USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > Centennial history of Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio, Vol. I > Part 26
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Columbus' Union Station-one of the finest in the country-is centrally located and reached by all the street railway lines within the city.
Columbus has one hundred and ninety-five miles of paved streets.
Columbus has one hundred and fifteen miles of street railway within city limits.
Columbus has two public service companies-supplying current for power and light at very low rates and water heat as well.
Columbus has many transfer companies and cold storage plants-some conducted on absolutely model lines.
Columbus can boast the possession of eight manufacturing establish- ments-each the largest of its kind in America.
Columbus has an abundant supply of natural gas, sold at a cheap rate to householders and factories.
Columbus consumes two million five hundred thousand tons of coal an- nually.
Columbus' manufactured product finds a market in every country on earth.
Columbus has the largest crushed-stone plant in the world.
Columbus produces a greater number of high-grade vehicles than any other city in the world.
Columbus' manufacturers of leather goods use one-seventh of the entire leather stock consumed in the United States.
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Columbus breweries have an annual output of beer amounting to seven hundred and fifty thousand barrels.
Columbus has more than twenty million dollars invested in her steel and iron industries.
Columbus has many "sky-scrapers"; and attractive office buildings are to be seen on every hand.
Columbus has twenty-eight banks, including nine national banks.
Columbus banks clearings for the past ten years is as follows: 1896, $87,606,600; 1897, $92,904,200; 1898, $104,640,400; 1899, $130,688,900; 1900, $134,634,500; 1901, $167,303,000; 1902, $207,655,700; 1903, $240,- 456,600; 1904, $236,937,000; 1905, $257,430,900; 1906, $274,131,600; 1907, $289,479,401; 1908, $294,500,000.
Columbus for twenty-five years has shown a greater per capita wealth than any city in the United States of approximately her population.
Columbus has twenty-two building and loan associations.
Columbus has twenty-nine educational institutions, inclusive of public schools.
Columbus has seven public libraries, containing over three hundred thousand volumes.
Columbus has many public institutions-state and national-enjoying distinctive reputation as such-of interest to visitors.
Columbus has, in public grounds, an area of nine hundred and twelve acres.
Columbus has, in parks, an area of one hundred and ninety-six acres. Columbus has, in other parks, an area of one hundred acres.
Columbus has recently made purchase of an additional park site, at the junction of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, where a bathing place, free to the general public, is to be established.
Columbus is planning a system of parks and boulevards; and has land- scape artists and engineers, of world-wide reputation, already engaged upon the work.
Columbus has recently unveiled a "Mckinley Memorial"-accepted as a splendid work of art, located at the main entrance to statehouse grounds.
Columbus has fifty-six newspapers and magazines printed within her limits.
Columbus uses more than forty thousand tons of paper annually in her printing offices.
Columbus contains the agencies of six different express companies.
Columbus has three telegraph companies.
Columbus has two telephone companies, with thirty thousand 'phones now in use-service excellent and cost to users reasonable.
Columbus has never had a disastrous fire. Her fire department. "one of the finest," sees to that.
Columbus has never experienced earthquake shock or cyclone blow- knowing no extremes of cold or heat.
Columbus is not handicapped by the periodic devastation of floods and overflows.
FRANKLIN COUNTY MEMORIAL HALL, EAST END. Erected in Commemoration of the Soldiers of Franklin County.
UNITED STATES BARRACKS AND GARRISON.
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Columbus has the "shops" of three of the great railroads entering the city, and the thousands of men, to whom they give employment, spend their earnings here.
Columbus has one steel car manufacturing plant, with an annual out- put of product valued at nearly five million dollars.
Columbus barracks is the largest military recruiting station in the United States.
Columbus federal building, by enactment of last congress, had appro- priated for its enlargement four hundred and eighty thousand dollars-work on this is now progressing.
Columbus postoffice business :- Total amount of business transacted (ex- clusive of the money order business done at the nine postal stations in the city) for the year 1906, was $4,179,282.24. Increase over the year 1906, $510,276.40. Later reports showing greatly increased per cent. Postoffice receipts, $610,486.04. Mail dispatched, 81,000,000 pieces. Mail received, 15,000,000 pieces. Special delivery letters delivered, 61,630. Special de- livery letters dispatched, 49,270.
