and learned how to install 

sewer pipe, obtaining a sewer tapper’s license. 

Columbus grew rapidly after WWII. By 

1948, John had saved enough money to become 

a partner in Southeast Excavating Co., which 

installed sewer and water mains throughout the 

city. After the owners decided to part ways in 

1966, dissolving Southeast Excavating, John 

decided to form his own company, John Eramo 

& Sons, Inc. His new company’s first job was to 

install a twelve inch water main on Brice Road 

south of Livingston Avenue for the city of 

Columbus at a contract price of $19,000. 

Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and early 

1980s, John, Joe and Rocky operated with 

twenty to twenty-five employees, installing 

sewer and water mains throughout Columbus 

for developments, including Forest Park, The 

Limited, Wedgewood Country Club, and 

Victoria’s Secret. 

The Eramo company was known for its 

innovation in the industry during this period. 

It was one of the first companies to install 

PVC sewer pipe in Central Ohio, at Broadview 

Farms, and one of the first to use laser beams 

for sewer installation, increasing production 

by twenty-five percent over their competition. 

Joe revolutionized the industry when he 

became the first contractor to use quick couplers 

to change backhoe buckets in order to 

increase production and save material. 

In 1978, at age sixty-five, John retired, 

leaving Joe as president and Rocky as vice 

president/treasurer. Joe’s oldest son, Tony, 


186

joined the team in 1981 and ran two subsidiaries—Ohio 

Leak Locators from 1981- 

1984 and American Lawn Sprinkler Systems 

from 1985-1988. Both were successful, but in 

1988, Joe decided to close American Lawn 

Sprinkler Systems so Tony could begin managing 

field operations for Eramo’s. He trained 

Tony in all aspects of field operations before 

being diagnosed with lung cancer in 1991. He 

passed away the next September. 

After graduating from Ohio State, Rocky’s 

oldest son, Chris, joined Tony and Rocky in 

the operation, for which Rocky was president, 

managing office operations, Tony was executive 

vice president managing field operations. 

As vice president/secretary, Chris learned the 

operation’s business side through punch-out 

work, estimating, and customer relations. In 

June 1993, Tony’s brother, John, retired from 

teaching to join the operation, helping Tony 

manage utility operations. 

Throughout the 1990s the company grew 

slowly and steadily, as did the economy. Three 

to four utility crews operated during this period, 

and sales increased from $3.5 million in 

1992 to $7 million by 1999. The bulk of 

the work during this time was installing 

underground utilities for major 

residential land developers in 

Central Ohio. Although the 

growth had been positive and 

profitable, it became tougher for 

John Eramo & Sons to get 

certain jobs because they did 

not construct the “earthwork” 

portion of the development. 

In 2000 the company set up 

an “Earthworks” division. Chris 

took the lead in this part of 

the business. 

Rocky’s youngest sons, 

Michael and Bryan, joined the 

management team in 1999 

and 2001, to the utility and 

earthwork divisions, respectively. Both started 

as crew foremen to get hands-on experience, 

and now manage multiple projects. 

From 2000 to 2005 sales increased from 

$8 million to $14 million, primarily due to 

the housing boom and addition of the 

earthwork operation. With a significant 

slowdown in the housing market in 2006, the 

company adjusted, seeking more public 

works and commercial jobs. Thanks to the 

bonding capacity Eramo built up over the 

years, the company has been able to retool 

and seek other niche opportunities as 

competition increased. 

The economy hit rock bottom in October 

2008, the worst economic collapse since the 

Great Depression. By this time Eramo’s had 

adjusted to the public works market, 

continuing to fight through economic 

conditions that sent many competitors into 

bankruptcy. The Eramos remain true to their 

craft, continuing to seek innovative ways to 

install their products. They look for new 

opportunities, while continuing to provide 

their customers with quality service and 

product in a timely, cost-effective manner to 

“Do It Right the First Time.” 

✧ 

Top, right: Stream before restoration, 1920s. 

Top, left: Stream after restoration. 

Below: The third generation, left to right: 

John T., Bryan, Chris, Rocco, Tony, Michael 

and Steve Eramo, 2010. 


1 8 7

AMERICAN 

ELECTRIC 

POWER 

✧ 

Right: Former Columbus Southern Power 

general office building located on North 

Front Street in downtown Columbus. CSP 

today is known as AEP Ohio, a unit of 

American Electric Power. 

