A Historical Guidebook to Old Columbus: Finding the Past in the Present in Ohio’s Capital City

A Historical Guidebook to Old Columbus

Finding the Past in the Present in Ohio’s Capital City

Bob Hunter

Photographs by Lucy S. Wolfe

Ohio University Press Athens

To Andrew Miller, who lives within these pages.

Preface

As Columbus, Ohio, celebrates its bicentennial, this book takes you on a historical tour of the city, stopping at each address, street corner, park, or riverbank where history was made. In some cases, the original building or site is unchanged; in others, no trace remains of what was there before. But in all cases, we’ve tried to pinpoint the location as accurately as possible.

The definition of history is subjective. Some events are obviously important: no one would deny that Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession down High Street was a historical highlight. But in addition to political history—theTheodore Roosevelt spoke here stuf—we’ve also included some social and entertainment history. If you want to know where Bob Dylan is rumored to have spent the night, you can find it in these pages.

Many rare and historic photos illuminate the city’s past, and for many sites, contemporary photos of what is there now ofer readers a before-and-after perspective on how and why these sites have changed.

The book is divided into seventeen chapters, each corresponding to a diferent section of the city—Statehouse Square, German Village, Franklinton, and so on—and the sites visited in each chapter are numbered and located on maps that enable the reader to find the spots described. But the chapters are not meant to provide specific walking tours, though readers are encouraged to plot their own with the aid of the maps.

Each chapter opens with an intriguing and entertaining story that precedes the site listings for that section of town. We’ve tried to make understanding the city’s rich history as much fun as possible.

Like Columbus itself, the city’s history is underrated. For those who think Columbus is the definition of average, for those who can’t distinguish the city from a hundred other places, this book promises a lot of surprises.

Acknowledgments

A book such as this one could never be compiled by one or two people. The eforts of scores of people over the past two hundred years were necessary to bring this project to fruition.

There is some original research here—some—but the authors owe a debt of gratitude to all of the local historians over the past two centuries who either preserved the unfolding history around them or dug up information that might have been lost.

William T. Martin wrote his History of Franklin County in 1858, using primary sources and his personal acquaintance with many early residents to leave us with an image of what life was like in Columbus in the era before the Civil War. He was followed by Jacob H. Studer, Lida Rose McCabe, Alfred E. Lee, and others, local historians and writers who either introduced new material or expanded on the old with their research and experience. Without the base of knowledge provided by all those early historians, this book would not have been possible.

When this book was still a germ of an idea, we read Bill Arter’s four volumes of Columbus Vignettes and were fascinated both by his drawings and by the research that underlay the stories. Arter’s feature ran in the Sunday Magazine of the Columbus Dispatch in the 1960s and early 1970s, and that feature formed the basis of those books. Not only did Bill have an eye for history and art, but he also knew how to spot a good story and dig into it. His work uncovering and preserving those tales for later generations was invaluable. Some of them are retold here, and he deserves our thanks.

Since then, many local historians have enlarged our base of knowledge. While it would be impossible to name them all, several immediately spring to mind: Ben Hayes, Ed Lentz, Dick Barrett, Phil Sheridan, and Bob Thomas. Columbus Clippers historian Joe Santry also merits mention here; he has an extensive knowledge of sports history in the Columbus area and is always willing to help.

Although we are deeply indebted to local historians for providing us with a wealth of material, we must also rely on the judgments they made in accepting what they believed to be accurate accounts of places and events in local history. An example of this reliance is the acceptance of what are reputed to be various stops on the Underground Railroad noted in these pages. Because the act of helping runaway slaves reach freedom was done in secrecy, there is often little concrete evidence to prove which homes sheltered these fugitives. This information was often passed by word of mouth, and legend sometimes trumps truth in this oral reporting of history. As one of our editors noted early in this process, if there were as many stations on the Underground Railroad as there seem to have been, it would not have to have been underground. We have tried to objectively weigh the merits of these claims and use the ones that seem most plausible. But readers should be aware of the possibility that myths can be perpetuated for generations.