Columbus contains the largest government pension office in the United States, and makes the largest distribution of money in payment of pension claims, amounting annually to more than sixteen million dollars.
Columbus has two splendidly appointed "country clubs," beautiful grounds, of large areage surrounding, with golf links, tennis courts, bowling alleys, etc.
Columbus has gun club grounds equal in their appointments to the best in the land, contemplating club houses, clay pigeon traps and rifle ranges. The club's membership numbers nearly six hundred.
Columbus Riding Club, with a membership of one hundred and twenty- five, owns its own kennel of hounds, chases the living fox, and has its "horse show" annually.
Columbus has base-ball grounds without superior in the country, a grand stand and bleachers with seating capacity of fourteen thousand. In season, her citizens and visitors enjoy base ball of a very choice quality and under the most pleasing auspices. The Columbus Base Ball Club constitutes as integral part of the "American Association"; and her "team" has been a "pennant winner."
Columbus' race track is famous throughout the country. The world's best horses are to be seen here from year to year; and the world's "harness records" are being made thereon, from time to time.
Columbus has forty-two public school buildings.
Columbus has five hundred and sixty-seven public school teachers.
Columbus has two universities of national and international reputation.
Columbus has two medical colleges combined in one whose degrees of graduation are recognized the world over.
Columbus has a number of business colleges-one of them, especially, taking high rank among institutions of a kindred character no matter where located.
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Columbus has an estimated church membership among her citizens of over forty thousand.
Columbus has one hundred and twenty-eight churches, eight chapels, and twenty-six missions.
Columbus is essentially a city of homes-thousands of her wage earners owning their own.
Columbus, in the past, has experienced a little of "labor troubles"; and there is no reason to believe that conditions will change in this regard in the future. Labor finds here a constant market for its wares, on a basis of fair wages ; and employers are disposed to accord it considerate treatment. The natural sequence of this is good understanding and a general content.
Columbus' State Hospital grounds comprise three hundred and twenty- five acres.
Columbus has twelve general hospitals, besides a number of private sanitariums.
Columbus is the center of traffic for the white-pine lumber producers of the south.
Columbus' death rate per 1,000 of population in 1907, all deaths in- cluded, was 13.65 local death rate, excluding non-residents, 11.29, excluding premature births, 10.94.
Columbus has one hundred and sixty-seven forty hundredths miles of sewers and is now engaged in building, at a cost of one million two hundred thousand dollars, a "sewage disposal plant," assuring the best sanitary con- ditions in this connection.
Columbus is completing a "garbage disposal plant," at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars. This plant will be built on lines, accepted by experts, as being in harmony with the most advanced thought on this subject.
Columbus, with her immense concrete storage dam-built across the Olentangy river-establishing a great reservoir or lake of over seven miles in length-is now assured of a water supply, in quantity, meeting any and all possible contingencies for generations to come, while her "purification and softening plant," in association therewith, at a cost of one million two hundred thousand dollars guarantees that the water, so supplied, will, in its purity, be healthful to drink; and, in its softness, "a thing of joy forever" to the bath, the laundry and the tubes of the boilers.
Columbus stands at the very threshold of Ohio's great coal fields-know- ing nothing of the troubles associating themselves with coal famine and its attending high prices. Fuel is cheap in Columbus.
Columbus is the greatest distributing center for tropical fruits, and hot- house vegetables in the state of Ohio.
Columbus' freight depots are centrally located and grouped in such way as to be conveniently accessible to shippers. The level surface of the streets is a constant source of saving to the manufacturer or merchant in the item of drayage alone.
Columbus has come to be preeminently the most important importing and breeding center for high-class French and German horses in America.
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Columbus is accepted as a most strategic point for the wholesaler in all lines ; and the business is growing enormously from year to year.
Columbus has been called the "Retailer's Paradise." This, doubtless, may be attributed to the wonderful volume of business done here in retail way, owing its source, in great measure, to the very populous and rich sur- rounding country, together with the extraordinary facilities the many rail- roads, steam and electric, extend to "shippers."
