1896
Teresa Marzetti starts cooking
The young Italian immigrant opens Marzetti’s near Ohio State. It moves to Gay Street, then to 16 E. Broad St. Customers increasingly clamor for her homemade slaw and salad dressings, which become the company’s focus.
1896
Southern Theatre opens
The performance space debuts Sept. 21 as part of a hotel-and-theater complex along East Main Street. Designed for touring theater, the Southern also accommodates silent films, vaudeville, country bands and community events.
1897
Ringside Cafe opens
The small restaurant and pub pops up at 19 N. Pearl St. It survives by serving cold beer and burgers named after boxers.
1897
Columbus gets a proper train station
Union Station, a Daniel Burnham design, opens at the north end of Downtown. The complex survives until Oct. 22, 1976, when a group wishing to build a convention center on the site begins to demolish its stately arcade. Local preservationists call the event the “Friday Night Massacre.” Passenger train service in Columbus ends Sept. 30, 1979.
1899
Dusenbury brothers take over Olentangy Park
William and Joseph Dusenbury buy roughly 100 acres of quiet picnic land near West Kelso Road and North High Street. The brothers add rollercoasters, a Japanese garden, bowling alleys and a large swimming pool. The legendary amusement park survives until 1937.
1901
William Sydney Porter becomes O. Henry
Porter serves three years in the Ohio Penitentiary for embezzlement charges and writes at least 14 short stories. After his release in 1901, Porter travels to New York and becomes an internationally renowned writer.
1902
School of Commerce founded
A YMCA sponsorship funds a new institution aimed at educating students in financial fields. In 1923, the school — which we now know as Franklin University — holds its first formal commencement with a graduating class of 24.
1904
Alice Schille leaves France
After her European study, the Columbus-born painter returns home and begins teaching at the Art School. Schille, who gains international recognition for her watercolors, teaches there for nearly 40 years.
1905
Columbus Driving Park hosts world’s first 24-hour race
Located on the city’s South Side, the facility had gained fame as a horse course before allowing auto races. Roughly 18 years before the first endurance race at Le Mans, three drivers compete in a full-day race on Driving Park’s dirt track.
1908
Howard Thurston makes a woman disappear
The Columbus-born magician amazes audiences at the High Street Theater with “The Wonder Show of the Universe.” Often besting primary rival Harry Houdini throughout his career, Thurston’s named history’s top magician in the November 1994 issue of conjuring magazine Genii.
1909
Local graduates form the Columbus Art Students League
Forty students from the Columbus Art School begin to organize artists whose work is geared toward “mutual and public benefit.” The group later becomes the Ohio Art League.
1909
Anti-Saloon League relocates to Westerville
The headquarters of the American Issue Publishing Company move to the area north of Columbus. From there, the propaganda arm of the temperance league prints and distributes 40 tons of anti-alcohol material every month.
1910
Columbus Recreation & Parks Department founded
The Young Ladies Playground Association persuades city officials to set up a department in charge of urban natural resources. The new department starts with a $6,000 operating budget.
1912
Phillip’s Coney Island serves first hot dog
Greek immigrant Phillip Manus makes his way from New York City to Columbus and sets up a shop that specializes in hot dogs. (Nathan’s Famous doesn’t open on Coney Island until 1916.)
1912
Automobiles fuel up at first filling station
On June 1, amid protests from neighbors, H.S. Hollingsworth opens what is believed to be the city’s first gas station. It’s located in a sheet-metal shack at Oak and Young streets.
Circa 1914-1918
The Columbus Evening Dispatch broadcasts news from its roof
To keep readers abreast of war-time events, the newspaper wires a typewriter to electric lights that display news from the top of its building. It’s an early version of the news ticker.
1915
Anna Pavlova performs “The Dying Swan”
A principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and the Ballets Russes, Pavlova performs her trademark solo work Jan. 13 at the Southern Theatre. She’s considered one of history’s finest classical ballerinas.
1917
“The Star-Spangled Banner” plays before baseball game at Neil Park
A patriotic pre-game show ends with the song, and a tradition begins. Eventually the national anthem is blared before every major sporting event.
1917
City of Columbus gives women right to vote
Three years before women’s suffrage is granted nationally by the 19th Amendment, Columbus officials change municipal charters to allow women to vote in local elections.
1918
Anti-German sentiments infiltrate Columbus
American involvement in World War I causes widespread distrust of Germans, many of whom live south of Downtown. German books are burned. Schiller Street is renamed Whittier Street, and Schiller Park is known for a time as Washington Park.