AREA HISTORY

WESTERVILLE’S RICH HISTORY

Underground Railroad
Log cabin purported to be hiding place for runaway slaves when Samuel Patterson owned the property. Property later owned by the Leveques. Photograph taken in 1973.

The earliest settlers to the Westerville area…

…migrated from New England and Virginia before 1810 with their extended families and friends and settled in scattered family farms beginning at the southern end of modern Westerville.
The Westervelt family donated land for an institution of higher learning that eventually became Otterbein University, which admitted both men and women and had at its first two graduates two women.  William Hanby, one of the founders of Otterbein University moved to the area mid-century, and promptly continued his role as a stationmaster on the Underground Railroad.  In addition to Hanby House, Westerville boasts other stations on that famous road to freedom that still stand:  Stoner House and Tavern, Timothy Lee Homestead, and the homes of Sharp family members.  

By the mid-1870s an enterprising businessman, Henry Corbin, established a saloon which was promptly dynamited, ushering in the Westerville Whiskey Wars.  Four years later, he tried again in another location (the Clymer Hotel on State St.) which was destroyed by dynamite.  Henry gave up, and the war was over.   

After the railroad came to town in 1873, the last two decades of the nineteenth century started a period of significant business growth with the addition of the Everal Tile Company, Weyant Block building, Bennett Manufacturing, Bank of Westerville, and Holmes Hotel in the 1880s, followed by the Interurban Trolley, Vine St. School, and Westerville Creamery by 1900.  Seven of these buildings still exist, and six are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Westerville became the epicenter of the national temperance movement after the Anti-Saloon League moved its printing operation and headquarters Westerville in 1909.  By 1917 Westerville was the smallest town in the country to have a First-Class post office designation, and 85% of Ohio’s - and the nation’s counties were ‘dry.’  By 1919 the 18th Amendment was enacted.  Prohibition became the law of the land. 

The Prohibition era was over by December 1933, when President Roosevelt was able to issue a proclamation declaring the 18th amendment repealed.  Alcohol control became an issue of local-option contests in Ohio and 34 other states.  Westerville itself remained dry until the 1990s.  In an ironic twist of sentiment, business interests brought the Anti-Saloon League to Westerville, and business interests eventually brought liquor consumption back to town - allowing local restaurants the same options as their counterparts outside of Westerville.