The staf of the Columbus Metropolitan Library have been generous with their time throughout the writing and preparation of this book. Particular thanks go to Nick Taggart, Bonnie Chandler, and Andrew Andy Miller. Miller died while this book was being written, and his loss is keenly felt by all of us. Taggart was especially helpful with the library’s photo archives, and many of the fine photos in these pages are here because of his help, but he was also quick to provide a historical answer whenever possible. CML research provided by the late Sam Roshon has been invaluable.

We would also like to extend our heartfelt thanks to John F. Wolfe, publisher of the Columbus Dispatch, for allowing us to use several photos from the Walter D. Nice collection. Nice was a photographer for the Ohio State Journal and/or the Columbus Dispatch from 1906 to 1958 and was considered the dean of the city’s news photographers. He entered the business when photographers still used flash powder instead of bulbs and had to ride streetcars to get to their assignments. We are especially appreciative of the help given us by Linda Deitch, archive and collection manager of the Columbus Dispatch library. Dispatch editor Benjamin J. Marrison and Dispatch library director Julie Albert also were kind enough to assist in this process.

Thanks are also due to Rebecca Felkner at the Grandview Heights Public Library, who generously provided photos from the Columbus Citizen-Journal photo collection for use in this book.

We also want to extend our gratitude to Jay and Genie Hoster of the Tri-Village Book Company in Grandview. Jay is a member of the Hoster brewing family. They were both on the board of trustees of the Columbus Historical Society, and they are experts on local history. In addition to their knowledge of local history, they are also first-rate editors; they found numerous mistakes in the first draft of this manuscript. Their assistance was invaluable.

Columbus Historical Society president Doug Motz also gave the manuscript an early read and provided considerable insight. Motz did this while he was both helping orchestrate the historical society’s move from its Jeferson Avenue building to COSI and getting married, and we appreciate the time he took out of his busy schedule to help us with this project.

Special thanks are also extended to Bruce F. Wolfe, Chris Lewie, Bruce Warner, Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessy, David Myers, Arnett Howard, Elizabeth Hamrick, Tom Glass, Bryan Boatright, Lisa Haldi Gorman, Whitney B. Dillon, Fritz Harding, John Haldi, Franklin County Recorder Daphne Hawk, Lisa Minken of the Columbus Academy of the Performing Arts, Father Joshua Wagner of the Community of Holy Rosary and St. John the Evangelist, Jillian Carney of the Ohio Historical Society, Rebecca Jewett of the Ohio State Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Father Kevin Lutz of Holy Family Church, Georgeanne Reuter of the Kelton House, Susan Mansfield of the Columbus chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Lucy Ackley and Christine Neubauer from the development office at Columbus School for Girls, and Jennie McCormick of the Worthington Historical Society for providing photos and/or information and expertise.

Finally, we are especially grateful to Tad Jefrey, Jameson Crane, Richard Wolfe, Norina Wolfe, and Michael P. and Linda A. Stickney for providing financial support to this project.

This book has been more than two hundred years in the making, and we hope that its many contributors are as proud to be part of it as we are.

Bob Hunter and Lucy S. Wolfe

Introduction

the persistent image from an old photograph keeps intruding, like the echo of a song that was playing when the car radio clicked of hours ago. A little house stood on this spot across from the state capitol, a house planted there when the land where the Statehouse sits was an unkempt field of wild grasses and weeds. The house perched there when Third Street was a residential road in a small, isolated town, a town that was still a landlocked outpost in a mostly empty western state. The house may even have been there when tree stumps remained in the middle of High Street.

It once stood in the midst of other houses, some of which were never captured in a photograph that preserved their memory. It became a haven for retreat after

a hard day’s labor, a home where children were conceived and fed, laughed and cried, slept and played. It was a place to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner and entertain Christmas visitors, a spot to sit on the porch and watch this small slice of the world pass by.

One day in the 1890s, it found itself next door to a Columbus YMCA building that frowned down upon it with an imperious scowl. Then that building came down in the 1920s to make way for a new home for the Columbus Dispatch, another mammoth neighbor that dwarfed the little house, whose friends were all but gone.

Its days were numbered then. The old neighborhood had passed, just like the pioneers who built it. The little two-story, Greek Revival–style brick house that lawyer John W. Andrews had long called home had become a place of business, and there were better places for businesses. It no longer suited the need or the landscape.

