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The Lindenberg family was a prominent Columbus family that had a large impact on the Grandview area. Charles Lindenberg was the owner of the Columbus Brass Company and hired famous architect Frank Packard to design his West Broad home, which he later donated to the State of Ohio for use as the Governor's Mansion. He spent summers in Grandview, and his sons Carl, Frank and Paul built their homes here. The eldest son Carl built his home (lower left) at the corner of Cambridge and what is now Village Court in 1903, in what the Lindenbergs planned as the Country Club Addition. Packard designed Frank's home (lower right) at 1122 Cambridge in 1905 just south of the 8th green of the Aladdin Country Club. It was later sold to the Tarpy family. Paul took over his father's Columbus Piano Company business and bought another Packard home (upper left), which has since undergone extensive additions and renovations, at the corner of Cambridge and First in 1905. A cousin to the brothers, Theodore was President of M.C. Lilley & Co. when he and his son opened the Bexley Theater (now the Drexel) and managed the Grandview Theater (now the Grandview Drexel). Theodore also had Packard design his hacienda style mansion at 1087 Lincoln Road in 1906. It was recently featured as the Columbus Decorators' Showhouse.
Fire Chief Mearl Klingensmith, Jr. (white helmet) and four Grandview firefighters leave the fire station in Grandview's new 1924 Seagrave Suburbanite fire engine. The building was also new, having been completed in the summer of 1924 in the new community park. The previous year Mayor Thomas of Columbus cancelled the contract with Grandview that provided fire protection, forcing Mayor Ryder to propose a bond issue to build and equip a fire department for the villages. The $30,000 budget provided $15,000 to build the city hall and $15,000 for two trucks. The Seagrave Company made fire equipment in Columbus for shipment all over the world, and was owned from 1902 by Grandview resident Julius Stone. The firefighters were also deputized by Grandview Police Chief William Reed and served as police officers. One of the firefighters lived in the fire station. Recently this truck was fully restored and donated back to the City, and is used in parades and public events.
Gus Amicon (above in white apron) stands outside of the Amicon Market in 1938 waiting to be interviewed by a local radio station for a Taystee Bread promotion. Gus and his brother Rocco Amicon immigrated to the United States in the early 1920s, and built the store at the corner of Fairview and Fifth Avenue in 1930. The building is currently occupied by the One More Time clothing store. Starting with an inventory of only vegetables and fruits, they added refrigeration and over the next few years became known throughout the city as having some of the best meats in town. A chicken coop behind the store provided fresh birds, and steaks and bacon were cut fresh daily. In 1931 Rocco and his family moved into one of the two apartments on the second floor, and Gus lived in the other. In 1940 Gus opened his own store at First and Oxley, and in 1946 Rocco opened a popular restaurant in an addition next door. The restaurant closed in 1956, the store in 1958, and Gus retired from his store in 1969.
In 1922 Bishop James Hartley of the Columbus Diocese established Our Lady of Victory Parish. The Parish was bounded by the two rivers, McKinley Avenue, and the northern boundary of the Diocese, and included 65 families. Bishop Hartley (inset, middle) approved the purchase of 4 acres in Marble Cliff at the corner of Roxbury and Cardigan Avenue, which was the property owned by Sylvio Casparis and then the Merkle family. The twenty room Casparis house was used to house the parish school, and the convent and chapel of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. A second building on the property was used as the rectory for Father Thomas Nolan, the first pastor. By mid-1923 the parish had grown to 108 families, and a new chapel designed by George McDonald was built on the site. The current rectory and the building for the OLV Academy were built in 1931. The new addition to the church (inset, left), also designed by McDonald, was built in 1957, and was an attempt to incorporate the English Gothic architecture that was evident in the rectory. Bishop Michael J. Ready (inset, right) was to dedicate the church in 1957, but suddenly and unexpectedly died a day and a half before the ceremony was to be held.
