The History of North Hilltop, Columbus, Ohio

The North Hilltop is one of the older residential neighborhoods on the west side of Columbus. Today it is characterized by modest early-twentieth-century houses, narrow streets, small residential lots, mature trees, neighborhood parks, and its proximity to West Broad Street. The neighborhood resulted from a long transition from rural farmland on the western edge of early Columbus to a dense working- and middle-class residential community during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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Its history is closely connected to the larger development of the Hilltop, but the North Hilltop has its own distinct story.

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The Land Before the North Hilltop

Before there was a North Hilltop, the area was rural. The land west of the Scioto River consisted primarily of forests, open fields, and agricultural properties. The terrain of the Hilltop was higher than the low-lying land around the Scioto and Franklinton — a difference in elevation that would become an important characteristic of the area as Columbus expanded westward.

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The modern history of the Hilltop begins in the 1790s, when surveyor Lucas Sullivant acquired land west of the Scioto through his survey work in the Virginia Military District. In 1797, Sullivant laid out and founded Franklinton, immediately east of the area that would eventually become the Hilltop. Large portions of the western high ground remained agricultural for much of the nineteenth century.

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At this point, there wasn't a North Hilltop. The streets visible on today's map, Hague, Powell, Warren, Ogden, Burgess, and others, did not yet exist as urban streets. The area was characterized by large parcels rather than the small residential lots that came later.

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West Broad Street Becomes the Southern Edge

The development of the National Road, now West Broad Street and U.S. Route 40, was one of the earliest forces that began changing the area. Broad Street became the principal east-west transportation route through the western part of Columbus. As traffic increased, commercial activity developed along the road, and the rural land surrounding it became increasingly valuable for development.

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This is an important distinction: Broad Street was the transportation and commercial spine, while the land north of it eventually became predominantly residential. The future North Hilltop therefore developed in the space between a major commercial corridor to the south and transportation/rail corridors to the north and east.

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The Nineteenth Century: From Farms Toward Urbanization

For much of the nineteenth century, the North Hilltop area remained substantially less developed than it is today. Columbus itself was growing, however, and the city gradually expanded westward. Roads were improved, transportation became more reliable, and the economic advantages of living outside the dense central city became increasingly apparent.

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The Hilltop's elevation gave it a further advantage — the community sat literally on higher ground than Franklinton and portions of the Scioto valley.

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By the late nineteenth century, the area was beginning to transition from agricultural land into what would eventually become an urban residential district. The change was gradual rather than sudden: individual farms and undeveloped parcels were subdivided, streets were laid out, and houses appeared incrementally.

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The Columbus State Hospital and Western Columbus

Another major influence on the development of the broader Hilltop was the Columbus State Hospital. The institution's roots go back to 1838 as the original Ohio Lunatic Asylum; after an 1868 fire, construction began on a new Kirkbride-style building on the Hilltop site in 1870 (with ground broken by then-Governor Rutherford B. Hayes) and it was completed in 1877.

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The enormous institution was located south of what is now the North Hilltop, in the larger Hilltop area. It became an important employer and helped stimulate residential development throughout western Columbus, employing hundreds of people, many of whom lived in the surrounding community.

 

This contributed to a broader transformation:

farmland → employment centers → residential subdivisions → neighborhood

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North Hilltop benefited from this process even though the hospital itself was not located within the residential core of the neighborhood.

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The Street Grid Emerges

The most important phase in North Hilltop's physical development occurred around the turn of the twentieth century and during the first several decades of the 1900s. Land was divided into residential subdivisions, and streets were established. The regular grid visible on today's map is evidence of this transformation.

 

Our streets became the framework for the neighborhood. This was not the later suburban model of large lots and curving automobile streets — it was an early urban neighborhood designed around relatively small lots, walkability, street frontage, and proximity to employment and commercial corridors. That explains much of North Hilltop's architecture today.

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The Houses of the North Hilltop

Much of the surviving housing stock dates from the early and middle decades of the twentieth century, with a substantial concentration of homes built before 1939 and additional construction continuing through mid-century.

The typical North Hilltop house is relatively modest but substantial. Common forms include:

• American Foursquares

• two-story vernacular frame houses

• Colonial Revival houses

• Tudor Revival houses

• Craftsman-influenced houses

• bungalows

• duplexes

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Lots are generally small, houses sit relatively close to the sidewalk, and detached garages commonly occupy the rear of the property.

