The National Historic Registry has over 80,000 places listed throughout the country, with over 3900 in Ohio, of those 159 are in the city of Columbus. This fairly lengthy posting details those along one of Columbus’s primary street, the aptly named 6 to 8 lane Broad Street.
Some of the properties are in excellent shape, while others are in need of some TLC. Through a number of online sources, including the Ohio Historic Places Dictionary, I was able to pull together some highlights of each property.
Our first stop was on the near west side in Franklinton at the Franklinton Apartments. Located at 949-957 West Broad Street the building was completed in 1920, and is still functioning today as an apartment building.
We would’ve had more photos except for the very sketchy looking people hanging out along the sidewalk on the side of the building, despite the No Loitering sign on the building.
| Gen. William Henry Harrison Headquarters – | 570 W. Broad St |
When Ohio became a state in 1803, there was significant debate on where the capital should be located. Originally set in the southern Ohio town of Chillicothe, and briefly in Zanesville, it was decided in 1816 to build a new town across the Scioto River from Franklinton in the center of the state. As a result the near west side of the city of Columbus was originally the town of Franklinton.
This house was built around 1807, as one of the few brick buildings in Franklinton. It remains one of the few remaining buildings from the Franklinton era. During the War of 1812 it was used by General (future President) William Henry Harrison as his headquarters for the Northwest Army. Later during the Civil War a confederate spy lived in the home.
A smaller house is locate in back.
| Engine House No. 6 | 540 W. Broad St |
This 124 year old building served as a fire engine house until 1966, when it was sold and used for a variety of businesses, as evidenced by the dilapidated sign for Jimmy Rea Electronics. A non profit historic preservation group, Heritage Ohio, has purchased it with plans to renovate it as their offices, with retail on the 1st floor.
As with most of the early fire stations this one has a tower attached for drying the hoses.
| Toledo and Ohio Central Railroad Station | 379 W. Broad St. |
This unique former railway station was designed by Frank Packard and Joseph Yost, both noted Columbus architects of the late 1800-early 1900s. It was designed in an Art Nouveau styling uniquely accented with Japanese touches like the pagoda tower. While the pagoda stands out now, it matched the motif of the Macklin Hotel that was present next door until being torn down years ago.
Even though it now seems Japanese in style, it was actually rooted in French and Swiss feudal architecture. The tower originally had 3 large clocks facing all sides, except the railroad tracks. Originally the tracks crossed the street at grade level, but was raised in 1910. The construction of the elevated tracks resulted in a fire that burned the roof of the depot.
In 1930 the passenger service moved to Union Station, making the stations obsolete. New York Central Railroad then sold the station to the Volunteers of America for $1, since the VOA had lost their building on Front Street to eminent domain for the building of the State Office complex. In 2007 the Firefighters Union bought the station and restored it for their use. After 100 years of service, and multiple floods and fires, it stands proudly as a great architectural wonder.
The older photo shows the now demolished hotel along with the station.
| Wyandotte Building | 21 W. Broad St. |
Built in 1898 by Daniel Burnham, the famed Chicago architect, the Wyandotte is Columbus’s first skyscraper. As with the other tall buildings of the era, it incorporated the new technologies of steel frame and safe elevators to rise to the dizzying height of 11 floors. The bay windows were to allow as much light as possible in these early days of the electric light bulb.
| Hayden Building and the New Hayden Building | 20 E Broad St & 16 E. Broad St. |
The Hayden Building was completed in 1869, and remains to this day as the oldest building on Capitol Square. Next door is the New Hayden Building, which at 13 floors surpassed the Wyandotte Building as the tallest building in town when completed in 1901. Both buildings are currently undergoing renovation. For this building we have a ‘then and now’ look at it.
| Trinity Episcopal Church | 125 E. Broad St |
Trinity Episcopal Church is a historic church at 125 E. Broad Street in Columbus, Ohio. It was built in 1866 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. It continues to serve as a church, as well as a community center including a restaurant in the basement that feeds the homeless.
Athletic Club of Columbus 136 E. Broad St.
The Athletic Club building was completed in 1915 in a Spanish Renaissance Revival style with Italian influences. Designed by Richard, McCarty & Bullard, it has changed little in the 100 + years it has stood in downtown Columbus.
It’s members have included a president (Harding), multiple governors and other business and political leaders.
| Yuster Building | 150 E. Broad St. |
The eight-story building at the corner of Third and Broad is now called the Empire Building. Designed and built by Frank Packard in the 1920s, it has a two-story base faced in stone features Gothic-inspired relief sculpture and ornamental grilles, and the lobby has a vaulted ceiling with decorative plasterwork and ornamental light fixtures,”
Benjamin Smith House 181 E. Broad St.
