Worthington real estate

Worthington history a presidential visit....

Yes it was newsworthy when President Obama visited a home on the northside of Columbus last Tuesday... The Columbus Dispatch called E. Kanawha  Clintonville.  The Toledo Blade called the neighborhood south of present day Worthington  Sharon Heights...

On August 25, 1817 President James Monroe visited the Village Green in Worthington.  Worthington was founded in 1803.

Worthington history

The Timeline on the Worthington Memory says August 25, 1817, President James Monroe visited the Worthington  Village Green.  The fifth US President, Monroe was the President from 1817 to 1825.   The original Village of Worthington is now the Old Worthington neighborhood.  The Village Green at the center is still there today.    Worthington Timeline

More about Worthington history

Worthington a New England village in Central Ohio

Happy Birthday St. John Epsicopal Church 

Worthington a part of the plan

August 10, 1803 the Scioto Company voted to name the town in Ohio "Worthington" after Thomas Worthington, one of Ohio's two first senators.

The Timeline on the Worthington Memory site tells me so.   Timeline of Worthington History

"1803 August 10" also according to the timeline the Scioto Company voted to fund the first library in Worthington on that date as well!  I have a note that says August 11 (but I do not know the year) Orange Johnson came to Worthington.  Not sure if that is on the Timeline of Worthington History too and I am just not seeing it now... the Village of Worthington sign shown here is the sign at North St.  and High St,  The sign across the street from the  Orange Johnson house.

Thomas Worthington - Ohio's first senator

Hmmmm wonder what the other senator's name was?  What if they had honored the other senator from Ohio?  I suppose I can find that info someplace.

More about Worthington history

Worthington and Parts Adjacent

Worthington A Part of the Plan

Worthington Ohio on this day in history

Worthington,  Ohio  -  July 10, 1919  Worthington history...

On the Worthington Memory Timeline

1919 July 10   - Worthington       

"Dr. George T. Harding II purchases the Joyce family summer home east of the village and begins to establish the Harding psychiatric hospital."  

An earlier  date  in 1916 the Worthington Memory Timeline -   Columbus and Central Ohio. "Dr. George T. Harding opens a rest home for women on E. 18th Ave., the forerunner of Harding Hospital." 

Dr. George T. Harding II was President Warren G. Harding's brother...

Worthington Memory has some great old photos of Harding Hospital, the Harding home on E. Dublin Granville Rd. and photos of the Hardings. My favorite?  A photo of the future President Harding making a public address in 1920 from the porch of the Columbus Rural Rest Home (the Harding psychiatric hospital.)

The faciilty is now owned by OSU? Recently I heard that there is NOTHING  going on at the site anymore but when I drove by shortly after there were cars there.

"In 1996, the University Hospital Board of Trustees formed a joint venture with Worthington’s Harding Hospital, the area’s only private hospital serving psychiatric patients. This integration allows clinicians to provide a comprehensive continuum of care and provides opportunities to develop and test new treatments and strategies to improve mental health care."

I wish a had a photo of a sign saying "Columbus Rural Rest Home" Worthington Ohio - July 1919

The nursing facility had various names over the years... The Worthington psychiatic facility was called the 'Columbus Rural Rest Home' in 1919 and into the 1920s.  It was called 'Harding Sanitarium' by 1940 according to one photo on the Worthington Memory site.  I remember hearing the hospital referred to as Harding Hospital in the 1990s. Looks like in 1996 the 50 acre site became Ohio State's Harding Hospital.

Worthington schools are called the Worthington City School District today.

The George Bleimes family moved from the east side of Columbus to High St. just  south of the Village of Worthington  in the 1920s. They had a Worthington mailing address.

The Bleimes family history by George Bleimes (the son)  says:

"My mother had been an elementary-level teacher before marriage and was critical of the “country” schools of the Worthington School District. Therefore my parents paid tuition for me to attend Columbus schools. Columbus buses did not come out as far as our home, so I had to ride the street car (trolley car). The fare was six cents; if you bought a strip of tickets they were five for a quarter."

A photo on the family history shows young George Bleimes and his father in front of The Delawanda, a "tea room" with a Worthington address.  The Delawanda "tea room" was where the Delawanda Park and Ride is now.  High St. just north of Old Beechwold.  I first saw the photo of The Delawanda on Flickr.

Worthington schools

If George Bleimes was born in 1923 he started school about 1928 or 1929... I would guess.   Worthington did not become a city until the late 1950s, so Worthington Schools would have been rural in the late 1920s and into the  1930s and after.

