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Walnut Hills has been home to a significant middle- and working-class Black community since the 1850s. In 1931, African American entrepreneur Horace Sudduth bought 1004 Chapel Street and then the row of buildings across Monfort, naming them the Manse Hotel and Annex. Throughout the 1940s, hotel dinner parties could move to the Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs house next door for dancing. A large addition to the Manse in 1950 created its own ballroom, 24-hour coffee shop, upgraded Sweetbriar Restaurant, and more guest rooms. It appeared in the Negro Motorist’s Green Book between 1940-1963, providing local, transient, and residential guests both catered meetings and top entertainment during the last decades of segregation. It closed in the late 1960s when the economic need for a first-class segregated hotel disappeared in the age of Black Power.
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The Henninger Homestead was founded in an era when local quarries provided raw materials for the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal. Bavarian immigrants Philip and Sophia Henninger came to Parma Township in 1840. Although Philip was a skilled tinsmith, he soon established a quarry on his property to supply sandstone for the breakwall of Cleveland’s harbor in Lake Erie, canal locks, and other building projects. In 1849, the Henningers replaced their log home with this Greek Revival house using stone from their quarry. Blocks at its base measure 30″ thick while upper walls are 14″ thick. Abandoned in 1988, the site was saved from demolition in 2003. The house and nearby carriage barn stand as the oldest buildings in the City of Parma.
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The historic district extends from the former Main Street Bridge to Long Street and encompasses the public buildings on either side of the Scioto River. The 580 foot long low-head concrete arch Main Street Dam was constructed in 1918 in response to the catastrophic 1913 flood. The dam helped reshape the Downtown Columbus Scioto River basin into a reflecting pool for the monumental riverfront buildings of teh Civic Center, which were influenced by the City Beautiful movement of the 1890s and early 1900s. Nearly a century after its construction, however, the dam had contributed to an unhealthy environment for aquatic life and was removed in late 2013 as part of teh Scioto Greenways river restoration project.
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Over its 145 years, the Old Canal Winchester School building played a significant role in the community. The original four-room building opened in 1862 and its first high school class graduated seven in 1886. Canal Winchester’s growth is reflected in the school’s several additions, the first of which was in 1875. Other expansions include a separate high school building in 1909, a three-story connector in 1929 between the 1862 and the 1909 buildings, and elementary school wings in 1956 and 1967. The school was also the site of continuing education and vocational classes for adults in the 1930s and 1950s, agricultural programs for veterans after World War II, and a cannery from the time of that war to 1952. The school was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2017 and it remains the district’s administrative center and a community gathering space.
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Briggsdale was established on the north side of the Columbus and Harrisburg Turnpike, a private toll road that was completed in 1849 and passed diagonally through the southeast corner of the Briggs family farm. The 1893 plat consisted of 97 small lots, five public streets, and several existing buildings, including a railroad depot, a post office, a schoolhouse, and the Joseph M. Briggs home. The Italianate style home, where Briggs and his wife Louisiana raised their seven children, was built in 1881 and demolished in 1958. The last Briggs home on the original family farmstead was built on this site in 1911 and occupied by William Irving Briggs (the eldest son of Joseph) until his death in 1964. The house was demolished for expansion of the Briggsdale Apartments complex in 2018.
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In 1915, Congress formed the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to coordinate aircraft research in the United States. The NACA built three research laboratories: Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, and the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory (AERL), now the Glenn Research Center. Construction for AERL’s Cleveland, Ohio location began in 1941 in a field next to the Cleveland Municipal Airport used for parking during the National Air Races of the 1930s. The research campus’ roads followed the semi-circular pattern of the air races’ parking roads. Operations began in 1942 with Edward Sharp as the first director. In 1948, AERL was renamed the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in honor of George Lewis, NACA’s Director of Aeronautical Research for over twenty years.
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This block of W. 29th Street was home to Cleveland’s vibrant LGBT community and central to the development of the modern LGBT civil rights movement. In 1988, the Striebinger Building, at 1418 W. 29th, housed Cleveland’s Lesbian-Gay Community Services Center, which addressed the needs of the LGBT community. Cleveland’s first Pride Festival since the mid-1970s was held on the block in 1989, and in 1990 Cleveland’s first Pride Parade culminated here. During the HIV/AIDS crisis, The Living Room and ACT UP were located in the Striebinger Building and gave support to those with HIV/AIDs and provided a platform for political activism. It was on this block where many people could find their voices to “come-out” and advocate for their rights and their humanity. (Continued on other side)
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On November 19, 1968, the Columbus Metropolitan Library dedicated the first public library in the nation named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. After King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, the East Side Community Council requested that the new library being planned for the King-Lincoln Bronzeville community bear his name. The King family had both family and civic ties to Columbus and were honored by the tribute. More than 1,000 people gathered outside 1600 E. Long Street to hear Martin Luther King Sr. deliver the November dedication speech. Continuing the King family tradition, Martin Luther King III cut the ribbon to open a new branch building at 1487 E. Long Street on October 18, 2018. The Martin Luther King Branch was the first Columbus public library to bear an individual’s name.