In 1949 the school district decided to include kindergarten services as part of the public schools, and a revolutionary building was constructed on the site of the old Harding School across Fairview from the Edison building. It opened February 6, 1950 with significant media attention from the Columbus and Ohio press. Called the Kindergarten Annex, it was an award-winning design that incorporated furniture and facilities that were built to the needs of the kindergarten student. Door handles were lower, furniture was smaller (top left), lockers were kid-sized, etc. It also had a fully equipped kitchen (top right), which was used for both lunches and morning snacks, a small stage (top center), and everything was done in "cheerful" colors and styles that were attractive to kids of this age. A large fireplace was located in the hall at the main entrance, which provided a pleasant atmosphere for the 100 students that attended the half-day sessions taught by Mrs. Bloom (in above photos) and Mrs. Castaneda. In 1971, classrooms were added at Stevenson School to accommodate additional kindergarten classes for families on the east side of the district.
The Grandview Bank Block was built in 1927 to provide a corridor of shopping along Grandview Avenue. The 30 store complex was added to the National Historic Register in 1997 and received an Ohio Bicentennial Marker in 2000. The text on the marker reads as follows: "Built by pioneering retail developer Don Monroe Casto Sr. the Bank Block was dedicated in 1928. Considered one of the earliest regional shopping centers in the United States, it innovatively featured 350 free parking spaces - complete with uniformed attendant - to accommodate the rapidly growing numbers of automobile-owning suburbanites. The Bank Block's first tenants included several competing national grocery stores (Kroger, A&P, and Piggly Wiggly). The First Citizens Trust (later Ohio National Bank), a stationer, barber shop, and pharmacy. It remains the nucleus of Grandview's commercial district. Casto, once described as "the man who changed shopping habits of the free world" also built the Town and Country Shopping Center in Whitehall and was a dominant figure in retail commercial development in the Midwest for much of the 20th century."
Several noted professional photographers resided in Grandview in the early history of the community, including one of the founders of Grandview, George Urlin and his partner John Pfeifer. Fred A. Behmer started working as a photographer in 1901 when he was 16 years old, working for Baker Art Gallery and later the Columbus Star, a weekly tabloid published by the Wolfe family. His famous work includes photos of Company B of the Ohio National Guard deployed at Camp Willis in what is now Upper Arlington. For over fifty years, Behmer was the staff photographer for Jeffery Manufacturing charged with documenting the company's activities and the service of Jeffrey employees. Behmer was the first photographer to record OSU football away games for publication in the next morning's paper. According to his granddaughter Pat Behmer Preble, he dried the photo plates on a potbelly stove on the return train trip from the game so that they would be ready for the newspaper. This photo shows Behmer (left) and an unidentified friend dressed for the annual Field Day celebration in 1916.
Claude K. Seibert (inset) was Grandview Heights’ fourth mayor, serving from 1915 until 1919. He also served on the Village Council and was a founding member of Boulevard Presbyterian Church which was organized in 1925. Seibert founded Fifth Avenue Floral in 1905. The company had greenhouses on Fifth Avenue and a retail shop on East Broad Street in downtown Columbus. One of the most successful florist businesses in Columbus, it was selling in the neighborhood of $100,000 worth of flowers annually by 1923. Seibert’s career was in the insurance business, where he served as the cashier for the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, and later as the Second Vice-President of the National Life Insurance Company. In 1922 Seibert donated the money for Grandview to purchase park land.
The Field Day parade proceeds along the trolley tracks headed west on First Avenue in front of HinterschiedÕs Grocery at the corner of First and Oakland. Originally ArnoldÕs Grocery, which opened in 1895, it became Collins Grocery in 1904 and was purchased by Hinterschied in 1906 and he expanded it to a general store.The building on the opposite corner is the old Gutches Market (GaudieriÕs Cleaners). The first fire equipment in Grandview Heights was a two-wheeled horse drawn cart that was housed in HinterschiedÕs building. On its first run in 1906, it was called to a fire on the east side of Grandview Avenue. When it arrived at the hydrant to hook up the hoses it was discovered that the threads on the hose were the reverse of those on the hydrant, and the volunteers were unable to attach it, and the house burned to the ground. It is thought that the house that burned was the old Willard farmhouse located just east of Avondale, which is recorded to have burned in 1906. During World War I, the approximate time frame for this photograph, victory gardens were planted along Goodale between Grandview Avenue and the swimming pool, and a cooperative community kitchen next door to HinterschiedÕs served the food grown in the gardens to many residents.