I think of "rural schools" or country schools having been one room school houses.   The photo here is of a Worthington school that was razed in 1937.  It is from Don O'Brien's Worthington photos on Flickr.  This one is shared with a Creative Commons license. He has other photos of the building.  The photos is part of Don O'Brien's My School: Worthington Ohio series.  His grandfather had attended school in this building in the 1800's.

The Sharon Township school north of Worthington is more what I think of as a country school, a photo of the Slate Hill School from the 1920s from Don O'Brien's Flickr photosteam.  That school building is used as a home and has been for years,  Click through to Flickr on the photo with the school childrena and there is a picture of the house on Flint Road O'Briend took in 2008.  

Times change... today where The Delawanda was where the Delawanda Park and Ride is (4300  4900 block of N. High St.)  is in the Columbus School District.   I believe that area was annexed into the City of Columbus in the  1950s, when Graceland Shopping Center was annexed.

Worthington School - Creative Commons license.  Thanks to Don O'Brien for allowing the photo to be used.  O'Brien is Dok1 on Flickr.  He has amazing photos of Worthington from the 1930s and 1940s, including photos of Worthington schools.

Information on selected Central Ohio schools including the Worthington and Columbus school districts and others, is on my website MaureenMcCabe.com - Central Ohio Schools public

Worthington trivia  from the  Timeline on the Worthington Memory site 

June 25, 1912   -  "Council passes resolution to install a public water works and water becomes available throughout the village the next year. " 

Sure enough further down on the timeline, in 1913 the Village of Worthington had water.

The Village of Worthington was what is now known as the Old Worthington neighborhood, from Morning St. to Evening St. and  from North Street to South St.  Worthington would not become a city until the 1950s.

Prior to getting water the Village of Worthington residents would have had individual wells.

Worthington Trivia or Worthington History - depeding on how you look at it.   The village was 100 years old 9 years earlier in 1903.

Today Worthington residents get water from the city of Columbus like most of Central Ohio... 

Home Market - Worthington Ohio  - 1941 

The photo is from March 1941, it was Lent...  look up to the right of the shop keepers head. "Birds Eye, Lenten Double Values, Haddock..." 

Home Market was a grocery store on High Street in Worthington. In a 1964 Worthington Chamber publication on Flickr an ad for Home Market gave the address as 660 High St. Worthington.   

660 High St. Worthington Ohio is  Scotties!

Worthington Memory a project of the Worthington Historical Society also tells me that the Home Market is the building which was Scottie Mac Beans for years,  now Scotties Coffee and Teas.

The photo is from Don O'Brien's Flickr Photostream.  O'Brien grew up on W.Wilson Bridge Rd in the 1930's and 1940's and has a great collection of Worthington photos.  O'Brien identifies the proprietor of the Home Market as Clyde Bachelor.  The Home Market photo is part of O'Brien's Worthington Business series on Flickr,

Home Market Ad - 1940

Worthington Streets- the business district

A 1980 Worthington Memorial Day Parade Photo on the Worthington Memory site says Home Market is in the background.  1980?  Really?  It is hard to believe a grocery store like that could have survived that long.  In the era when Don O Brien grew up there was a Kroger and an A and P right across the street on High Street in Old Worthington.

Image credit :   http://www.flickr.com/photos/dok1/ / CC BY 2.0

Worthington Ohio  1936 -1937

An abstract photo of a boy and his dog from the 1930s in Worthington Ohio is one of my favorites on Flickr.  It's another photo from Don O'Brien who shares photos on Flickr from his life growing up near Worthington in the 1930s and 1940s.  O'Briens shadow is there on the frozen Olentangy River, along with the reflection of Wilson Bridge.  In the description of the shot he says:  "Chink, the best dog I've ever known, crossing the Olentangy on ice during the winter of 1936-37"

When I drive across the bridge over the Olentangy river on Wilson Bridge Road I don't think of the present day bridge being "Wilson Bridge."    I think of it being a bridge on Wilson Bridge Road.  The bridge was relocated I believe. 

In fact on Worthington Memory (Worthington Historical Society) they have another one of O'Briens photos of the bridge from the 1930s and he says there  "This iron bridge replaced the wooden covered bridge over the Olentangy River at Wilson Bridge Road, which was washed away in 1911. The iron bridge was demolished during the construction of I-270 in the late 1960s."

Worthington Memory has photos of earlier versions of the covered bridge and says "The plot of land on the north side of Wilson Bridge Road was owned by William S. Wilson in 1910.

