, OH
Since 1918, this installation, currently known as the Defense Supply Center, Columbus, has served the federal government as a procurement and distribution point for military supplies and equipment. Originally named the Columbus Quartermaster Reserve Depot, this location was chosen because of its immediate access to three railroad lines. Expansion of the center continued after World War I, and in the years immediately prior to World War II, the center’s mission changed to reconditioning war material for resale. During World War II, the center became the largest military supply installation in the world, employing more than 10,000 civilians and holding over 400 Axis prisoners of war in secured barracks. The installation continues to provide a variety of parts and supplies to all branches of the Armed Forces and other Federal agencies.
, OH
The Stoner House, built circa 1852 on a natural spring thought to have medicinal properties, served as an inn, tavern, and spa, and as a hiding place for runaway slaves. George Stoner, owner and operator, drove the stagecoach from Columbus to Westerville transporting passengers who spent the night in this building. Runaway slaves were brought to this location in the luggage compartment of Stoner’s stagecoach and hidden in the cellar until they could be transported further north on their journey to Canada and freedom.
, OH
In 1937, Anne O’Hare McCormick became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for foreign correspondence. She was born in Yorkshire, England and moved to Ohio as a child. She was educated at the Academy of St. Mary of the Springs. As a freelance writer, McCormick contributed to the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, and others. She became a regular correspondent for the Times in 1922 and was the first woman to join its editorial board in 1936. As a Times correspondent in Europe during the tumultuous years before and during World War II, she conducted interviews with leaders including Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin.
, OH
Monsignor John Joseph Jessing, founder of the Pontifical College Josephinum, was born in Germany in 1836. He immigrated to America and, in 1870, was ordained a priest in Columbus. He published a newspaper, the Ohio Waisenfreund (Ohio Orphans’ Friend), raising funds to establish a boys’ orphanage in Pomeroy, Ohio, in 1875. The orphanage was transferred to Columbus two years later, and in 1888, he opened the Collegium Josephinum, a seminary for boys with the “desire, intention, and talent to study for priesthood.” Pope Leo XIII conferred the title “pontifical” in 1892, and the institution was incorporated by the State of Ohio in 1894. Monsignor Jessing died in 1899, but his vision lives on at the Pontifical College Josephinum, the only pontifical seminary outside of Italy. Monsignor Jessing’s motto, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” became the official motto of the Pontifical College Josephinum.
, OH
The Upper Arlington Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, is an important example of the “Garden City” model of early 20th century suburban development. Based on English precedents, the “Garden City” movement promoted the ideals of rustic beauty, health and comfort in an era when urban areas were becoming increasingly industrialized and congested. Local entrepreneurs King and Ben Thompson purchased 840 acres of farmland northwest of Columbus from James T. Miller for the creation of their “Country Club District” in 1913. The Upper Arlington Company, incorporated in 1917, built its field office in the building now used as Miller Park Library. Noted landscape architect William Pitkin, Jr. designed the curvilinear streets, spacious lots with generous setbacks, and permanent open spaces that characterize the district. Residential, civic, and commercial designs in the romantic Period Revival architectural styles popular between 1915 and 1940 contribute to the charm and character of the area known as Old Arlington.
, OH
The German Seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Ohio, the first Lutheran theological seminary west of the Appalachian Mountains, began instruction under Pastor Wilhelm Schmidt in Canton in 1830. The seminary relocated to Columbus at this location in 1831. After becoming part of Capital University in 1850, it occupied temporary campuses before locating permanently on the National Road, east of Columbus, in 1876. There the seminary was known as the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary. In 1959, the seminary separated from Capital University. In 1978, it merged with the Hamma School of Theology of Wittenberg University, taking the name Trinity Lutheran Seminary. This united seminary was a significant harbinger of the formation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 1988. The cornerstone of the first seminary building erected on this site in 1832 is located on the Trinity Lutheran Seminary campus in Bexley.
, OH
In the early 1900s, Ohio led the nation in interurban track mileage. The electrically powered interurban was favored over steam railroads for short distance passenger travel and the transport of local freight. Incorporated in 1899, the Columbus, Buckeye Lake, and Newark Traction Railway served Bexley from a terminal on Gay Street in downtown Columbus. Running south on High Street and then east on Mound Street, the line crossed Alum Creek into Bexley, went north up Pleasant Ridge Avenue past Capital University, and continued to the National Road (Main Street). Interurban cars stopped at the northeast corner of Main Street and Remington Road and thence sped on to Buckeye Lake, Newark, and later Zanesville. The popularity of the automobile spelled doom for the interurban. Service on the line ended in 1929.
, OH
In 1835, Dr. William Awl of Columbus and Dr. Daniel Drake of Cincinnati presented recommendations to the Ohio General Assembly to establish a school for the blind. Legislation, signed by then governor of Ohio Duncan McArthur on April 3, 1837, provided funding to create the first state-supported residential school for the blind in the United States. The Institution for the Education of the Blind opened July 4, 1837, with five students. A year later, the first permanent structure, housing 60 students, was built on a nine-acre tract of land on the eastern edge of the city, and that was followed in 1874 with a larger facility near Fulton and Main streets. The school was honored and recognized in 1937 as being one of the finest schools for the blind in the country. In 1953, a new school for the blind was built at its present location at 5220 North High Street.