Below: American Electric Power 

headquarters building in 


Founded in 1906, American Electric Power 

has been at the forefront of the electric utility 

industry since its inception. Throughout its 

history, AEP has pioneered a myriad of innovations 

and advancements in power generation 

and the transmission of electric energy. 

One of the nation’s largest electric utilities, 

AEP delivers electricity to more than 5.3 million 

customers across an 11-state service 

territory that measures 200,000 square miles 

and extends from the Rio Grande River to 

Lake Michigan. AEP’s size has fostered the 

economies of scale and the efficiencies of 

diversity, flexibility and advanced technology 

that, in turn, have led to pocketbook savings 

for its customers: residential, commercial, 

industrial and neighboring utilities. 

Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, AEP 

ranks among the nation’s largest producers of 

electricity with approximately 39,000-megawatts 

of generating capacity. Coal fuels 65 percent of 

that generating capacity, and AEP is an industry 

leader in pursuing technologies to burn it 

more cleanly. Natural gas provides 23 percent 

of the company’s generating capacity, while 

hydro, wind and solar contribute 7 percent 

and nuclear energy the remaining 5 percent. 

In 2009, AEP completed the world’s first 

fully integrated project to capture and store 

carbon dioxide (CO2) from a coal-fired power 

plant. The project uses a patented chilled 

ammonia CO2 capture technology from 

Alstom of France on a 20-megawatt portion 

of the 1,300-megawatt Mountaineer Plant 

in West Virginia. The captured CO2 is 

compressed and pumped into deep saline 

formations, roughly 1.5 miles below the 

Earth’s surface. 

By investing billions of dollars in environmental 

technologies—scrubbers and selective 

catalytic reduction systems—AEP has been 

able to reduce its emissions of sulfur dioxide 

and nitrogen oxides from its coal-fired 

power plants by eighty percent compared 

with 1980 levels. 

AEP has also taken an active role in developing 

renewable sources of electricity, such as 

wind and solar. The company currently has 

1,504-megawatts of wind and solar capacity 

online or under contract, not including a 

proposed 49.9-megawatt solar project in 

southeastern Ohio that has not yet received 

regulatory approval. 


188

To move the electricity to locations 

where it is needed, AEP operates the 

nation’s largest transmission system, 

encompassing 39,000 miles of transmission 

lines. The company has been a 

leader in transmission technology since 

its earliest days, when they completed 

the first long-distance transmission 

line, connecting a mine-mouth power 

plant near Wheeling, West Virginia, 

with customers in Canton, Ohio. 

AEP was the first company in the 

U.S. to research, build and operate 

765,000-volt transmission lines and 

today the company has more than 

2,000 miles of these lines in operation—more 

than all of the other utility 

companies in the nation combined. 

The company distributes power and provides 

customer service through its utility operating 

units: AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian 

Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), 

AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), 

Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, 

Public Service Company of Oklahoma and 

Southwestern Electric Power Company (in 

Louisiana, Arkansas and east Texas). AEP Ohio 

provides electric service to nearly 1.5 million 

customers in the Buckeye State and the northern 

panhandle of West Virginia, serving cities 

such as Columbus, Canton, Chillicothe, Lima, 

Marietta, Portsmouth, Zanesville and Wheeling. 

To give customers greater control over their 

energy usage, increase the efficiency of the 

electric grid and improve overall service, AEP 

launched its gridSMART initiative in 2007. 

From a technology standpoint, gridSMART 

incorporates a two-way communications system 

between the company and its customers 

that facilitates a more efficient use of electricity. 

For example, gridSMART may allow AEP to 

send price signals to customers so they can 

decide when to run home appliances. Toward 

this end, some 110,000 SMART meters have 

already been installed in Ohio. 

AEP and its operating units have a significant 

impact on the economies of local communities. 

AEP has nearly 19,000 employees 

across its service area, of which more than 

6,200 are located in Ohio alone. The company 

pays $1.8 billion in annual wages. 

In addition, the company pays approximately 

$1.2 billion in taxes, including $850 million 

in state and local taxes. 

The company is committed to playing an 

active, positive role in the communities it 

serves. In 2010 alone, AEP, its operating 

units and the AEP Foundation contributed 

$23.7 million to nonprofit organizations. 

Financially, AEP celebrated a milestone in 

2010 when the company marked 100 years 

of paying consecutive quarterly dividends to 

its shareholders. 

Today, more than ever, American society is 

powered by electricity. And AEP is committed 

to providing clean, affordable and reliable 

electric energy to the homes, schools, 

businesses and industries in the many 

communities that it serves. 

