The Most Impossible Rise of a City Ever: Columbus, Ohio

Video Overview & Insights

Columbus, Ohio was built on nothing — no harbor, no mineral deposits, no navigable river. In 1812, four land speculators offered the state legislature twenty acres of forest in exchange for the capital designation, and a city was conjured into existence by a handshake and a real estate deal. This is the story of how that city — with no natural advantage of any kind — grew to become the largest in Ohio, surpassing Cleveland and Cincinnati combined, while nearly every other industrial city in the Rust Belt lost half its population.

It follows the money and the decisions: the $50,000 founding deal, the 22-year construction of the Ohio Statehouse that went three times over budget, the Columbus Buggy Company that became the largest light vehicle manufacturer in the world before the Great Flood of 1913 destroyed it in a single week, the LeVeque Tower that made Columbus home to the fifth-tallest building on earth, the Lazarus department store whose owner convinced FDR to move Thanksgiving, the Nationwide Insurance empire that started with a $10,000 loan from Ohio farmers, and the annexation strategy that one mayor used to keep Columbus from being strangled by its own suburbs. Grand hotels, lost architecture, financial turning points, and the question of why some American downtowns survived and others didn't.

Sources:

Ohio Legislative Service Commission, A Guidebook for Ohio Legislators, Chapter 12: "Statehood to Statehouse" (lsc.ohio.gov)

Columbus Association for the Performing Arts, Ohio Theatre history (capa.com)

All Columbus Data, population and annexation records (allcolumbusdata.com)

SAH Archipedia, entries on the Ohio Statehouse and LeVeque Tower (sah-archipedia.org)

WOSU Public Media, "Curious Cbus: When Canal Boats Floated Through Ohio" and Franklinton lesson plans (wosu.org)

Wikipedia, "Columbus Buggy Company," "Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company," and "Great Flood of 1913 in Columbus, Ohio" (en.wikipedia.org)