In 1927, almost one hundred years of memories were obliterated in a matter of days, and the eight-story University Club building took its place. No one mourned the little house’s passing. Andrews had been dead for thirty-three years. The new building, which gradually became an old building, fit the landscape now; Columbus was a city, not a town, and the idea of people living on Third Street seemed quaint.

And then in 1992 that building also came down, clearing the way for a forty-two-story Capitol Tower that was never built, and a parking lot for Dispatch employees filled the space. Asphalt covers ground that once served as Andrews’s yard, and the lot is more open now. Even when crowded with cars it looks almost empty, but because of that photograph, it rarely feels that way to those who know its past.

Maybe some old energy still lives there, holding onto this place when all of the visible traces of past lives have vanished. Maybe something is calling, beckoning, pleading with us to look just a little closer, to take a few seconds to sense, feel, and see, hoping we will take the time to remember. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just an imaginary feeling. Maybe the spot is empty. Maybe the mind is playing tricks.

Parking lots are the curse of preservationists, but they do make it easier to imagine, to sketch a mental image of long-ago dwellings and the people who lived there, to once more see the way it was. After so many years, we can again easily envision that little house, imagine Andrews on his porch while a congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln is giving a speech at the top of the east steps of the Statehouse across the street.

Now, anyone can stand where Andrews stood and look over there where Lincoln spoke and think about what the lawyer might have felt at that particular moment on that particular day. Or they can just hurry past that spot like the thousands of pedestrians who think Third Street has always been a row of tall buildings, churches, and parking lots, or worse still don’t think about it at all, their minds mulling only which sandwich they’re going to order for lunch at Subway.

This book is for those who want to think about it. This book is for those who believe that what used to be is important, even if they’re not always sure why.

Not everyone can see the past, but it is a cherished gift for those who do. We hope this book will make that a little easier.

1 Franklinton

A search for the city’s most famous tree figured to be futile. If old age hadn’t buried the tall, burly tree that came to be known as the Harrison elm, progress, landscapers, or Dutch elm disease probably had.

Still, if ever a tree merited a search party, this stubborn old giant surely did. Forgotten is a word that should never have been used to describe it. Even if it were gone, a respectful eulogy is the least that a modern historian could do.

Beneath this tree, General William Henry Harrison made a speech to a large assembly of Indian chiefs in 1813, a speech that may have meant victory over England in the War of 1812. In a city listed on the resumes of five US presidents, one that toasted Abraham Lincoln as president-elect and mourned him as his body lay at the Statehouse, one that gave James Thurber and William Dean Howells to the world of literature and George Bellows and Elijah Pierce to the world of art, this may have been the most important moment in the city’s history.

To Columbus’s early settlers, the Harrison elm was a landmark. The war with England had been going poorly, and those living on the Ohio frontier were scared. There were reports that Indians who hadn’t threatened Ohioans since signing the Treaty of Greenville seventeen years before were preparing to join the British cause, and settlers were abruptly reminded of what it had been like to have Indians surprise a sleeping family in their cabin in the middle of the night, ambush farmers in their fields, or kidnap their children.

It was against this backdrop that Harrison, whose military headquarters were in a house on what is now West Broad Street in Franklinton, summoned the region’s Indian chiefs to a council near village founder Lucas Sullivant’s home.

On June 21, 1813, a council of about fifty chiefs and prominent braves of the Wyandot, Delaware, Shawnee, and Seneca tribes gathered on Sullivant’s land to hear Harrison speak from beneath the large elm tree. For those living in an isolated area in the middle of the Ohio frontier, it was a spectacle they would never forget.

Harrison was surrounded by his officers, all dressed in full military regalia. A detachment of soldiers stood behind them, all at attention. The Indians sat opposite them, many of them smoking pipes and paying little attention to Harrison, who started his speech in calm and measured tones, urging the natives to either move deeper into the nation’s interior or join the American cause against the British. Settlers had descended on the tiny settlement from miles away to hear the general’s words and observe the Indians’ response. They knew that their lives might depend on what happened here; the possibility of a renewal of Indian hostilities put fear into many hearts.

