History of Columbus, Ohio
In the 21st century, Columbus has been increasingly revitalized due to parks projects, new developments, and efforts to beautify individual neighborhoods.
[1] The area including modern-day Columbus once comprised the Ohio Country,[2] under the nominal control of the French colonial empire through the Viceroyalty of New France from 1663 until 1763.
Colonists from the East Coast moved in, but rather than finding an empty frontier, they encountered people of the Miami, Delaware, Wyandot, Shawnee, and Mingo nations, as well as European traders.
Named in honor of Christopher Columbus, the city was founded on February 14, 1812, on the "High Banks opposite Franklinton at the Forks of the Scioto most known as Wolf's Ridge.
Although the recent War of 1812 had brought prosperity to the area, the subsequent recession and conflicting claims to the land threatened the new town's success.
Early conditions were abysmal with frequent bouts of fevers, attributed to malaria from the flooding rivers, and an outbreak of cholera in 1833.
The National Road reached Columbus from Baltimore in 1831, which complemented the city's new link to the Ohio and Erie Canal, both of which facilitated a population boom.
Before the abolition of slavery in the South in 1863, the Underground Railroad was active in Columbus; led, in part, by James Preston Poindexter.
It housed 26,000 troops and held up to 9,000 Confederate prisoners of war at Camp Chase, at what is now the Hilltop neighborhood of west Columbus.
[22] North of Columbus, along the Delaware Road, the Regular Army established Camp Thomas, where the 18th U.S. Infantry organized and trained.
[24] The Columbus Consolidated Brewing Company also rose to prominence during this time and might have achieved even greater success were it not for the Anti-Saloon League in neighboring Westerville.
Today Ohio State's theater department has a performance center named in his honor, and his childhood home near the Discovery District is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Columbus Experiment was an environmental project in 1908 which involved construction of the first water plant in the world to apply filtration and softening, designed and invented by two brothers, Clarence and Charles Hoover.
The city tore down the arches and replaced them with cluster lights in 1914 but reconstructed them from metal in the Short North district in 2002 for their unique historical interest.
[28] On March 25, 1913, the Great Flood of 1913 in Columbus devastated the neighborhood of Franklinton, leaving over ninety people dead and thousands of West Side residents homeless.
To prevent flooding, the Army Corps of Engineers recommended widening the Scioto River through downtown, constructing new bridges, and building a retaining wall along its banks.
[29] Although the American Professional Football Association was founded in Canton in 1920, its head offices moved to Columbus in 1921 to the New Hayden Building and remained in the city until 1941.
The effects of the Great Depression were less severe in Columbus, as the city's diversified economy helped it fare better than its Rust Belt neighbors.
This time, most new arrivals were migrants from the "extraordinarily depressed rural areas" of Appalachia, who would soon account for more than a third of Columbus's growing population.
Efforts to revitalize downtown Columbus have had some success in recent decades,[35] though like most major American cities, some architectural heritage was lost in the process.
In the 1970s, landmarks such as Union Station and the Neil House hotel were razed to construct high-rise offices and big retail space.
[38] Coleman's administration led to Nationwide Insurance redeveloping the former Ohio Penitentiary site and nearby blocks into the Arena District.
Similar new construction and redevelopment was taking place in the Brewery District, and a flood wall was completed in Franklinton in 2004, finally letting development resume in the neighborhood.
[39] The Scioto Mile began development along the riverfront, an area that already had the Miranova Corporate Center and The Condominiums at North Bank Park.
The 2010 United States foreclosure crisis forced the city to purchase numerous foreclosed, vacant properties to renovate or demolish them–at a cost of tens of millions of dollars.
The city planned tax incentives of about $500,000, and looked to the company moving into the Franklinton, Easton, or Ohio State University areas.