My favorite photo of Wilson Bridge is the reflection of the bridge with O'Brien on it as he looks down at Chink, his dog.

Worthington Ohio history in photos

Old Worthington really

The Kroger Grocery Store in Worthington   Old Worthington, High Street in 1939

Glee

Image credit and license   http://www.flickr.com/photos/dok1/ / CC BY 2.0 

Worthington Schools a bus on W. Wilson Bridge Rd. Don O'Brien  (Dok1 on Flickr)  calls his photo  "School Bus on Snow-covered Road  (1938)"

Mr. O'Brien who grew up in the Worthington area says  "I don't recall our school having any "snow days". The bus is a 1937 Dodge that replaced the 1929 Ford."

Wilson Bridge Road was north of Worthington in the 1930's. It was an unincorporated area in Sharon Township in the 1930s and after.    On another Worthington photo with a bus on Flickr, Don O'Brien says the Methodist Childrens Home was in the country north of Worthington.  Worthington did not grow much from 1803 to ???  the 1950s?  

130 W. Wilson Bridge Rd. -  Map today.

There is a discussion and another photo on the Flickr  photo showing what is at 130 W. Wilson Bridge today. 

More Old Worthington - not real old but older...  

When Worthington's W. Wilson Bridge Rd. moved

W. Wilson Bridge Road - Worthington history

Worthington Schools

Worthington History - Slate Hill Schools  - this was Sharon Township schools

Glee

Image Credit: Don O'Brien shared this photo with a Creative Commons license.  Visit his Flickr Photostream for lots of wonderful Worthington images   http://www.flickr.com/photos/dok1/ / CC BY 2.0

Worthington History - Slate Hill School was not the elementary school at 7625 Alta View Blvd. or even an earlier building on that site.  Slate Hill Elementary in the 1920's was on Flint Road, in the community of Flint, not City of Worthington.... nor City of Columbus.

The house that used to be the school housed grades one through eight is on the page with the picture of the Slate Hill school children from long ago.   A picture of the former school house from 2008 on Don O'Brien's Flickr photo stream.   The school is now a private home.  According to Worthington Memory the property on the west side of Flint Road's been used as a home since  1947.

O'Brien says of the photo of the school children:

"Grades 1 through 8 at the Slate Hill School in Flint, Ohio. I'm guessing at the 1920's date. Can anyone pinpoint the year more accurately?"

In the original size you can see the children and teachers faces better. 

Slate Hill School started as a one room log cabin according to the history of Slate Hill School on Worthington Memory. The school which is now a house was a two room school house built about  1870. 

According to Worthington Memory the Flint School was built in 1924 (or 1926... It says one, one place...lets just say  mid 1920's. ) Flint School  on Park Road (still standing but not used as a school since the 1960's had different grades in different rooms, each grade did not get it's own room.

Today some of the area is still in Sharon Township but many of the neighborhoods are in the City of Columbus and the Worthington City School District.

Worthington history - Flint Ohio

Worthington Schools  - Slate Hill Elementary School 7625 Alta View Boulevard Worthington OH 43085

Worthington Area History - the Flint Train Station (it's been moved from the original site)

Worthington Area  - Flint

 Photo Credit from Don O'Brien's Flickr photostream licensed licensed with a Creative Commons license.

Worthington, Ohio: 1939 is another of the historic photos in Don O'Brien's  Flickr Photostream. 

The car is a 1939 Packard ambulance according to O'Brien's notes. The owner according to O'Brien was S. E. Corbin and Son Funeral Directors, so it is a hearse?  Ambulance and hearse were the same thing?

In the background you can see the Worthington Village Green, St. John's Episcopal Church and an little bit of the Kilbourne Building which would have been the Worthington Library in 1939.

I'd assume Don took the photo in early December.  No snow.  A picture across the Worthington Green would be white today in 2009, but the snow came after Christmas Day.

Worthington, Ohio history

Don O'Brien's Flikr Photostream is a great place to see Worthington Ohio in the 1930 and 1940's (link below.)   This picture was taken in December 1939 for a full page advertisement for the funeral home in the Worthington News.

More about Worthington, Ohio history:

Worthington, Ohio history

Old Worthington the Old Worthington neighborhood today was the original Village of Worthington which was settled in 1803.  The Village had not grown much (at all?)  by the time Don O'Brien was growing up in the Worthington area in the 1930's and 1940's.

Image credit and creative commons license