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We got ourselves a facelift!
Surprise! If you were looking for ClintonvilleHistory.com or ClintonvilleHistory.org, you are in the right place. Due to circumstances beyond my control, my ClintonvilleHistory web site had to be redesigned. Thanks to Ellie at Centipede Graphics and Chris from Cube Development for making this happen.
The content is the same as the original site. Inevitably there will be some hiccups with the transition, so if you spot anything that needs to be fixed or areas to be improved, be sure to let me know by emailing me at clintonvillebook @ gmail.com.
Clinton Chapel Cemetery
Joe Smith alerted me that part of the Good home, at 45 East California, (just east of the former Southwick Good & Fortkamp Funeral Chapel) is on the market. You can see it here.
The photo accompanying this post is a recent satellite view with the 1910 Baist map overlaid. Joe has asked me to post the following message:
[Post courtesy of Joe Smith]For the first time in 80 years, the eastern half of the old Clinton Chapel Cemetery is for sale. (The rest of the former cemetery is under the BFA school parking lot.) I would love to buy the land (have the house moved) and give it back to Clintonville as a public-use memorial garden. But I need your help!
I am trying to connect with everyone I can who has relatives originally buried there (at least 14 of mine were!). Following is a list of those surnames as they appear on Lauren Clark’s Central Ohio Grave Search website:
Smith (12)
Bull (7)
Kiner (6)
Webster (5)
Loy (4)
Tripp (3)2 each for:
Bacon, Boyer, Cline, Coe, Ferguson (or Furguson), Field, Hunt, Mock, Moon, Sawyer, Weber, and Wilson1 each for:
Beckley, Brevoort, Cole, Crick, Crowhurst, Haddock, Johnson, Labur, Meteer, Moore, Newfer, Piatt, Price, Ramsey, and RottermanIf you or someone you know is related to anybody originally buried at Clinton Chapel Cemetery between 1823 and 1878, I would love to hear from you! Email me at jwsiv99 @ yahoo.com. I also have tons of additional historical information about these sacred grounds to share.
Beth Tikvah in Clintonville
I recently learned that Congregation Beth Tikvah–a synagogue currently located at 6121 Olentangy River Rd in Worthington–was once located at 3392 North High (southeast corner of North High and East North Broadway). The congregation met there from July 1962 until development plans for that corner required that they move. According to this February 1968 news article, they located a building to purchase after much hunting and just in time. In March they moved to 3199 Indianola until they built a new larger synagogue in 1981.
The 3392 N High assembly-house location was a house that was torn down to make way for an office building–this is the current white office building at 3400 N High. I do not have any pictures of the older Beth Tikvah building but would love one!
Here‘s a very nice history of Beth Tikvah written by one of its members and past presidents Marty Seltzer.
As a small sidenote: this is another location near that corner, probably also torn down to be replaced by the larger white brick building. This is a 1965 picture of a building at 3382-3384 North High, 1 or 2 doors south of the Beth Tikvah assembly house. It housed a dentist in the front, a doctor in the back, and also had space upstairs for another professional.
(Newspaper articles courtesy of the Columbus Dispatch and accessed from the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s NewsBank database. The 3384 N High photo is from the library’s MLS database. The synagogue shared their history with us.)
Tropicana Record Bar (3361 N High)
On November 10, 1945, Lloyd Hinton–the owner of Clintonville Electric–opened the Tropicana Record Bar at 3361 North High. It was described as having “a continental atmosphere… with four recording rooms each complete with custom-built high-fidelity sound equipment.” Another description called it a “tropical motif with cabana style wall settings and palm trees completing an atmospheric layout” with 5 listening rooms. The store sold records and record players, and hosted music celebrities for signings and photo ops.
Unfortunately in September 1953, a raging fire destroyed the Tropicana Record Bar and the restaurant next door. It began in the basement and became an intense fire, “felling” 15 firemen (all of whom survived). Lloyd Hinton owned the record business and said his loss was estimated to be $5000 (several thousand records). The owner of the buildings (Sam Spandos and his brother) stated the property was almost a total loss.
In March 1954, Hinton announced the opening of a new sales room for Clintonville Electric Appliances at 3361-3363, taking over the spaces after the fire destroyed the businesses at those addresses.