Built in 1860 and now occupied by the Columbus Club, it has been the residence of multiple Ohio governors, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built by Benjamin Smith, a railroad contractor and banker following the Civil War, the home had bricks that were made in Philadelphia and shipped to Columbus.
Mr Smith lost his fortune over time and was forced to sell the house. Two governors then lived there, however the pay for governor was so low, the second Joseph Foraker, had to vacate the house because they couldn’t afford to heat it. The Columbus Club purchased it in 1886, and retains ownership to this day.
| Seneca Hotel | 361 E. Broad St. |
Yet another Frank Packard design, the Seneca Hotel was completed in 1917, with the additional four story addition on the east side of the building being erected in 1924. It served as a hotel until the late 1950s, when it became a school called the Nationwide Beauty Academy, with the hotel rooms becoming dormitories.
One of the unique requirements of living there during this time was ‘Girls living in the dorms must be in by 11 p.m. week nights and 1:30 a.m. on weekends, and men and liquor are taboo in the girls’ rooms, as are bare feet in the lobby or hair curlers in the cafeteria.’
It then served as the headquarters of the Ohio EPA from 1976 until 1987, then at vacant for nearly 20 years before a restoration project turned it into a 76 unit apartment building.
Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts 480 E. Broad St.
The Columbus Museum of Art was built on the location that once was home to the Sessions Mansion. As with the Athletic Club, it was designed by Richards, McCarty and Bulford, and opened in 1931. An additional, much larger building was added in 2005.
| Broad Street United Methodist Church | 501 E. Broad St. |
This church was opened in 1885 as a state of the art church in what is known as an ‘Akron Plan’, which is a design where there were wings radiating from the main church for uses like Sunday school. It was designed by Joseph Yost, who had done many major Columbus buildings and churches.
The exterior design is in a High Victorian Gothic style, using masonry materials, point arch bays, and numerous gabled roof lines and towers. The highlight is the green serpentine stone as facing on the brick walls, with limestone and sandstone for the base. This serpentine was replaced with designer stone in 2008.
The wall that fronts Broad Street has art glass windows that came from the Central Church when it was demolished. The east wall has windows that were installed in 1908.
W.H. Jones Mansion 731 E. Broad St.
The W H Jones Mansion was built in 1889 in the Queen Anne style, with a corner turret, third story ballroom and a matching carriage house in the rear.
Jones modeled the mansion after a home in the small town of Barnesville, Ohio, not realizing that his model house was designed to ward off evil spirits, with a number of sevens and threes in the design. It has seven gargoyles built on his home’s exterior, seven steps going up to the porch, seven posts in one section of the front staircase, three vertical rows of seven horizontal blocks in the interior paneling, and so forth.
Central Assurance Company 741 E. Broad St.
Even though this building was completed at the end of the Art Deco period, it is one of the few examples in Columbus, therefore a significant building. This streamlined commercial building is built directly next to another National Historic Registry building built in a Tudor Revival style, with half timbered 1920s apartments.
Completing this most unique block is a 1880s Italianate home with a large L shaped porch. While it remained in the same family for almost 100 years, it has been a rental property for the last few decades.
| East Broad Street Presbyterian Church | 760 E. Broad St. |
This church was completed in stages, the first being in 1887, then additions in 1894, 1908 and 1924. Elah Terrell was responsible for the initial design with Frank Packard contributing to the 1908 expansion. It is built in a Romanesque style. As part of the National Register of Historic Places since 1987, it remains a church as well as a community center serving a food pantry open to the public.
| Garfield-Broad Apartments | 775 E. Broad St. |
This apartment building was built in an Old English Tudor Style with a courtyard. The building is in the traditional brick and half timber construction with stone ornaments and diagonal basket weave and herringbone brickwork, terra cotta roping and other touches. It was completed in 1929, after being designed by Galbreath and Leonard.
| Joseph-Cherrington House | 785 E. Broad St. |
The Joseph Cherrington House is significant as representing the earliest period of residential development along East Broad Street and for it’s Italianate style architecture. The house is the second oldest building out of the five remaining Italianate examples along this street. It displays distinct Italianate characteristics through it’s low pitched hipped roof, tall narrow windows with carved stone segmental arched hood molds, bracketed stone sills and a brick stringcourse under the cornice with frieze windows.