A tortured silence followed the close of Harrison’s remarks. Finally, Tarhe, the Crane, the venerable, seventy-two-year-old chief of the Wyandots and the one who had assumed leadership of the Indian contingent, arose slowly, said a few words, and then gave his hand to the general in a token of friendship. The tense settlers recognized this as agreement with Harrison’s plea for either peace or help. As the other Indians moved forward to shake hands with the general, cheers of relief filled the air. Women wept, children laughed, and a scene of joyous pandemonium followed.

The Indian tribes kept their promise, reaffirming the pledges made at the Treaty of Greenville and at last creating a permanent peace between the Ohio tribes and the white settlers. Though these tribes were never called on to fight with the Americans, several of the chiefs, including Tarhe (who had been severely wounded fighting against the Americans at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794), accompanied Harrison’s troops into Canada and were present at the decisive Battle of the Thames.

No doubt about it. These settlers would never forget this day or this spot. It was seared into their memory until their dying days, so finding such an important tree—or at least the spot once shaded by it—shouldn’t have been too difficult.

In 1902, it wasn’t. The local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution went looking for the site in hopes of placing a historical marker on the spot. They knew that Harrison’s council with the Indians had occurred on Sullivant’s land—everyone knew that—and his mansion still existed at the time as the Convent of the Good Shepherd, which was located near the center of a closed auto dealership building, just south of West Broad Street and west of the Route 315 freeway.

But exactly where the tree had stood on Sullivant’s property seemed to have been lost with the passing of those early settlers. Someone suggested that the committee interview an elderly doctor who had come to Columbus in 1846. Dr. Starling Loving surprised them by saying that he knew precisely where the old tree was. It had been pointed out to him forty years before by Michael Sullivant, second son of Lucas Sullivant, and he took them to it.

The elm stood like an old man who had lived too long, in the rear of a house on Souder Avenue; only its massive trunk and a few scraggly limbs remained. Because it was located in a private yard, local DAR representatives decided that this was no place for a marker. The decision was made to place it two blocks away on the parklike median on Martin Avenue, which was described as being part of an old grove that included the elm and hence was part of the grounds where the people had assembled to see and hear Harrison and the Indians speak.

The marker is still there on a mammoth boulder, and a handful of houses still exist on the west side of Souder, although the hospital and its parking lots now occupy everything on the east side of the street. None of the trees in the vicinity are old enough to be the historic tree, which was probably long gone before the bulldozers came.

Alfred E. Lee’s 1892 History of the City of Columbus, Capital of Ohio has a photo of the old giant, with Hawkes Hospital, later Mount Carmel, in the background. Because that original building fronted on State at about the middle of today’s main buildings, that would seem to indicate the tree was considerably north of State, probably in the vicinity of the parking lots on the east side of Souder and north of Mount Carmel Mall, which runs to the east and west just north of the hospital.

It’s hard to know exactly where the tree stood. But even though the precise location of the tree has been lost, it’s safe to say that this entire area on both sides of Souder stretching even to the place on Martin where the boulder still sits was once crowded with people—settlers, soldiers, and Indians—on a day only a year after the infant village of Columbus was founded across the Scioto, a mile away.

Many of those who lived in little Franklinton eventually moved across the river to the new capital, leaving the harsh memo-ries of frontier life on the other side. The tree is gone, but if you close your eyes and listen, you may yet hear the wind rustle its branches, the strong clear voice of a general destined to become president, and the happy sobs of pioneers who didn’t know how close the safety of civilization actually was.

* * *

1. Southeast corner of West Broad Street and South Washington Boulevard—The second Central High School opened for the 1924–25 school year in this building, now occupied by the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) and the Columbus Historical Society. The school, with an address of 75 South Washington Boulevard, sat in the midst of an 18-acre campus. It closed on June 6, 1982. In 1989, the building hosted Son of Heaven: Imperial Arts of China, a cultural exchange display from China that featured the artifacts of the ancient Chinese emperors. After that, the building mostly sat empty until 1999, when it was remodeled and expanded.

