District History

District History

The area known today as The University District was not originally part of the city of Columbus at all. Platted in 1812 as a new city to be the state capital, Columbus was a small town until late in the nineteenth century. The first boundaries of the city ran from Nationwide Boulevard on the north to Livingston Avenue on the south and from the river to what is now Parsons Avenue.

Fifth Avenue was a major east-west road because it included a shallow crossing of the Olentangy River and it also served as the northern boundary of the “Refugee Tract”. This parcel of land had been set aside for people from Nova Scotia who had lost their property because of their loyalty to the cause of the American Revolution.

The Columbus and Worthington Turnpike was the extension of High Street to the north of the city and until the 1850s most of the land on either side of the road was farmland. The biggest property owner was William “Billy” Neil, The Stagecoach King. In which is now the intersection of Dodridge and High Street, Neil established a town, which came to be known as North Columbus. Dodridge Street also led to another major crossing in the Olentangy and was the site of one of the few good bridges across that stream.

Dodridge did not become a major east-west road across the district. As the railroads moved up the Olentangy River Valley and later up the middle of the highlands between the Olentangy and Alum Creek, a major rail crossing was established where Mock Road crossed the tracks and ultimately became what is now Hudson Street in The University Area.

The major event in the evolution of the area was the decision to locate The Ohio State University on the site of the Neil farm in 1870. The University grew slowly at first, but began to expand significantly under the presidency of William Oxley Thompson from 1900 to 1925. As it did, fashionable residential suburbs grew up around the campus in places like the Dennison Addition and the Indianola subdivision with its curved roads and remarkable ravines.

But the well to do were not the only people to come into the area. The electrified streetcar made its appearance in Columbus in the 1890s and transformed the city. Working people could now live in The University District and make the thirty-minute journey to work in downtown Columbus. The end of the line was at the city limits at North Street.

As the University grew in size, the neighborhoods surrounding it did as well. Expediting that growth even more than the streetcar was the inexpensive availability of the automobile in the decade of the 1920s. No longer linked to the streetcar, neighborhoods could now be developed around the automobile. Suburbs developed in Clintonville, the Hilltop, and in new areas like Bexley and Upper Arlington.

This process slowed and finally stopped with the coming of the Great Depression and World War II. The Depression was a world wide economic catastrophe that affected every resident of Columbus during the 1930s. But it is fair to say that Columbus rode out the Depression better than most American cities because of its diversified economy. In the end, the enormous spending of the federal government to fight World War II brought Columbus and the nation out of the Depression.

At the end of World War II, The University District was still an area of more owners than renters. But this balance changed rapidly as the return of thousands of veterans sparked a huge adjustment of the economy. The return of good economic times meant that an entire generation could begin to indulge in the largest surge of delayed gratification in history. Sales of houses, cars and appliances accompanied the famous post-war Baby Boom. And with this general grown came growth at the University as well. After the end of World War II, the campus population doubled and doubled again. By the 1960s, the main campus was arguably the largest one in the United States.

To house all of these people, high-rise dormitories were built at both ends of the main campus and hundreds of owner occupied houses were either converted to rental units or town down to make way for apartment buildings. The ever increasing density of the campus area gave rise to severe problems of human and vehicular congestion, crime and trash disposal.

To cope with these problems, a number of new organizations came into being. Among these were The University Community Association, which was founded to be an umbrella for the neighborhood organizations in the area in 1961. In 1971, The University District Organization was created to be a neighborhood planning and development organization in the campus area. And in 1984, The University Community Business Association emerged as the voice of economic enterprise in The University District. All of these groups have been strongly supported by the university, local government and the major institutions in the community.

Working together, the various constituencies of The University Area have made remarkable progress in dealing with a series of complex problems and look forward with confidence to continued prosperity of this vital area in the years ahead.

The University District is located just two miles north of the heart of Downtown Columbus and accessible to nearly all the outlying suburban areas. It is easily accessible to the major routes into and around Columbus, including High Street, Route 315, Route 23, Interstates 71 and 70, and the many other roads transversing Columbus.

The District itself is nearly 2.8 square miles and is bounded by Fifth Avenue on the South, Arcadia (or more specifically, Glen Echo Ravine) on the North, the Olentangy River on the west, and the ConRail tracks on the east. Within its boundaries are many fine neighborhoods, student housing, and over six distinct commercial districts. The district supports over 650 businesses, human service agencies, churches, and schools, as well as The Ohio State University. It is the city’s most densely populated area.

The University itself serves over 65,000 students, faculty, and staff. Each day over 100,000 people enter The University District to attend the university, work, or shop. In addition, over 3.5 million people visit the university each year. This does not include the 100,000 plus people who visit Battelle Memorial Institute and Chemical Abstracts, also within the district.

The financial impact of the university in The University District and Columbus community is enormous. The university payroll is 500 million dollars a year, with a substantial portion of that money going into the Columbus budget through income taxes. It is estimated that the university infuses over one million dollars a day into the local economy, with the students contributing $250,000 of that amount. In addition, the university community contributes a substantial amount of money and time to the greater community through contributions and research.