✧ 

Above: American Electric Power’s Dolan 

Technology Center, Groveport, Ohio, just 

outside Columbus where AEP’s gridSMART 

technologies have been tested. 

Below: High-voltage line mechanic 

apprentices train at the AEP Groveport Line 

Training Center just outside Columbus. 

AP PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF COLUMBUS DISPATCH, 

JEFF HINCKLEY. 


1 8 9

CAPITAL RESIN 

CORPORATION 

A family run manufacturer of liquid 

polymers based upon a variety of chemistries, 

Capital Resin Corporation is a custom and toll 

manufacturer of specialty chemicals for a 

wide variety of larger industrial companies. 

It applies its manufacturing skill set and 

core competencies to the manufacture of 

developmental/prototypical chemicals or 

processes to evaluate commercial probability 

for a number of Fortune 100 chemical 

partners. With eighty employees and slightly 

over $30 million annual revenue in 2010, 

CRC services industries as diverse as building 

products, paints and coatings, adhesives, 

electronics, agricultural intermediates, rubber 

additives, personal care intermediates, 

chemical process industry, metal processing, 

textiles, and the horticultural market. Growth 

has been greater than ten percent per annum 

over the past decade. 

CRC’s founder, James R. (Jim) Hansen, 

initially moved to central Ohio as a 

sales representative for Delta Resins and 

Refractories, a privately owned company 

based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Delta, 

owned by the Hansen cousins, serviced the 

foundry industry, including prospects and 

ongoing customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, 

Indiana, and the Southeastern United States. 

After establishing a well performing territory 

and warehousing operation in Columbus, 

Jim’s “entrepreneurial fires” were ignited by 

a number of challenges associated with 

his employer. 

He quickly ascertained the benefits of 

starting his own company, founding Capital 

Resin Corporation at 1250 Refugee Lane, 

Columbus, Ohio in July of 1976. Growing 

at a healthy rate, CRC required greater 

infrastructure by December of 1979, when it 

was relocated to the old A. E. Staley Starch 

facility located on six acres in south central 

Columbus. The former starch factory, a fixture 

in Columbus for seven decades, then 

stood vacant. Shortly after moving, the company 

made its first major capital investment, 

a 2,000 gallon gas-fired reactor, referred to in 

the industry as a “kettle.” 

During the 1980s CRC’s business saw 

tremendous growth and evolution, with 

expansion of its manufacturing capabilities 

through the installation of additional resin 

reactors, and glass-lined production vessels 

to manufacture a variety of sulfonic acids. 

These were ancillary products used in 

conjunction with the liquid resins being 

produced. The eighties also saw commercial 

expansion beyond the foundry industry, as 

CRC became a toll manufacturer of various 

resin intermediates, going into the building 

industry via initial relation with a Cincinnati 

company, Formica Corporation. 


190

In the late 1980s Jim Hansen integrated 

vertically into the supply chain by investing in 

a small platform formaldehyde production 

site, installing a 100,000,000 pound per year 

(production rated on a thirty-seven percent 

concentration basis) mixed metal oxide 

catalyst plant. This was the first continuous 

process operation installed at CRC, and the 

first step toward evolving into an operation 

with a bit more “girth.” 

After Hansen’s death at age fifty-one in 

1990, his widow, Judithe Hansen Jordan 

Wensinger became CEO and chairman of the 

board. During this decade of change and 

evolution, many of CRC’s initial customers 

had gone out of business. Under Wensinger’s 

guidance, the company evolved from a 

commodity resin and formaldehyde supplier 

to one focused on its core manufacturing 

capabilities in solution polymers, while 

expanding beyond the foundry industry. 

In this decade, CRC’s interests and investments 

of time and effort were galvanized. 

It gained ISO certification on its quality 

program, and joined SOCMA to invest and 

improve upon the organization’s environmental 

integrity. One of the “catalysts” to these 

evolutionary investments was the over 

pressurization of one of its main production 

reactors in August 1994. Although offsite 

impact was nothing more volatile than might 

be expected from “brake dust” on the front 

wheels of a car, this incident resulted in a 

tremendous improvement in safety methodology 

employed in manufacturing polymers in 

CRC’s product line. Tremendous investment 

in safeguards, personnel, and advancements 

in its manufacturing control systems ensued. 