(Images courtesy of the Columbus Dispatch, accessed via the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s NewsBank database. Specific citations can be found by clicking through each link.)
Clintonville Electric
In my previous post, I described the progressive “takeover” of the addresses 3361 North High through 3367 North High, by the business Clintonville Electric [Appliance] Store. Lloyd Beaman Hinton owned that business.
From the library:
Lloyd Beaman Hinton (6/3/1904 – 4/18/1994) is said to have founded Clintonville Electric Company in 1939. Hinton was an appliance salesman in Springfield, Ohio before moving to Columbus and becoming manager of Clintonville Electric at 3367 North High. He ran and expanded the business for 20 years until his stepson, Phillip William Karshner (6/1/1934 – 7/9/2022) took over. Karshner retired in 2004 and sold the business to Paul Holmes, Scott Jester and Tom Cover. The store moved to 2136 Bethel Road the same year and was closed in 2008 due to bankruptcy.
Some very nice photos can be found on the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s web site here. You’ll see photos of the founder Lloyd Hinton, and employees, as well as some terrific pix of the interiors and exteriors of the business.
In 1945, Lloyd Hinton lived at 35 West North Broadway (but it seems he was renting that home) and later at 541 Walhalla (and eventually on Teteridge.)
(Link courtesy of The Columbus Metropolitan Library, Local History & Genealogy Dept.)
3361-3367 N High
This is a terrific picture of the 3361-3379 block of North High Street. To the left (south), at 3361 N High, is the Tropicana Record Bar. Next to that at 3363 N High is the Clinton Inn Restaurant. 3365 N High was occupied by J. L Oelgoetz Plumber; 3367 N High by Clintonville Electric. Then there are 2 more addresses (hidden behind the streetcar) to the south of the Clinton Theatre; one was a real estate broker and the other a beauty shop during this era. The Tropicana Record Bar opened in 1948, as a branch of Clintonville Electric. It burned down in 1953, along with the Clinton Inn Restaurant next door. So, the photo was taken between 1948 and 1953.
Real estate-wise, 3361-3367 N High are part of the “Chesnut Addition” (platted in 1895); the theatre at 3379 N High is part of the “John R Dunlap North Broadway Extension.” The first building shows up at 3361 N High in 1920 according to the 1920 Baist Real Estate Atlas for Columbus, but no buildings at 3363 or 3365 do. I cannot determine exactly when the other buildings were put there but they are there by 1936.
There were originally 2 additional addresses immediately north of the Brighton Rd intersection, at 3355 and at 3357 North High. I think this was a bungalow house based on a glimpse of the edifice in a very old photo.
The ownership of the lots and businesses at 3361-3379 is complex. My short version is that as early as 1933, Frances Webb leased a building at 3361 N High to Sam Spandos (aka Spiros Spantithos). (I’ve written about Sam elsewhere.) Sam got a beer license for the place in April, 1933. In 1934, Sam, age 48, pleaded guilty to selling beer after 1:00 a.m., and he had some skirmishes with the law over dancing on Sunday, so that might give you some flavor of the 24-hour nightclub. In 1934 his restaurant was called the Oakland Park Restaurant. In 1935 Sam “took over the adjoining storeroom.” Upon Frances Webb’s death in ~1936, Sam purchased or inherited the property. (The value of the property went up in 1936, so I assume Sam improved the lot.) From 1936-42 the business at 3361 and 3363 N High was called the Sam Spandos restaurant; in 1944-45 the addresses were called Lee’s Restaurant; in 1946, 3361 N High was taken over by Clintonville Electric Appliance Store, and 3365 N High continued as a restaurant. By 1954, both addresses became Clintonville Electric.
3365 N High was occupied by J.L Oelgoetz Plumbers from 1924 to at least 1956; by 1967 it was Clintonville Electric.
3367 N High was M. Cupp & Sons Hardware from 1924-1929, and Metzger Electric Shop from 1929-1939. After that, it became Clintonville Electric.
I’ll write more about these businesses in subsequent posts.
(Loraine Wilmers, from the Local History & Genealogy desk of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, gave me considerable assistance with the research about this span of addresses.)
