LOST PLACE  |
NOVEMBER 2007 – NO. 19 |
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19th-Century Columbus, Ohio
This old view of State and High streets shows the Clinton Bank corner on the southwest side. Authorized by the Ohio legislature in 1833, the Clinton Bank was once the only bank of deposit north and west of the Ohio River. It was a United States depository and handled money used for the construction of the National Road.
The rail car carrying Lincoln's body to Springfield, Illinois, for burial, stopped in Columbus on April 29, 1865.
The city's first professional baseball team was the Columbus Buckeyes. This 1884 club included Edward Dundon (fourth from the right), the first major league baseball player to suffer from deafness.
The massive Centennial Auditorium was built on the fairgrounds especially for the celebration. It could seat more than 10,000 people and its acoustics were said to be so perfect that a whisper could be heard all around the interior. Despite its $12,000 construction cost, it was intended as a temporary structure and razed shortly after the close of events.
One of the most spectacular fires in the city's history occurred on the evening of November 24, 1893, when a half block bounded by High, Spring, and Front streets, and Hickory Alley, went up in flames. The Chittenden Hotel, the Chittenden Hall, and the Henrietta and Park theaters were completely destroyed. The Chittenden Hotel was later rebuilt with fireproof material.
Mounted Columbus police splashed up and down streets during the flood of 1898, giving aid where they could. Not a single human life was lost in the disaster.
University Hall served The Ohio State University for nearly a century. Construction of this campus oval landmark was completed in 1873. The building was razed in 1970 to make way for a second University Hall, a near replica of the first.
The Ohio Penitentiary, ca 1900. For better or worse, the Pen was a Columbus landmark for more than 160 years. Facing Spring Street and sprawling back along Neil Avenue, it encompassed 23 acres. It ceased housing prisoners in 1984. The last of its buildings was demolished in 1998, making way for development of the Arena District.
The General, a century-old locomotive, pulled into Union Station on May 2, 1962, as part of the National Civil War Centennial Observance. One hundred years earlier, a group of Union soldiers from Ohio had captured the General from the Confederate Army.
From Historic Photos of Columbus by Nick Taggart. Copyright © 2007 Turner Publishing Company, and reprinted by permission of Turner Publishing Company.
Images courtesy Columbus Metropolitan Library Archive.