Columbus' main business thoroughfares are lighed by a system of elec- tric arches, spanning the streets. The effect at night is beautiful in the ex- treme, and must be seen to be appreciated.
Columbus offers four things to all those who may locate within her limits :- Great opportunities for a business success; a healthful climate; a law-abiding and kindly community; and rate privileges for those seeking educational advantages.
It is obvious that there were one or more great impelling forces that performed a major part in so shaping events and eventuations that it made it possible to reduce to epigrammatic statements the facts of history recorded in the foregoing pages. They were the public spirit of our former genera- tion of business men, and the courage and foresight of their contemporaneous bankers and financiers, and the wonderful transportation facilities they wrought, cooperating one with another for the common prosperity and prog- ress of a great state and its capital. Without them there would have been but little with which to have constructed the epitomization.
In 1858 and 1908.
In 1858 there were four railroads in a semi-completed state centering in Columbus, with as many more existing on paper, with a strongly em- phasized sentiment to eventually imbed them on terra firma. Columbus in 1908 has eighteen steam railway systems radiating from the common center, reinforced by eight electric suburban lines, radiating also to all points in the state, with new and important lines in progress of projection.
The history of the railway progress, between the beginning and fruition above outlines would constitute a long series of volumes. The achievement of one of these modern traffic and transportation enterprises is a replica of all the others, modified only by environment and the recession of the wave of progress at intervals. There is one of these railway systems that may stand as the type of all the others, as to the processes of evolution and vicissitude or triumph, especially because its center is Columbus and its field the great mineral district of the state and its mileage confined entirely to Ohio, al- though it connects with every other system touching or crossing the state. This is the great Hocking Valley system, extending northwesterly to the lake and southeasterly to the Ohio river, including the larger portion of the Muskingum valley.
Mr. F. B. Sheldon, assistant to President Nicholas Monsarrat, kindly volunteered to give the Genesis and Revelation of the Hocking Valley sys- tem as a contribution to the railway and business literature of the closing
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decades of the nineteenth century and the opening years of the twentieth, and this contribution, the author of the Centennial History of Columbus esteems of inestimable historical value in future years, and therefore gives it place in this connection, as infinitely more entitled to permanent record in history than aught he would be able to write on the subject. Mr. Shel- don says :
The Hocking Valley Railway Company.
April 14, 1864, The Mineral Railroad Company was incorporated to build a railroad from Columbus to Athens, Ohio, but beyond making pre- liminary surveys and-seeuring some rights of way, nothing was done towards the construction of the line. Mr. M. M. Greene, who was operating salt works at Salina (now Beaumont), Ohio, in the Hocking valley, seven miles north of Athens, in 1867 took up the project, and on June 26 of that year, by decree of the Franklin county common pleas court, the name was changed from Mineral Railroad Company to Columbus & Hocking Valley Railroad Company. Peter Hayden was elected president of the company and M. M. Greene vice president; the road was finally located and construction was be- gun. In 1868 the line was opened for traffic from Columbus to Lancaster. and in 1869 was completed as far as Nelsonville, where it reached the coal field.
Construction Finished.
July 25, 1870, construction was finished to Athens with a branch from Logan to Straitsville, in the coal district. The annual report of the president for the year 1870 stated; that the company owned twelve locomotives, eight passenger cars, three baggage cars, two hundred and seventy-nine coal, sixty box and twenty-six flat cars, in addition to which, private parties furnished four hundred and three coal cars, and that with all this equipment, together with one hundred and fifty other cars furnished by connecting lines, the company was unable to supply the demand for coal and would have to pro- vide more coal cars. The gross earnings of the line for 1870 amounted to three hundred and seventy-two thousand two hundred and twenty-nine dol- lars. In 1870 the population of the city of Columbus was thirty-three thou- sand and its subsequent substantial growth began with the building of manu- facturing concerns immediately upon the introduction of coal by the Hock- ing Valley line.
Increase of Earnings.
In the year 1871, the gross earnings increased to five hundred and forty- eight thousand nine hundred and forty-two dollars and the president's report for that year stated that a valuable trade for coal had been commenced through Cleveland to points on the lakes. The report further stated that the heavy traffic made it necessary to renew some of the rails, and that, in order to have a test between iron and steel, fifty tons of steel rails were purchased as an experiment and laid in sidings in Columbus yard under the heaviest wear of any part of the road.
