, OH
The Peoples Bank Theatre, built in 1919 and called the Hippodrome, marks an age when movies transitioned from silent films and nickelodeons into a major national industry and pastime. Designed by Columbus architect Fred Elliott for the C&M (Cambridge and Marietta) Amusement Company, the theatre featured a granite archway, 1,200 seats, a 35-by-55-foot stage, an orchestra pit, and the first air conditioning of its kind in Marietta. The Hippodrome opened May 9, 1919 with the silent film Daddy Long Legs, starring Mary Pickford. Shea Theatres of New York bought the Hippodrome and remodeled it in 1949, replacing the Hippodrome’s distinctive stone archway with a two-story southern colonial-style facade. Renamed the “Colony,” it opened June 25, 1949, showing the Esther Williams’ musical Neptune’s Daughter. (Continued on other side)
, OH
Jury of Erie County Women, First to be Impaneled Under Federal Suffrage proclaimed the headline of the Sandusky Register on August 28, 1920. One of the first female Court of Common Pleas juries in the nation was impaneled in Erie County on August 26, 1920, moments after the 19th amendment to the Constitution of the United States was declared ratified. On that date, Judge Roy Williams was to conduct a trial and jurors were needed. Out of the ten men he contacted, only one could serve. Frustrated, Judge Williams later told the women, “When I learned shortly after 10:30 this morning that suffrage had been proclaimed, I decided to impanel a woman jury. Twelve women were summoned. Twelve women served.” (continued on other side)
, OH
Camp Chase was a Civil War camp established in May 1861, on land leased by the U.S. Government. Four miles west of Columbus, the main entrance was on the National Road. Boundaries of the camp were present-day Broad Street (north), Hague Avenue (east), Sullivant Avenue (south), and near Westgate Avenue (west). Named for former Ohio Governor and Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, it was a training camp for Ohio soldiers, a parole camp, a muster-out post, and a prisoner-of-war camp. As many as 150,000 Union soldiers and 25,000 Confederate prisoners passed through its gates from 1861-1865. By February 1865, over 9,400 men were held at the prison. More than 2,000 Confederates are buried in the Camp Chase Cemetery.
, OH
St. Mary Church was dedicated in 1868 in response to the spiritual needs of the growing German-Catholic population of Columbus’ South Side. The original schoolhouse, which stands behind the church, was erected in 1865 under the direction of Rev. Francis X. Specht, St. Mary’s first pastor. It served as a temporary house of worship until the Gothic-style church was completed. St. Mary’s distinctive spire – soaring 197 feet into the Columbus sky – was added in 1893. By 1865, Columbus’ population was one-third German, and the South Side had become a thriving working-class community. The new immigrants built homes and churches and established schools. Local German businesses, organizations, and newspapers prospered. German Village is one of the premier historic restorations in the world, and is the largest privately funded historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. More than 1,600 buildings have been restored since 1960.
, OH
Waldschmidt Cemetery is located on land purchased from former New Jersey judge and Congressman John Cleves Symmes in 1795 by Christian Waldschmidt, one of the first settlers in the Little Miami River Valley. Waldschmidt, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was a veteran of the American Revolution, and he and his family are buried here. During the Civil War this area, named for Governor William Dennison, served as a training site and hospital for the Union effort. A portion of the cemetery was the temporary interment site for 349 Union soldiers and 31 Confederate prisoners of war, most of whom died at the camp hospital. On July 4, 1869, the Union soldiers were moved to Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. About the same time, the Confederate soldiers were reinterred in Chase Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio.
, OH
Abraham Lincoln spoke from the rear of a Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad passenger train on Saturday, September 17, 1859, to about 1000 people at South Fourth and Ludlow streets (about 785 feet south of here). Lincoln, elected president of the United States a year later, made five Ohio speeches, considered an extension of his 1858 debates with Stephen A. Douglas while they competed for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. After Douglas defeated Lincoln, he toured Ohio supporting 1859 Democratic candidates. The Republican response was to ask Lincoln to do the same for his party. He spoke twice in Columbus on September 16, and in Dayton, Hamilton, and Cincinnati the next day. Later, Republicans swept the 1859 elections, selecting William Dennison Jr., an 1835 Miami University graduate, as governor and winning majorities in the legislature. When Lincoln became president, he appointed Dennison postmaster general in 1864. [Continued on other side]
, OH
Anticipating a boom in canal commerce, Colonel James Kilbourne (1770-1850) platted Lockbourne in 1831 at the junction of the Ohio-Erie Canal and the Columbus Feeder, which was completed the same year. Lockbourne derives its name from the numerous canal locks at this site and Kilbourne’s own surname. During the heyday of the canal era, Lockbourne boasted the Canal House Hotel, several taverns, a stock yard, a distillery, a sawmill, and a gristmill which used the head of water at Lock 30 for power. (continued on other side)
, OH
Clyde Shyrigh, better known as Billy Clifford, was born in this house on January 24, 1869, to Levi and Sarah Shyrigh. Coming from a musical family, he developed an early interest in music and practiced with the family in the barn behind the house. At the age of ten, Clifford joined the circus when it was in town and played the snare drum, sold tickets, and eventually performed a song and dance routine. A leading vaudevillian of his time, Clifford once performed with Buster Keaton and went on to act with the best troupes in New York City, Baltimore, Norfolk, Richmond, and Europe. Eventually, he created his own company of performers, including an all-girl orchestra. Clifford died in this house on November 20, 1930, and is buried in Oakdale Cemetery in Urbana.