“In the early 2000s CRC divested the 

remaining business within the foundry industry, 

and initiated our move toward project 

planning and custom and toll manufacturing 

for various projects leading to our current business 

model. The CRC team has very effectively 

evolved this business into a performance based 

mentality, and has constructed an extremely 

effective model to assist in scale-up developmental 

projects to ongoing manufacturing 

of new and interesting technologies that fit 

within our structure and build insight and confidence 

in CRC’s manufacturing techniques. 

We achieved a company best performance in 

2008, and believe that 2010 will be yet 

another step beyond our previous best 

results,” said Dan Yinger, company president. 

Capital Resin Corporation’s current headquarters 

and single production site is located 

at 324 Dering Avenue in Columbus, Ohio 

and on the Internet at www.capitalresin.com. 


1 9 1

KIRK WILLIAMS 

COMPANY, INC. 

✧ 

Right: Founders James K. Williams Jr., 

James “Kirk” Williams, and John Ubbing at 

Kirk Williams Company’s original Chestnut 

Street location. 

Below: Kirk Williams utilized multiple 

cranes to place the large custom fabricated 

duct work high in the Ohio State 

University’s Jerome Schottenstein Arena. 

A full-service mechanical contractor and 

specialty fabricator, the Kirk Williams Company, 

Inc. offers everything from piping, plumbing, 

and sheet metal fabrication and installation to 

HVAC, refrigeration, and plumbing services. 

Having performed work for almost every major 

business, past and present, in Central Ohio, the 

company is committed to ensuring that each job 

and project is part of its overall interaction with 

customers, suppliers and employees. 

Involvement in community and charitable 

activities, which has been extensive throughout 

the company’s more than sixty year history 

continues today, as fourth generation family 

members assume a place in the organization. 

Kirk Williams Company, Inc. is active in such 

community organizations as the Columbus 

Chamber of Commerce, Builders Exchange of 

Central Ohio, Safety Council of Greater 

Columbus, Mechanical Contractors Association 

of Central Ohio, Sheet Metal Contractors of 

Central Ohio, and Better Business Bureau. In 

addition the company contributes to numerous 

charities, including the Columbus Foundation; 

Columbus Public Schools; United Way; Grant 

Medical Center Foundation (OhioHealth); 

Riverside Methodist Hospital (OhioHealth); 

Mount Carmel Foundation; UNICEF; YMCA 

of Central Ohio; Columbus Public Schools; 

Alvis House; Heinzerling Foundation; Big 

Brothers Big Sisters; Ohio Foundation of 

Independent Colleges; The Alcohol, Drug, and 

Mental Health Board of Franklin County; The 

Homeless Families Foundation; Cystic Fibrosis 

Foundation; and The Littlest Heroes. 

The company’s leaders and its many employees 

work daily to fulfill their long-term policy 

of ensuring that each project they undertake 

reflects the high quality and consistency for 

which Kirk Williams is known, and continuing 

to operate with the strong values that ensured 

the organization’s success from its inception. 

Founded in 1949 by J. K. “Kirk” Williams Sr., 

the company began as a specialty sheet metal 

fabricator, manufacturing such items as electric 

boxes, troughs, and machinery and belt guards 

from a small shop in downtown Columbus, 

Ohio. In time specialty fabrication gave rise 

to ductwork and hoods with commercial and 

industrial applications. 


192

Through the years, successive generations 

of the family have joined the company. Kirk’s 

son, James K. “Jim” Williams Jr., who started 

as a laborer in the fabrication shop, left for 

two years to serve in the U.S. Army during the 

Korean Conflict. During Jim’s absence, Kirk’s 

son-in-law, John Ubbing, joined the company, 

and in 1954, after Jim’s return, the company 

was incorporated, with Kirk, Jim, and John 

responsible for fostering its growth. Jim’s son, 

James K. Williams III, began working as a 

laborer in the fabrication department in summers 

from 1971 until joining the firm full time 

after his graduation from Xavier University. 

New company facilities include a 40,000 

square foot facility built on six acres at Home 

Road and I 270 in 1974, are indicative of 

the company’s growth through the years. This 

facility houses the sheet metal, piping and 

specialty fabrication divisions. 

In the 1990s the company made a conscious 

effort to grow in automotive and 

industrial projects as a diversification and 

risk-mitigation strategy to reduce reliance on 

the cyclical plan and spec market. Since that 

time Kirk Williams has serviced many domestic 

and international leaders in automotive 

and industrial manufacturing and takes great 

pride in having these clients as repeat 

customers. In order to become less reliant on 

subcontractors and to gain increased control 

to provide better service to its clients, the 

company became a full-service mechanical 

contractor in the 1990s and started providing 

mechanical services in the early 2000s. 