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A New President.
In January, 1871, Benjamin E. Smith succeeded Peter Hayden as pres- ident of the company, M. M. Greene remained vice president, and J. J. Janney was elected secretary and treasurer. The directors chosen were: W. B. Brooks, C. P. L. Butler, Theodore Comstock, Isaac Eberly, John L. Gill, M. M. Greene, John Greenleaf and B. E. Smith, all of Columbus, John D. Martin of Lancaster, C. H. Rippey of Logan, and S. W. Pickering of Athens. The coal business of the line developed rapidly, the gross earnings for the year 1872 being eight hundred and fifty-four thousand eight and ninety-two dollars. The company trebled its number of coal cars and began to feel the need of proper outlets for traffic to points beyond Columbus, connecting lines being either unable or unwilling to furnish cars for the business offered their lines. It was thereupon determined to undertake the construction of a line to supply the great demand of the lakes and the northwest for Hocking Val- ley coal, and Toledo was selected as the most appropriate port. Accordingly on May 28, 1872, the Columbus & Toledo Railroad Company was incor- porated by M. M. Greene, P. W. Huntington, B. E. Smith, W. G. Deshler, James A. Wilcox and John L. Gill, and a preliminary survey was at once made.
The Toledo Extension.
October 15, 1873, the line was permanently located from Columbus to Toledo. The financial panic of 1874, however, made it necessary to defer for nearly a year the construction, which was commenced August 17, 1875; on October 15, 1876, the line from Columbus to Marion was opened for traffic, and on January 10, 1877, the first regular train ran through to Toledo, where the company had acquired valuable frontage on the Maumee river for the construction of docks.
February 22, 1877, The Columbus & Hocking Valley and Columbus & Toledo Railroad Companies entered into a contract providing for the joint management of the two lines and for the joint use of terminal property and facilities in Columbus.
During the year 1877, extensive docks were constructed at Toledo, and connecting lines at Toledo furnished an outlet to points in Michigan and Canada. In the meantime, The Columbus & Hocking Valley Railroad had continued to prosper. In December. 1874, M. M. Greene succeeded B. E. Smith as president, and in 1877, the Monday Creek and Snow Fork branches in the coal field were partially constructed and opened and seven iron fur- naces were in blast in the coal region.
Ohio & West Virginia Branch.
May 21, 1878, the Ohio & West Virginia Railway was incorporated to build from Logan, in the Hocking Valley, to Gallipolis, on the Ohio river, and some little grading was done upon this line, but no further progress was
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made until one year later, May 21, 1879, when Hocking Valley interests took up the project, amended the charter to extend from Gallipolis to Pomeroy, and commenced construction. October 15, 1880, the line was opened for traffic from Logan to Gallipolis, and January 1, 1881, to Pomeroy.
A Consolidation.
August 20, 1881, The Columbus & Hocking Valley and Columbus & Toledo Railroad Companies, and The Ohio & West Virginia Railway Com- pany were consolidated under the name of The Columbus, Hocking Valley & Toledo Railway Company, M. M. Greene continuing as president of the new company until July 1, 1886, when he was succeeded by Stevenson Burke, of Cleveland, who occupied the presidency for a few months ending January 11, 1887, the next annual meeting, at which John W. Shaw was elected president, continuing in office until August 30, 1889, when he resigned and was succeeded by C. C. Waite.
Mr. Waite came to the property with large railway experience and im- mediately set about the work of reducing grades, rebuilding bridges, and introducing heavier equipment upon the line, increasing the capacity of coal trains from thirty cars of seventeen tons each, to forty-five cars of thirty tons each, a gain of one hundred and fifty per cent, which brought the prop- erty up to the best standards of that day and assumed its position as the prin- cipal coal-carrying road of the state.
The Wellston & Jackson Belt.