The area bounded by the Scioto River to the south and west, and the Olentangy River on the east lies upon bedrock which is Monroe and Columbus limestone. Formed over 350 million years ago, this bedrock outcrops in a north-south band through Ohio. This rock played a significant role in the development of the area, because it was quarried and utilized in many applications, including stone walls, homes, roads, flux for steel mills, and for the construction of the state capitol building in Columbus. Orton Hall was one of the first buildings on Ohio State's campus, and was constructed using the limestone from the surrounding quarries. Designed by architect Frank Packard, who also designed many Grandview Heights and Marble Cliff homes, the building reflected the strata of the surrounding area, with the oldest stones at the base of the building. This photo shows the construction of Orton Hall in 1893, and the different stone levels, particularly the bands at the first floor, are clearly seen.
For many years t he main north-south road leading northwest out of Columbus was Dublin Pike, which followed the Scioto Indian Trail. The main east-west road was Fifth Ave. Wagons had to ford the Whetstone (Olentangy) River because there was no bridge. At the end of Fifth at Dublin Pike on both sides of the Scioto River were the limestone quarries which provided stone for building from the time of the earliest settlements in the area. Several quarries were shown on the 1842 township map, including the Marble Cliff Quarry. An article in the October 2, 1880 Columbus Dispatch documented a reporterÕs visit to the quarry, where he witnessed a planned explosion that displaced an estimated 700 tons of rock. ÒThe Marble Cliff quarry [owned by J. E. Price] is working 29 men at present, and as an inducement for more men to come here, Mr. Price has raised the wages to $1.50 per day and offers house rent free.Ó He went on to say that eighty railroad cars per week were loaded at the quarry, and in 23 years, seven acres of stone had been removed, and ninety acres remained. This circa 1900 photo shows workers in a quarry near Dublin Pike and Grandview Avenue. Most of the workers in the local quarries were Italian immigrants and lived in the ÒItalian SettlementÓ at Glenn and Fifth in Grandview.
The fathers and sons banquet for residents of Grandview Heights, Marble Cliff and Upper Arlington was held annually at the Deshler Hotel. This 1921 photo shows the fathers and their sons having dinner in the hotel ballroom, while the mothers and the boys' sisters were allowed to view the event over the railing from the balcony. According to the April, 1921 Norwester, "In view of the youth of many of the sons, smoking was abstained from, but in spite of this [it] was a huge success." The Deshler Hotel (inset right) was built in 1916 at the corner of Broad and High in downtown Columbus. It was later owned by Dr. Adrian Wallick and his brother. Adrian "Doc" Wallick was a dentist and lived with his family in the former Sheldon Mansion in Marble Cliff (inset left). The Deshler was joined to the American Insurance Citadel (Leveque Tower) in 1927 by a bridge, called the Venetian Bridge, to allow hotel guests to access the 600 rooms of the Deshler that were located in the new skyscraper. The Ionian Room in the Deshler was a popular restaurant and lounge throughout the 1930s, and it was also the home of the Crystal Room restaurant and Gray Drug.
This house was built in 1896 on property in John Price and Charles Griswold's Arlington Place subdivision in Marble Cliff. Designed by Frank Packard, it was the home of Philip and Nancy Skeele. Mr. Skeele (inset left) was from Worthington and attended the prestigious Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He worked for many years for the Pennsylvania Railroad and advanced to the position of Yardmaster. He was a trustee for the Grandview Congregational Church, which he was involved in founding, and served on the Grandview school board (he served as President and oversaw the dedication of the Grandview School building, now Edison, in 1912 and the first graduation in 1916). In 1920, the Skeele home became the meeting place for the Brotherhood of Rooks after their log cabin club house became unavailable, and until their new house was built. Bradley Skeele (inset right) was one of the first to pledges to the Rooks fraternity. The home is currently owned by Kent and Susan Studebaker.