Licensed to perform mechanical contracting 

in a six-state area, Kirk Williams’ specialty 

metal fabrications have been installed 

throughout the hemisphere. Now presided 

over by Jim Williams, who is approaching sixty 

years of service, the company’s day-to-day 

operations are overseen by J. K. Williams, 

secretary-treasurer, representing the third 

generation of family leadership with almost 

forty years of company experience. 

In addition to its work for Central Ohio’s 

major businesses, the company has had as 

clients many hospitals, laboratories, government 

entities—on local, state, and federal 

levels—and educational facilities from 

elementary schools to universities. 

Kirk Williams Company, Inc. is located at 

2734 Home Road in Grove City, Ohio and on 

the Internet at www.kirkwilliamsco.com. 

✧ 

Above: An aerial view shows the magnitude 

of the 688,000 square foot Wright Patterson 

Air Force Base’s Human Performance Wing, 

on which Kirk Williams Company 

completed a $35.5 million Design Assist 

HVAC and Plumbing contract 

Below: Before construction, Kirk Williams 

Company ensured successful coordination 

with other trades by creating a 

3-dimensional model of the Ohio State 

University’s South Campus Central Chiller 

plant, which serves the Cancer Care Tower, 

Rhodes Hall, Doan Hall, Cramblett Hall, 

and other medical facilities on campus. 


1 9 3

HAMILTON 

TANKS, LLC 

✧ 

Hamilton Tanks manufacturing technologies 

include UL, API, ASME, and custom tank 

designs ranging in size from 150 to 

50,000 gallons. 

Hamilton Tanks, LLC was originally 

founded in 1916 as Hamilton Welding & 

Manufacturing Company in Hamilton, Ohio by 

Robert H. Kemp and initially produced smoke 

stacks and repaired boilers. When Robert went 

to fight in WWI, his son C. Eugene Kemp 

took over the company. During that period, 

Hamilton Welding was awarded a contract to 

produce skid tanks for the war effort. And 

from that original contract, the future of the 

business had been established. 

In the late 1940s, Hamilton Welding 

received its UL permit and began manufacturing 

275-gallon home heating oil tanks, 

which are still manufactured today. A second 

tank manufacturing 

facility for the company 

was formed in 

Columbus, Ohio in 

1955. The business 

operated both facilities 

until 1983 when 

the operation was 

consolidated to conduct 

business exclusively 

from 2200 

Refugee Road in the 

city of Columbus. 

Thomas A. Kemp, 

son of Eugene Kemp, joined Hamilton 

Welding after graduating from The Ohio 

State University in 1958 and eventually 

became president and a fifty percent shareholder 

in the business. Thomas sadly passed 

away in 2004 and as the last family member 

active in the operation, the shareholders 

explored selling the business. 

In March of 2006, Hamilton Welding was 

sold to brothers R. Jeffrey and Stephen G. 

Meeker, and Hamilton Tanks, LLC was 

formed. The transition of ownership was 

smooth, as Meeker Equipment Company, 

Jeffrey and Stephen’s other business, was 

already a large customer to Hamilton 

Welding. Today, Stephen is president of 

Hamilton Tanks, LLC while Jeffrey remains 

president of Meeker Equipment Company. 

In 2008, Donald W. Garrett and James R. 

Hurlburt, Jr., P.E. gained a minority ownership 

in both businesses. 

The primary business of Hamilton Tanks, 

LLC is manufacturing carbon and stainless 

steel storage tanks for commercial and industrial 

users serving the petroleum, chemical, 

asphalt, oil-field and other industries. As a 

licensed member of the Steel Tank Institute, 

it is one of the largest and most respected 

manufacturers of aboveground and underground 

steel storage tanks in the Midwest. 

Hamilton Tanks’ manufacturing technologies 

include UL, API, ASME, and custom tank 

designs ranging in size from 150 to 50,000 

gallons. Hamilton Tanks’ breadth of products, 

reputation and service to industry has 

sustained its history and will continue to support 

its success moving forward. 

For more information on Hamilton Tanks, 

LLC, visit www.hamiltontanks.com. 


194

Established in 1879 by Henry C. Cooke 

and Adam G. Grant to build road and bridge 

structures in Franklin County, Fritz-Rumer- 

Cooke Co., Inc., was founded on principles of 

honest business dealing to safely provide 

quality finished products. Those principles 

hold true today. Company officials say that 

FRC, (Fritz-Rumer-Cooke) also stands for 

Fair, Reliable, and Consistent. 