2. 300 West Broad Street—After the Columbus Auditorium was converted to the Lazarus store annex in 1945, proposals were advanced for a huge convention hall on West Broad Street with seating for 11,000. Ten years later, on September 29, 1955, Veterans Memorial Auditorium opened with seating for 4,000. The building has hosted just about every conceivable kind of stage attraction, and for many years this was the prime concert site in the city. Elvis Presley played two shows here in 1956. Bill Haley and Nat King Cole also played there that year. The acts started a long run of impressive musical performers. Among the highlights were Ray Charles, Liberace, Carol Channing, Peter, Paul & Mary, Johnny Cash, James Brown, the Grateful Dead, the Beach Boys, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Janis Joplin, the Temptations, Hank Williams Jr., Elton John, the Jackson 5, Henry Mancini, Sammy Davis Jr., Mantovani, Black Sabbath, Guy Lombardo, Jerry Lee Lewis, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Merle Haggard, Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen, Barry Manilow, Jimmy Bufett, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Bob Dylan, Prince, Ozzy Osbourne, R.E.M., Alice Cooper, Willie Nelson, and Britney Spears. From 1961 to 1982, the Kenley Players summer productions were staged there; dozens of famous actors and actresses graced the stage, including Mae West, Richard Chamberlain, Gloria Swanson, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Betty White. In 1985, the Columbus Ford Dealers 500 International Motor Sports Association GTP race was held on the downtown streets, and the pits were located inside Vets Memorial. Today, Franklin County Veterans Memorial is mostly used for trade shows and nonmusical events.

3. 379 West Broad Street—The building currently serving as the Columbus Firefighters Hall is the last surviving railroad station in Columbus. It was constructed for the Toledo and Ohio Central railroad (T&OC) in 1895 and designed by prominent local architect Frank L. Packard. It was the departure point for William McKinley when he left for Washington, DC, to be sworn in as president. The rival Hocking Valley Railway purchased the T&OC in 1900, and in 1911 the tracks were elevated above Broad Street. Later the New York Central took over and used the station until 1930, when passenger service was transferred to Union Station. The distinctive building with the pagoda-style roof served as headquarters for the Central Ohio Volunteers of America from 1930 to 2003. The high-water mark of the 1913 flood can be seen on the building’s interior walls.

4. Northeast corner of West State Street and South May Avenue—When Columbus-born magician Howard Thurston became internationally famous, he moved his parents into this new, fortress-like apartment building. His parents lived in the tower corner apartment of nine rooms, and when Thurston came to his hometown for his annual week of shows—his twenty-ninth annual appearance came in 1934, two years before he died—this is where he stayed.

5. 72 South Gift Street—This two-story frame house (now vacant) was originally constructed as a log house by Franklinton postmaster David Deardurf in 1807. The logs are now hidden by weatherboard and plaster, but the basic structure is a stellar example of pioneer craftsmanship. The front room of the house served as Franklinton’s first post office; mail was brought from Chillicothe once a week by horseback. It was a three-day trip over rough forest trails. The Alexander Deardurf family arrived in Franklinton from Pennsylvania in the spring of 1798—David was thirteen at the time—and constructed a house nearby on Gift Street that fall, but that house is long gone. Gift was the first street in Franklinton and was so named because the lots were ofered free to those willing to settle there.

6. Southwest corner of South Gift and West State Streets—Isaiah Voris had a tavern on this spot in the early days of Franklinton. There is a story in Alfred E. Lee’s 1892 History of the City of Columbus, Capital of Ohio about a young boarder newly arrived from Massachusetts named William Merion. He is said to have met Sallie Wait, who lived with her parents a mile south of the village, outside of this tavern in 1808, and they eventually married. The West Side Market House later occupied this site.

7. Northwest corner of West Broad and North Gift Streets—The building that still stands here is known as the Harrison House because it was once reputed to be General William Henry Harrison’s headquarters during the War of 1812. The house was most likely built in 1807 by Jacob Oberdier, but the lack of documentation, drawings, and photographs has placed that date in dispute. It was one of only twelve brick homes built in early Franklinton. Historians later determined that this probably was not Harrison’s headquarters, but the future president stayed in several places in Franklinton during this period and this may have been one of them. It was almost torn down in 1975 but was saved, in part because of its connection to Harrison. The City of Columbus bought it in 1980 and currently leases it to the nearby Holy Family Catholic Church.

8. Southwest corner of South Skidmore and West Broad Streets—Dr. Lincoln Goodale established a store in a two-story building on this site shortly after he moved to Franklinton in 1805. He came here from Belpre, Ohio, to practice medicine. But the mercantile business was so profitable at the time that