A Historical Guidebook to Old Columbus. Bob Hunter

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      36. North side of State Street between High and Third Streets—A sixty-foot-long log cabin was erected here by William Henry Harrison’s supporters in April 1840, during his candidacy for president. His successful campaign had started in earnest on February 21, 1840, when a large, noisy, excited crowd of his supporters demonstrated for him at the corner of Broad and High in the pouring rain, after which the Whig Party’s Ohio convention was held on Statehouse Square. Thousands converged on Columbus and attended a parade in Harrison’s honor. The highest estimate was that 25,000 participated. Columbus had a population of just over 6,000 at the time.

      37. 55 East State Street—This location just east of the Ohio Theatre actually has a more extensive and in some ways more impressive theater history than its neighbor. John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, once appeared on the stage of a theater that stood here. The 1,500-seat Dramatic Temple opened on this site in 1855 and burned within a year. Another playhouse called the Columbus Theater was opened on the site by John Ellsler in 1857 and was remodeled and opened as Ellsler’s Athenaeum in 1863. Ellsler was a friend and business associate of Booth and brieffly came under suspicion after Lincoln’s assassination because the two men had shared a Pennsylvania cabin the previous summer to hatch plans for the development of an oil field on the property. Ellsler’s theater eventually closed, and in 1871, William Neil bought it, remodeled it, and opened it as Neil’s Athenaeum. He sold it two years later. In 1879, 300 seats were added and it became the Grand Opera House. A fire caused extensive damage in 1887, but it was reopened in 1892 with a new façade. A six-story building, which supposedly surrounded the old theater, was built sometime in the intervening years before 1900; the Grand Theater, later the RKO Grand, was the first in Columbus to show talking pictures. On January 23, 1927, Don Juan, the first partial talkie, was shown at the Grand. Almost a year later, the first all-talkie, Al Jolson’s Jazz Singer, played there to Columbus audiences. The building was destroyed by fire on June 15, 1934, and sixteen months later a completely new RKO Grand Theater opened there. The State Restaurant occupied the second loor of this building, and in 1938 or 1939 a young singer from Steubenville named Dino Crocetti, who had been hired by local band leader Ernie McKay, was heard twice daily from this spot on local radio station WCOL. Word of his talent eventually reached Cleveland, where he was hired by another bandleader in 1940 and changed his name to Dean Martin. Eddie Frecker’s was another small restaurant on the ground floor of this building; Frecker’s later became the big name in ice cream in Columbus. The theater was closed on May 13, 1969 and on January 8, 1970, while the building was being torn down, a cutting torch set it afire one final time.

      38. 39 East State Street—The old City Hall building rose on this spot, the current site of the Ohio Theatre, in 1869 and was completed in 1872. The 140-foot-high Gothic building was one of the city’s most prominent landmarks. The US post office, a Columbus Public Library reading room, and the city’s board of trade occupied the first ffloor, city council chambers and meeting rooms were on the second ffloor, and the third ffloor consisted of a public auditorium that could seat three thousand persons. A ball was held in the honor of former president Ulysses S. Grant and his wife on their visit here in 1879. The building was destroyed by fire on the night of January 21, 1921; humorist James Thurber covered the fire as a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch. The site stood vacant until Loew’s and United Artists’ Ohio Theatre opened on March 17, 1928. The Divine Woman, starring Greta Garbo and Lara Hanson, was the first movie shown there. Over the years, many prominent show business stars have appeared on the Ohio’s stage, including Jean Harlow, Jack Benny, Judy Garland, Buddy Ebsen, Milton Berle, Martha Raye, Ted Lewis, and Laurel and Hardy. In 1969, the theater nearly met the wrecker’s ball when Loew’s closed it and sold the building to a local development company. There were rumors that Governor James Rhodes wanted the site for a new state office tower, which was eventually built on the other side of Statehouse Square. In the efort to save the building, the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts (CAPA) was born, and several prominent local companies provided the financial support to save it. The building was restored to its original appearance during the 1970s, and in 1977 it was recognized as the “official theater for the state of Ohio” by the 112th General Assembly. To mark its fiftieth anniversary, a Jubilee Gala Performance took place on October 21, 1978. Bob Hope hosted Bob Hope’s All-Star Tribute to the Ohio Theatre, which also starred Ginger Rogers and Vic Damone and was videotaped and shown on the NBC television network on December 3. President Gerald Ford and his wife, Betty, unveiled a bronze plaque outside the theater designating it as a national historic landmark; they then joined other celebrities including Ohio Senator and Mrs. John Glenn, Ohio actress Lillian Gish, and Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes inside for the show.

      39. Southeast corner of State and High Streets—Lorenzo Martin Baker began working as a photographer in the early 1860s, and by 1896 he had founded the Baker Art Gallery at this site. It remained here until 1924, when it moved to another location on South High Street. Four generations of his family operated the studio until 1955.

      40. Southwest corner of High and State Streets—Harvey D. Little’s two-story brick dry goods store was located at this site in the early years of the city’s settlement. Samuel Barr built the first three-story building in Columbus here, and David W. Deshler ran a store in this building from 1830 to 1836. СКАЧАТЬ