Wilden E Joseph was affiliated with the Patton Manufacturing Company. In 1930 Mr Harold Cherrington and his wife purchased the home. Cherrington was the dramatic editor of the Columbus Dispatch, and later a noted reporter journalist and publicity man.
| Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church | 787 E. Broad St. |
Saint Paul’s Church was established in 1839, with the first building being at Mound and Third in downtown Columbus being built in 1842. With the growth of the east side, the church moved to the ‘outskirts’ of town in 1904 with this building. As with many of the downtown churches, The episcopal closed in 2011, but now serves the Shiloh Christian Center.
Carrie Lovejoy House 807 E. Broad St.
A two and a half story residence with massing and ornamentation, the Carrie Lovejoy House reflects the residential development along East Broad Street. When this house was build around 1900 E Broad Street was considered the most fashionable street in the city.
This house display elements of the colonial revival style in its classical details including the third floor dormer with palladian window, bracketed eaves, and a multi pane window entrance portico with paired Doric columns.
Carrie Lovejoy was the widow of Nathan Lovejoy, who was in the lumber business. He operated a sawmill in the city in the late 19th century. Carrie moved into this house after his death and lived there until 1914.
| C.E. Morris House | 875 E. Broad St. |
This Queen Anne two and a half story brick house was built in the late 1800s in a Romanesque Revival style with the massive asymmetrical elements. Other noted features include the para-petted gables with stone, high stepped chimneys and irregular fenestration with the windows capped by cut stone lintels. The porch on the north facade is supported by heavy squat French Romanesque columns. The facade is also defined by an octagonal tower on the west.
Built around 1897 it was the home of C E Morris, owner of Morris Ironworks, who was also a real estate attorney, and president of the Hotel Lincoln Company. They lived there from 1897 to 1924.
| Erwin W. Schueller House | 904 E. Broad St. |
The house was built for him in 1909 where he lived until his death in 1914. Built in the Queen Anne style, the house is two and a half stories of brick construction with a slate hip roof, front bay windows and second story round arched window. Dr. Schueller’s wife Sara continued to live there until around the mid-1940s when it was converted to offices. The house had a few other owners. Notable ones include The Ohio Nurses Association had their offices there in the 1950s. In the 1980s, the home housed the National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees’ local chapter. Their membership declined and they lost tenants and were unable to maintain it.
When a home restorer bought the home in November of 2007 it was not habitable. Restoring the slate roof was the first order of business, as it had over 80 leaks. Using old photos he was able to restore much of the home to the original look. The link below has a great article detailing the amazing work it took to bring back this grand home.
Columbus underground https://www.columbusunderground.com/at-home-returning-an-olde-towne-east-home-to-its-original-splendor
| Linus B. Kauffman House | 906 E. Broad St. |
Built 1870 Another Italianate style with outstanding and ornate carved stone ornamentation. Low pitched roof, tall narrow chimneys wide eaves supported by brackets, frieze windows, long narrow windows with carved stone lintels, and bracketed stone sills. Linus Kauffman was VP of the Kauffman Lattimer Company, wholesale druggists lived here from 1907-1931, with his wife Clara residing there until 1936.
Clara was an active woman, being a supporter of the suffrage movement, the president of the YWCA, as well as active in numerous historic societies.
| Cambridge Arms | 926 E. Broad St. |
Built in 1928, the Cambridge Arms Apartments was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, but was removed in 1987 because of owner objection. They now advertise they are indeed on the Registry.
The concrete building rises 9 floors and has a height just under 100 feet. The building was home to many notable families at the time, including the Wolfe family who owned the Columbus Dispatch newspaper.
| Soloman Levy House | 929 E. Broad St. |
Another turn of the century residence, this one was built in the Arts and crafts movement style of American architecture (aka FLW) Prairie style through its ribbon windows, high water table, smooth stone stringcourses and horizontal emphasis. Levy was the founder and president of the union clothing company, now the Union, established in the late 1890s.
| Sharp-Page House | 935 E. Broad St |
This 1889 Queen Anne, one of 16 remaining 19th century single family residences along East Broad Street in original condition. Projecting pediment bays with slate trim and double hung one over one windows, arched windows, rusticated stone lintels and smooth stone sills, an entrance with transom and double doors and decorative wood window trim. An ornate tower with a conical roof on the west side of the house. Built for Dr Amos Sharp and Elmer Sharp (a real estate broker). Today it serves as a women’s health center.
The next few make up a block featured in the old photo below.
957 E Broad Street was the Bible Mediation League building in 1948. Previous owners include real estate agent Perin B Monypeny and Frank Hickock manufacturing agent. It is now an office for the Community Housing Network.
| Shedd-Dunn House | 965 E. Broad St. |
The Shedd–Dunn House is also known as Noverre Musson & Associates, Architects. The house was built in 1888 and is of the Queen Anne architectural style. The home originally belonged to Frank J Shedd, who was a partner in E E Shedd Grocers. It later became the home of Eggleston Dunn of the Dunn Taft Store.
