User:SteeltonVillage/sandbox

Starting in the 1880s, thousands of newcomers to Columbus from Eastern and South Central Europe, Appalachia, and the Deep South arrived to build post Civil War industries in the city. The area continues to be a tangible and unique link to Columbus history, becoming known as “Steelton,” which differentiated it from the undeveloped land and farm land further south and from the mid 19th century German settlement to its north. The migrations and emigrations of its residents were greatly affected by not only urbanization and industrialization, but by political turmoil in Europe, coal mine unrest, the Great African American Migration, World War I, the Great Depression, Appalachian movements north, and post World War II suburbanization.

Steelton’s prominence as an industrial district was dependent on the arrival of railroads to service the area—Hocking Valley Railroad later Chesapeake & Ohio was completed in the 1870s. The Toledo & Ohio Central, later the New York Central, was built at the end of the 19th century. Railroad transportation for manufacturing and business was now surpassing the earlier use of the Columbus Feeder Canal that connected Lockbourne, Ohio by way of the Scioto River to Columbus’s South Side where breweries started to develop in the 1840s. A century of American history can still be seen in Steelton, but what was Steelton?

“Steelton” was not a legal term but a geographical area and a cultural marker used to identify the multi-ethnic neighborhood whose labor force operated the industries, factories, foundries, and railroads of the South Side.

History of Steelton and the “Steelton Name”
While its exact boundaries easily could be pinpointed by the location of the steel industries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the name “Steelton” was used to describes a wider area which included the ethnic neighborhoods, labor force, schools, settlement houses, churches, lodges, and businesses which surrounded the factories and railroads. By the time Buckeye Steel in 1899 acquired thirty-one acres and additional acreage in 1902 to build its large, modern steel plant, the land west of Parsons Avenue at the intersection of Groveport Pike (called in those days Smoky Row) was already an area becoming known as Steelton.

Industries in Steelton historically included Buckeye Steel Castings, Bonney Floyd Steel Castings, Hercules Box Company. Simplex Machine Tool Company, Brown Manufacturing (lamps and lights for carriages, later autos), Chase (pumps and truck parts), Seagrave (fire engines and firefighting apparatus), Brightman (nuts, bolts for railroads, and farm equipment), and Buckeye Stamping Company (finished product manufacturing). Industries were often interdependent on each other for production or shipping, and some operated day and night.

Many of the Industries were clustered in three areas: South High Street near the Baltimore and Toledo Railroads (where the Seagrave Corporation, now “The Fort,” located); South Parsons Avenue (where Buckeye Steel Castings was located, now demolished); and the intersection of Marion Road and Parsons Avenue (where Federal Glass Corporation was located, now partially reused).

The area also contained “Keever Starch, Columbus Woodenware, Carnegie Steel, and Columbus Iron and Steel.” The intersection of Parsons Avenue and Groveport Pike would later be listed is city directories in 1905 (and on maps as late as the 1950s) as “Smoky Row” for the industrial pollution of the steel mill and foundry furnaces, but especially for the polluting by-products of the Federal Glass company and Buckeye Steel Castings. When natural gas supplies dwindled or were too costly, “producer gas” made from coal, as opposed to cleaner natural gas, was substituted, and “producer gas ”was notoriously inefficient and notoriously polluting. The soot buildup in the factories’ chimneys, cleaned weekly, required “blowing” or “blowout” which settled an oily black film over everything in the vicinity.

The boundaries which defined Steelton were in play early by the network of roads and rails already in place, and the name expanded when the industries prospered. Groveport Pike was a 19th century early toll road into downtown Columbus from the farms southeast of the city, and a key connector for farmers to bring produce into Columbus’s Central Market as early as the 1850s. By 1895 the pike linked with Parsons Avenue in the city, and the name Parsons Avenue was formalized for the entire stretch. The Parson family mansion, at the northeast corner of Bryden Road, gave the avenue its name.

With thirty-two cross streets intersecting Parsons Avenue from unincorporated Marion Township/Groveport Pike on the south to East Broad Street on the north, Steelton’s future commercialization was ensured. Parsons Avenue became Steelton’s “Main Street” from Whittier Street the steel mills. Route 23, South High Street, paralleled Parsons Avenue, and the land for development between them, created an opportunity for housing developments for a new population who worked in the industries. South Terrace Addition, first noted on the Sanborn map of 1920, was advertised as an affordable land opportunity to the “Mechanic and Laboring Man” at the turn of the century.The city expanded quickly through annexations in 1870, 1886, and 1891, preparing to capture tax-paying residents and businesses. Columbus was not able to obtain a narrow strip of Marion Township by Parsons Avenue, and the new factories continued to resist annexations until the 1950s. The township and industries both benefited from low taxes. Parsons Avenue near Marion and Innis Roads remained a dirt road in 1900.

For the first seven decades of its existence, Steelton was part of both the City of Columbus and Marion Township. In 1956, the City of Columbus accepted the annexation of 982 acres in Marion Township which included many of the heavy industrial plants, such as Seagrave Corporation, America Aggregate Corporation, and also Scioto Trails School. The tract was bordered by the Scioto River on the west, the existing city corporation line on the east, and South Gate Road on the north.

The area also had several other unofficial (non governmental) names or nicknames over time. Names referred to the key products of the industries, the area’s geographic location in relation to the earlier German settlement and the downtown business district, or the majority heritage of its diverse population. Early, it was simply known as “The Poor End” and later as the “Hungarian Colony” (c. 1900); “The South End” (c. 1920s-2000s); “Little Hungary” (c. 1915-1930s); “Magyar Town” (c. 1920s-1940s); and “Hungarian Village” (starting 1970s).

Today, Steelton’s boundaries include, “Hungarian Village” and other neighborhoods which have begun to self-identify—such as “Vassor Village” and “Ganthers Place,” “Southern Orchards” and “Marion Village.” Names of neighborhoods are based on the first owners of land or are from names given by developers who platted the land for development.