In the first half of the 20th century, the Grandview area had these three movie theaters that ran first run movies. The Grandview Theater (top left), located south of the Bank Block on Grandview Avenue, opened in 1926 under the ownership of Carl Shafer. It had a double storefront that at one time housed a shoe repair shop on the south side and the Grandview Confectionary on the north (bottom left). It closed in 1961, became an antique shop, and reopened in 1987 as a theater. The Fifth Avenue Theater located at Fifth and Northwest opened as the Boulevard Theater (top right) in 1940. It was torn down in 1978 to make room for a Zantigos restaurant. The Arlington Theater (bottom right) was located between Glenn and Wyandotte on Fifth Avenue. It opened in 1935 under the ownership of Clarence MacDonald. It was bought by the Yassenoff Academy Theaters chain, which also owned the Boulevard, the College Cinema on High Street, The Camelot North and the Carousel East in 1944. It closed in 1950 and later housed the Junior Achievement center. There was an unsuccessful effort to reopen it as theater in 1988 and it was modified to house the Horizon Company's multimedia production operation in the 1990s.
This 1923 photo shows a new "Good Maxwell" motor car, owned by Ira Stanton Jones, who was a teacher and the coach at Grandview High School. The Maxwell was built and sold by the Maxwell Motor Corporation, which was started in 1903 by Jonathan Maxwell and Benjamin Briscoe. The 1923 Maxwell roadster sold for $885, which adjusts with inflation to approximately $9775 today. They built the Maxwell until 1926, when the company became the Chrysler Corporation. In the background is the Grandview School (now called Edison) and a temporary white building that was used during construction of the current high school. This building was moved to the new school property at first and Oxley, and was used as a "portable" building while R. L. Stevenson Elementary School was built.
This house was built in 1895 by Professor Walter Sackett on a parcel of land (at what is now the corner of Bluff and Westwood) that was purchased for $700 from the 150 acre Tilton subdivision. In 1909, Prof. Sackett traded teaching positions with Prof. Wendell Paddock who was at Colorado A&M University. Prof. Paddock was the author of several books, including a famous treatise on growing fruit trees in the arid western United States, and taught horticulture at OSU after arriving here. Not only did the two professors trade positions, but Sackett sold his house to Paddock as well. Over the years Paddock planted a wide variety of regional wildflowers to bloom throughout the season, and was called the "daffodil man" because of his impressive array of daffodils. He and his wife Jessie had a daughter Jessie, who in turn had a daughter Marcia Murphey. Marcia was married to singer Neil Diamond from 1968 to 1996.
The September, 1921 Norwester (inset lower right) depicted a Curtiss JN-4D biplane flying over the countryside. The "Jenny", as the plane was known, was one of the most popular airplanes of all time, serving as a World War I trainer (90% of the pilots received their training in the Jenny) and later sold as surplus in the civilian market. This photo was taken in 1921 at the landing field at King Avenue just west of North Star. The Jenny in the photo was owned by R. S. Haines, who was the Ohio representative for the surplus disposal of these aircraft. It was used to take local residents on thrill rides, which for $10 consisted of a flight north along the Scioto, then west and south over Olentangy Park and past the University, then over Grandview and Marble Cliff before landing. Plans were drawn to expand the landing field to accommodate the 122th Aero Squadron of the National Guard, but never were implemented.
J. F. Miller, resident of Richmond, Indiana and executive for the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad, owned 4.8 acres in the Arlington Place Subdivision of Price and Griswold. In 1895 Miller contracted Frank Packard to design this ÒCarpenter GothicÓ summer home (lower right inset). In 1953 it was purchased by Garry and Mary Myers, who operated their Highlights for Children business in a part of the house. They served as president and vice president, respectively, of the publishing company founded by his father and mother until their deaths in an air disaster in 1960. In 1983 the house, considered a significant structure because of its architectural style and detailing, was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places. The photograph is from the 1916 Country Club Development brochure and is looking north along Central Avenue (now Roxbury) with the home on the right. The lower left inset shows the home just after it was completed, and the upper left inset shows a view looking south down Central from in front of the home in 1901.