Heyne Zimmerman House 973 E Broad Street
This home is a 2.5 story tan brick, and red mortar structure with Colonial Revival characteristics, but has Classical detailing, including a Doric columned porch with full entablature and bracketed eaves and cornice with modillions. The roof is hipped and windows are one over one. A one story addition was added to the rear of the house.
It was built around 1911 when Carl G. Heyne, president of the American Cash Register Company lived there until 1914. In 1918 Charles Zimmerman, manager of the Ohio Auto Sales Company purchased the house where he lived until his death in the early 1930s. His widow Ottie Zimmerman lived there until the 1940s. It was put on the National Historic Registry in 1987.
| Hanna House | 1021 E. Broad St |
A 5900 square foot house, built in 1900 this buff colored brick on a stone foundation house features a tile hipped roof. Built by James Hanna, founder of the Hanna paint company. The house features carved woodwork, leaded and stained glass windows, a grand staircase and most of the original light fixtures.
| Broad Street Christian Church | 1051 E. Broad St. |
First organized in 1870, this build was designed and built in 1907. It’s architecture is Arts and Crafts with the Mission style through its use of rough faced stone wall treatment and smooth stone trim, bracketed wide eaves, side entrances with bracketed roofs and square corner tower with hipped roof and round corner turrets. Also features round stained glass windows, tile roof and parapet supported by squat Tuscan columns.
In 2009 the church was sold to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, serving new generations to this day.
| Johnson-Campbell House | 1203 E. Broad St. |
Something different – a Georgian and classical influence with rusticated quoins, modillions under project eaves. Tuscan doric columns, round arched windows with fanlights, and chimneys. It was owned by Edward Johnson, president of the Lorain Coal and Dock Company from 1906-1912, and Joseph Campbell president of the National Bank of Commerce for the next 30 years.
Frank J. Kaufman House 1231 E. Broad St
Yet another Queen Anne with the conical roof and irregular massing built at the turn of the century. A two story carriage house with singled gables is in the rear. This house’s current paint scheme makes a statement.
| Old Governor’s Mansion | 1234 E. Broad St. |
The Old Governor’s Mansion was built in 1904 as the estate of Charles Lindenberg. It was designed by Frank Packard in a Colonial revival style. Until 1917 the State of Ohio did not maintain a residence for the Governor, instead they were on their own in finding a place to live. In December of 1916 Governor elect James Cox thought he had found a home to rent at 940 East Broad Street, where the outgoing Governor Bushnell lived. Unfortunately for Cox in incoming Secretary of State W D Fulton also needed a place to live and beat Cox to renting 940 East Broad, living him nowhere to live. Cox had to rent a room in a hotel.
Embarrassed by this, the Ohio General Assembly appointed a committee to find a Governor’s Mansion. They eventually settled on the Lindenberg Mansion, with it’s wide staircase and Tiffany glass. Despite the ornate trappings of their mansion, the Lindenbergs actually sold the home to the state of Ohio at a loss.
Photo during the time it served as the Governor’s Mansion
Once the state purchased the home they began a complete remodel, as well as razing the home next door to make room for a garden. The furnishing for the home were made by prisoners at the Mansfield Reformatory. In 1920 Governor Cox was finally able to move in. He, and 9 subsequent governors and their families called this home during a 36 year period before the state purchased another mansion in Bexley for the new governor’s mansion.
This historic site is said to be haunted by an African American woman in a blue dress who is believed to have died in a fire in the mansion. Staff at the site have reported paintings rearranged after hours. Investigators say that the apparition of a female in turn-of-the-century clothing for a housekeeper has been seen multiple times in the mansion. The unmistakable smell of burning hair and skin is reportedly still detected by visitors to the mansion.
Franklin Park Conservatory 1547 E. Broad St.
In 1852, the Franklin County Agriculture Society purchased 88 acres located two miles east of downtown Columbus as a site for the first Franklin County Fair. In 1874, that land was made the official grounds of the Ohio State Fair. Ohio Legislature passed a resolution declaring the site as Franklin Park and open for public use in 1884.
With the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, the city of Columbus was inspired to creature a horticulture building influences by the Exposition’s Glass Palace. That grand Victorian-style glass greenhouse is now known as the John F. Wolfe Palm House, it opened to the public in 1895 as Franklin Park Conservatory.
Our trip across Broad Street was interesting and educational. With so many great buildings on the National Historic Registry I encourage you to check out your town’s contribution to this list.