During more than 130 consecutive years in 

business, FRC has completed every contract 

it started. Fifth generation family member 

C. Clem Cooke, III is company president and 

treasurer, and his wife, Karen Cooke is vice 

president and secretary. 

After Clem’s great-grandfather, Albert C. 

Cooke, joined the company in 1889, its work 

expanded to include structures for railroad 

companies and private industries. W. A. and 

J. F. Fritz merged their construction business 

with the company in 1905, and in 1911 it 

was incorporated as The Fritz-Rumer-Cooke- 

Grant Co. 

Albert’s son, Carl C. Cooke, Sr., joined 

FRC soon after competing in the 1912 

Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, and 

his sons, Carl C., Jr., and Grant W., began 

work here in the 1940s. Grant started an 

independent engineering and consulting firm 

in 1959, specializing in railroad and structural 

engineering, and FRC’s focus gradually 

shifted to railroad track construction. Clem, 

who joined the company in 1972, points out 

that railroads are one of the keys to economical, 

efficient, clean transportation in the U.S. 

Recent FRC projects include constructing 

over ten miles of new railroad track for a 

major auto manufacturer; track inspection 

and preventive maintenance protecting safety 

and reliability of nearly 100 track owners 

around the U.S.; rehabilitating a narrow gauge 

tourist railroad track; rehabilitating existing 

track and constructing new track for a prominent 

steel producer and for a leading metals 

recycling company; new track construction 

for consumer products 

manufacturing distribution facilities 

in multiple U.S. locations; and 

maintenance and rehabilitation 

work in multiple locations for a 

major intermodal company. 

Workplace safety is of prime 

importance at FRC, which recently 

won the highest safety award presented 

by the National Railroad & 

Maintenance Association for its 

diligent awareness and safe work 

performance of all team members. 

“Karen and I are blessed to be 

surrounded by a wonderfully capable 

and talented group of people who work 

together to provide a necessary service to 

clients. The people at FRC make this company 

who we are and are the reason FRC is 

so trusted and relied upon,” Clem says. “FRC 

intends to continue providing its service to 

those who rely on railroads to transport 

goods and those who will again rely on 

railroads for transportation in the future.” 

FRITZ-RUMER- 

COOKE CO., 

INC. 


1 9 5

BUCKEYE 

SHAPEFORM 

✧ 

Below: Rendering is c. 1912. 

Bottom: Buckeye Shapeform in 2011. 

A supplier partner to small volume end 

users of electronic enclosures, precisiondrawn 

metal structures, metal stampings, 

molded plastic parts and value-added services, 

Buckeye Shapeform began by manufacturing 

cans in 1892. Purchased in 1902 by 

E. C. Derby and renamed The Buckeye 

Stamping Company, it manufactured parts 

transferred by wagon to the Federal Glass 

Company, its largest customer. Parts were 

produced in its new building in 1912. 

At the beginning of World War II, Bell 

Sound founder Floyd Bell invented and 

patented a navigational device still used by 

Boeing today. Bell Sound grew from seven or 

eight to about 350 employees to produce 

these items for the military, leading Bell and 

other investors to purchase Buckeye for its 

manufacturing capabilities. The company’s 

products shipped to the military included 

Bell’s new inventions, small candles manufactured 

from Buckeye cans, and tow lines 

imbedded with intercom wires to enable 

communication between glider pilots and 

their tow planes. With war’s end and the 

resulting decline in military business, Bell 

sold Bell Sound to TRW. 

About 1960, Bell founded F. W. Bell Inc. 

within the walls of Buckeye Stamping to 

manufacture gravity measuring equipment 

and voltage testing instruments and sensors. 

In 1970, F. W. Bell was sold to the Arnold 

Magnetics Division of Allegany Industries. 

Buckeye Stamping utilized its machinery 

and employees to manufacture instrument 

knobs and electronic enclosures designed by 

Ira W. (Bill) Simons. These were sold to other 

electronic OEMs. 

Within the walls of Buckeye Stamping, 

Bell founded Floyd Bell Associates in 1971 to 

manufacture audio alarm devices including 

replacement telephone ringers. This company 

still exists in Grandview, Ohio, under 

direction of Bell’s youngest son, Jamie, while 

Bell’s oldest son, Dave, became president of 

Buckeye Stamping in 1971. 