In 1895, the Wellston & Jackson Belt Railway was built by The Hock- ing Valley Company from McArthur Junction to Jackson, through the Jack- son county coal field, affording a valuable feeder to the line, and was opened for traffic to Wellston December 1, 1895, and to Jackson February 10, 1896. While attending a banquet given to the officials of the Hocking Valley Rail- way Company by the citizens of Jackson, on the occasion of the opening of the line, President Waite took cold resulting in pneumonia, from which he died on February 21, 1896. Samuel D. Davis, vice president, became the executive head of the company until June 18, 1896, when he was succeeded by Nicholas Monsarrat as vice president, who has continued in charge of the property to date, becoming president of the reorganized Hocking Valley Railway Company March 1, 1899.
President Monsarrat's Administration to Date.
During Mr. Monsarrat's term of office radical improvements have been made in the capacity of the line for handling traffic; forty-ton and fifty-ton coal cars to the number of eight thousand have been added to the equipment, mogul freight engines have been superseded by consolidation engines of greater capacity, making a large increase in the loading of freight trains; improved machinery for handling coal and iron ore has been placed on the
FIRST OHIO PENITENTIARY.
THE OHIO PENITENTIARY.
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company's docks at Toledo, and the yards, sidings and station facilities of the line have been increased to take care of the growing traffic, the freight business of the company having doubled (in the past ten years) and its pas- senger traffic having made almost as great a gain as the freight during the same period.
Of the five seams of bituminous coal mined in the state of Ohio, four are to be found on the line of the Hocking Valley Railway, and through its connection wih the Kanawha & Michigan Railway at Athens it also receives shipments of coal and coke from the Kanawha and New river districts of West Virginia, and transports coal for shipment by lake to the amount of about two million tons yearly.
Although the carrying of bituminous coal and coke still form the prin- cipal business of the company, there has been a steady development along its line in manufacturing and particularly in steel and iron, stone, lime and clay products.
The Hocking Valley is the longest line of railway entirely within the limits of the state of Ohio, and occupying as it does a central position from the Ohio river to Lake Erie, passing through the capital, with branches in the populous regions of the coal fields, it is probably of more value to the state generally than any other local line of railway.
CHAPTER X.
STATE BUILDINGS, GOVERNORS, BENEFICES, LOCAL EVENTS.
January 26, 1838, the legislature passed an act providing for the erec- tion of a new state house on the public square in Columbus, which was the occasion of a grand illumination of the city. Colonel Noble, who kept the National Hotel, where the Neil House now stands, had the candles in his front windows so arranged as to form letters and spell NEW STATE HOUSE. In pursuance of said act, Joseph Ridgway, Jr., of Columbus, William A. Adams, of Zanesville, and William B. Van Hook, of Butler county, were, by joint resolution, appointed commissioners for carrying the law into effect. They were required to give notice to certain newspapers, and offer a premium of five hundred dollars for the best plan, to be approved by the legislature, upon which said house should be erected. A number of plans were fur- nished by various competitors for the premium, and Henry Walters of Cin- cinnati received the premium, though his plan was not adopted; but from the various plans furnished, the commissioners formed and adopted one somewhat different from any of the plans presented.
The Legislature Balks.
In the spring of 1839 the commissioners appointed William B. Van Hook, one of their own body, superintendent of the work. The high board fence was put up, and a good work shop erected on the square, and other
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preparations made for working the convicts within the enclosure, in the cutting of stone, etc., a vast quantity of which, obtained at Sullivant's lime- stone quarry, had been delivered on the ground during the preceding year. And on the Fourth of July, 1839, at a suitable celebration, the cornerstone of the new edifice was laid, and the foundation subsequently raised to a level with the earth, when the inclemency of the weather stopped the work, as was supposed, until the succeeding spring. But during the session of 1839-40, after the legislature's investigation of certain charges against Wil- liam B. Lloyd, a member from Cuyahoga county, for forgery in altering certain accounts and papers, a friend of Mr. Lloyd's drew up the following statement of confidence, etc., in said Lloyd :
"Columbus, Feb. 13, 1840. "Wm. B. Lloyd, Esq .:
"Dear Sir :- The undersigned, convinced beyond doubt, that the charge lately circulated against yourself is totally unsustained by the testimony re- lating to the matter; and the act charged, one of which it is impossible you should be guilty, beg leave, respectfully, to assure you of our undiminished confidence in the integrity of your character, and to express to you our sin- cerest wishes for your future happiness and prosperity."
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