This home at 1201 Ashland was built in 1904. As with many turn of the century houses in Grandview and Marble Cliff, it also had outbuildings for animals and agricultural equipment. The barn in back of this house served as the garage into the 1970s, and the chicken coop became a playhouse for the children of resident families over the years, according to former owner Nancianne Nardone. As is the case with many communities, city ordinances that limit animals from residential properties are relatively recent in Grandview, and early residents had chickens, cows, horses and sheep in their yards (lower inset). In fact the first mayor of Marble Cliff was fined by his own village marshal for allowing his cows to roam freely around the village. The top inset shows the home in 2002, with all of the architectural elements remaining.
Before 1916, the area of Grandview Heights east of Grandview Avenue was dominated by the Salzgaber, Willard and Thomas farms (see map inset). Several years earlier, brothers King and Ben Thompson, who were eventually responsible for the early planning of Upper Arlington, established the Northwest Boulevard Company to realize a dream of developing a community similar to one they had visited in Kansas City. The plats of their Northwest Boulevard subdivision were filed in 1916 and 1917, and included properties carved out of the 345 acre Thomas farm. This 1916 photo shows construction crews building First Avenue, opening the area from Grandview Avenue to what would later become Northwest Boulevard.
Frances Nesbitt (left) was a sophomore at Grandview Heights High School in 1924 when she portrayed the "Goddess of Peace" in a float for the annual Field Day parade. Her chariot was pulled in a gesture of cooperation by other students (top right). Frances lived on Grandview Avenue in a home built by her grandfather, Frank Byers Howell, who lived behind her on Broadview Avenue. The middle photo shows Frances, her sister Betty and brother Fred in front of her Frank Howell's rose pergola. Frances graduated in 1930 from OSU with a degree in Social Work and married Barr Winegarner, whose family business was Winegarner's Funeral Home on East Main Street. Frances, lower right, and her husband later moved to Worthington.
The intersection of Westwood and Third Avenue has been the domain of the Ciccone family since 1923. That year Biase and his wife Maria moved into a two-story home on the northwest corner and operated a grocery out of the first floor.In 1933 they moved the grocery across Third to a building which formerly was a Kroger store, and which is now the Knotty Pine Grill. The Ciccone sons, Jim and Gildo helped their mother in the store while Biase managed the Knotty Pine bar in the west side of the building. In 1951, on the property now occupied by the Columbus Italian Club at 1739 West Third, the Ciccone's built the newest home for the grocery store. Managed by Jim and Gildo, Ciccone's Market continued the Grandview tradition of home delivery. The photos at the bottom show Maria and Biase (left), Gildo and Frank Melaragno (center), and Biase, Pat Melaragno and Jim (right).
This 1918 photograph is from the Historical Society's Alleyne Higgs collection. It shows a group of Grandview girls participating in the Maypole dance, which has been a May Day tradition around the world for several centuries. Each dancer holds a different colored ribbon and moves in a circle around the pole. The pattern on the pole is determined by the choreography of the dance. In a simple form, every other girl goes the opposite direction and alternates moving in front or behind the girls coming the other direction (see inset), weaving the ribbons around the pole. A challenge for the dancers is to retrace their steps exactly in order to unwind the ribbons.
Trinity United Methodist Church, currently located at Cambridge and Fifth in Marble Cliff, was originally established as the West Fifth Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church in 1891. It was located in a building at Fifth and North Star, which is currently a Veterinary clinic. In 1915, a new church building was constructed on Ashland Avenue just north of First. This 1921 photograph shows the church from Ashland looking east. The church was renamed the Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church when the building was built at that location, but changed its name again in 1920 to the Grandview Heights Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1943, by popular request, the name Trinity was again adopted by the church, which built a new sanctuary in 1951 (inset) at the present location. The Ashland building was razed to build the condominiums that are currently at First and Ashland.