In 1995, Buckeye was acquired by D&H 

Holdings, Ltd. The next year Buckeye Stamping 

acquired Shapeform, Inc., a manufacturer of 

precision deep drawn cylindrical aluminum 

products used in missile and flare housing for 

the military; oxygen tanks for firemen and 

SCUBA divers; air cleaner housings for the 

Hummer; sonobuoy housing for electronic 

tracking used by the U.S. Navy; and many other 

tubular devices. To retain Shapeform’s name 

recognition, the company began doing business 

as Buckeye Shapeform. Now in its third century, 

the company has operated since 2000 under 

direction of Ken Tumblison, president. 

Visit Buckeye Shapeform on the Internet at 

www.buckeyeshapeform.com. 


196

CENTRAL 

ALUMINUM 

COMPANY 

A custom producer of high quality aluminum 

extrusions, the Central Aluminum 

Company of Columbus, Ohio, has been in business 

since 1963, serving Midwest industrial and 

manufacturing communities. Located in the 

heart of the Buckeye State, Central Aluminum 

serves such industries as window and door, 

home improvement, automotive, truck, marine, 

aircraft, recreational vehicle, agricultural, sign 

and billboard, awning and canopy, electronics, 

display and showcase, structural and tubular 

extrusions for construction, and many others. 

The company takes great pride in providing 

excellent customer service, from initial 

contact to delivery. Knowledgeable and technologically 

skilled staff members look forward 

to helping customers solve their extrusion 

problems, from drawing board to delivery. 

Thanks to its location, the company’s trucks 

are within twenty-four hours from eighty-five 

percent of its customers. 

Gale Roshon, who received his mechanical 

engineering degree from Ohio State University 

and worked soon after graduation for an aluminum 

extrusion business in Cincinnati, 

founded Central Aluminum, which operated 

profitably from the Grandview area during its 

first nine years. In 1972, Roshon exchanged 

property in Obetz with the Columbus Auto 

Auction to acquire a site on Broehm Road that 

included a ninety-seven thousand square foot 

building that would allow for expansion. 

Roshon added a second aluminum 

extrusion press, and during the next 

decade upgraded and installed other new 

equipment, including an aluminum caster 

to convert scrap generated by his business 

back into aluminum billets. At one time, 

Central was among the country’s most 

modern extrusion facilities. Roshon was 

also closely associated with B&T Extrusion 

Company; the first “independent” aluminum 

extruder in the United States. B&T extruded 

the first uranium rod used to build the 

first “FAT BOY” atomic bomb. Roshon 

held several offices with the Aluminum 

Extruders Council. 

After his death, the business was purchased 

by GDIC Group, a small private equity 

firm in Cleveland by Steven White with 

partners George Anthony and Edward Heil. 

White, who had a significant background in 

metal forming, felt comfortable with the 

extrusion process and was intrigued with 

Central’s long legacy of success. Shortly after 

acquiring Central, GDIC began to vertically 

integrate the portfolio with additional acquisitions 

that utilized extrusions in their products. 

Patio Enclosures in Macedonia, Ohio, is 

among the more famous companies. Central 

Aluminum now serves over two hundred 

customers in the central Ohio region. 

For more information, please visit 

www.centralaluminum.com. 


1 9 7

AUTOMATION 

AND CONTROL 

TECHNOLOGY, 

INC. 

The objective of Automation and Control 

Technology, Inc.—better known by its 

acronym and motto: “ACT in the interest of the 

customer”—is to supply highly appropriate, 

results-oriented solutions for data acquisition 

and management and process management, 

leading its customers to better decision making 

and a higher return on investment. ACT was 

awarded the State of Ohio’s Governor’s Export 

Award in 2009, and is recognized as one of 

Ohio’s top companies actively selling products 

and services internationally. 

The company’s wide range of proven measurement, 

control and decision support technology 

is an essential tool for industries 

including metals, plastics, non-woven, rubber, 

coating and converting, and tobacco. Since the 

1950s, the company has been noted for its 

successful response to its customers’ needs. 

Beginning as Industrial Nucleonic, which 

received the original technology patents for 

measurement and control used in the tobacco 

industry, the company delivered products 

and services to multiple industries using a 

common electronics platform. Several 

changes in name and ownership 

occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, prior 

to the purchase in 1999 by ACT 

management and employees of the 

assets and historical identity associated 

with the tobacco industry interests of 

Asea Brown Boveri. 

ACT purchased and integrated software 

to provide electronic operation and 

tracking of financial, management, planning, 

project status, R&D, engineering 

requirements, and other details of each 

project. Beginning with three process 

measurement sensors, ACT has since 

developed, licensed or acquired more 

than fifteen sensors. Patents have been 

applied for two of these, with one 

already approved. Acquisitions in the 

past few years have allowed ACT to 

bypass expensive development costs 

and gain immediate access to targeted 

market segments. As its customer base 

increased, the company moved in 2005 

into a new leased facility at 6141 Avery 

Road in Dublin, Ohio, with twenty thousand 

square feet evenly divided between 

manufacturing and office space. 

The company’s leadership team has 

many years of management experience 

in small, medium, and large corporate 

environments. The company’s outstanding 

combination of people, 

technologies, and think tank capabilities 

has delivered unique solutions, 

not available from other vendors, to 

its customers. 

For additional information, please 

visit www.autocontroltech.com. 


198

SPONSORS 

American Electric Power ...................................................................................................................................................................188 

Automation and Control Technology, Inc. .........................................................................................................................................198 

Buckeye Shapeform...........................................................................................................................................................................196 

Capital Resin Corporation .................................................................................................................................................................190 

Capital Wholesale Drug Company.....................................................................................................................................................154 

Cardinal Health, Inc..........................................................................................................................................................................136 

Center City International Trucks .......................................................................................................................................................174 

Center of Science and Industry .........................................................................................................................................................143 

Central Aluminum Company ............................................................................................................................................................197 

City of Dublin...................................................................................................................................................................................130 

Columbus Academy ..........................................................................................................................................................................138 

Columbus Blue Jackets......................................................................................................................................................................126 

Columbus Chamber of Commerce ....................................................................................................................................................166 

Columbus Clippers ...........................................................................................................................................................................142 

Columbus Metropolitan Library ........................................................................................................................................................143 

Columbus Police Reserve ..................................................................................................................................................................134 

Columbus Sign Company..........................................................................................................................................................145, 170 

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium ...........................................................................................................................................................142 

Conway Center for Family Business ..................................................................................................................................................168 

Drury Hotels .....................................................................................................................................................................................150 

Experience Columbus .......................................................................................................................................................................167 

Fritz-Rumer-Cooke Co., Inc. .............................................................................................................................................................195 

Girl Scouts of Ohio’s Heartland Council ............................................................................................................................................141 

Greater Columbus Convention Center...............................................................................................................................................173 

Hamilton Tanks, LLC ........................................................................................................................................................................194 

Heidelberg Distributing Company .....................................................................................................................................................172 

Isabelle Ridgway Care Center ............................................................................................................................................................140 

John Eramo & Sons, Inc. ..................................................................................................................................................................186 

Kirk Williams Company, Inc. ............................................................................................................................................................192 

Limited Brands..................................................................................................................................................................................171 

Metro Parks.......................................................................................................................................................................................124 

Nationwide .......................................................................................................................................................................................156 

Nationwide Children’s Hospital .........................................................................................................................................................120 

North American Broadcasting Company............................................................................................................................................146 

Ohio CAT .........................................................................................................................................................................................184 

Ohio Education Association ..............................................................................................................................................................128 

OhioHealth .......................................................................................................................................................................................132 

Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP ..................................................................................................................................................160 

Renaissance Columbus Downtown Hotel ..........................................................................................................................................158 

Schoedinger Funeral and Cremation Service......................................................................................................................................164 

Smoot Construction ..........................................................................................................................................................................182 

Sugardaddy’s Sumptuous Sweeties®..................................................................................................................................................169 

The Cellar Lumber Company ............................................................................................................................................................178 

The Flag Lady’s Flag Store .................................................................................................................................................................152 

The Westin Columbus Hotel .............................................................................................................................................................162 

U.S. Bank..........................................................................................................................................................................................165 

S P O N S O R S 

1 9 9

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

E D 

L E N T Z 

Ed Lentz has been teaching, writing and exploring the history of Central Ohio for the past forty years or so. When not doing that sort 

of thing, he teaches history in general and Ohio history in particular at various local colleges and universities. He has been known to 

write for local newspapers, consult in history and historic preservation and keep company with his wife, 

three cats and occasionally resident two children. If the best life is a busy one he has no reason to complain. 

Mr. Lentz holds degrees in history from Princeton University and The Ohio State University. He is the author of several books about 

Ohio and its capital city. 


200

LEADERSHIP SPONSORS 

ISBN 9781935377597

Historic Columbus

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?