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This architecture tells us something about whom the North Hilltop was built for: it was fundamentally a working- and middle-class neighborhood. These were not estates built for Columbus's wealthiest residents; they were houses for families who wanted more space and independence than an apartment or downtown residence could provide while remaining relatively close to employment and transportation.

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The North Hilltop and the 1913 Flood

The Great Flood of 1913 was enormously important to the development of the larger Hilltop. Franklinton and other low-lying areas around the Scioto were severely flooded; the Hilltop, sitting at considerably higher elevation, provided comparatively safe ground. The disaster accelerated migration toward the Hilltop.

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The broader Hilltop population increased from approximately 2,000 people in 1900 to approximately 15,000 by 1920. That does not mean all of those new residents moved directly into North Hilltop, but the flood dramatically increased demand for housing throughout the Hilltop.

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Consequently, the period immediately following 1913 was one of the most important in North Hilltop's physical development: more lots were developed, more houses were constructed, and more families arrived. The neighborhood increasingly acquired the character that survives today.

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North Hilltop Becomes an Established Neighborhood

By the 1920s and 1930s, the North Hilltop was no longer a developing edge of Columbus; it was a functioning neighborhood. Residents lived in the houses along the newly established streets and relied on West Broad Street for much of their commercial activity. Children attended neighborhood schools, families attended local churches, and parks and community facilities became increasingly important.

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Broad Street provided retail stores, groceries, restaurants, banks, transportation, professional services, and connections to downtown Columbus. The residential streets immediately north of Broad provided the housing. This created a classic early-twentieth-century Columbus neighborhood structure: commercial corridor + dense residential streets + neighborhood institutions.

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Holton Park and Neighborhood Institutions

As the North Hilltop matured, community institutions became increasingly important. Holton Park and the Holton Community Center are part of this continuing neighborhood infrastructure; today the community center provides recreation and programming, while the surrounding park remains a central open space. Westmoor Park and other neighborhood parks likewise became part of the physical and social structure of North Hilltop.

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The current North Hilltop Neighborhood Association continues this tradition through neighborhood improvement, infrastructure advocacy, cleanups, and community initiatives. Its current priorities include sidewalks, traffic calming, water infrastructure, alley improvements, and upgrades around Holton Community Center.

 

The Railroad and the Northern Edge

The North Hilltop also developed in relation to transportation infrastructure north of the residential core. The railroad corridor along the northern edge of the neighborhood became an important part of the area's industrial and transportation landscape.

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The former railroad alignment is now associated with the Camp Chase Trail, which runs along the rail corridor north of the neighborhood. The trail's name reflects the historical railroad corridor and the broader Hilltop area's Camp Chase history, but the Camp Chase military installation itself was not located in the North Hilltop. North Hilltop's connection to the Camp Chase area is therefore primarily geographic and transportation-related, rather than because the neighborhood itself contained the Civil War camp.

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The Depression and World War II

The Great Depression affected the North Hilltop just as it affected the rest of Columbus. Because it was a working-class community, economic conditions were difficult for many households, but neighborhood institutions, families, and local businesses provided a degree of stability.

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World War II subsequently produced another period of economic expansion. Columbus's manufacturing base grew, and industrial employment became an important component of the west side economy. The North Hilltop was well positioned for this period, close to Broad Street, rail transportation, industrial areas, and downtown Columbus. The neighborhood's original purpose, as relatively affordable housing near employment, continued to make economic sense.

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The Postwar Era

After World War II, the North Hilltop entered a new phase. The houses built in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s were now established family homes, and many residents had lived in the neighborhood for decades.

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But Columbus was changing. Automobile ownership increased dramatically, new suburban neighborhoods began appearing farther west, and families who could afford newer houses increasingly moved toward the developing suburbs. Shopping also began shifting away from traditional urban commercial corridors. This gradually weakened the economic position of older neighborhoods such as the North Hilltop.

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I-70 and the Changing Relationship with Columbus

The construction of Interstate 70 further changed the geography around the North Hilltop. The interstate provided excellent automobile access but also created a major physical barrier along the eastern side of the neighborhood, changing its relationship with Franklinton and downtown.

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For much of the North Hilltop's early history, transportation connected the neighborhood to the rest of Columbus. By the postwar period, transportation infrastructure increasingly separated neighborhoods as much as it connected them — one of the defining characteristics of the modern North Hilltop landscape.

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Decline of the Traditional Commercial and Industrial Economy

Beginning particularly in the second half of the twentieth century, the economic foundation of the neighborhood weakened. Manufacturing employment declined, retail shifted toward suburban commercial centers, more affluent households moved farther from the urban core, older houses required substantial maintenance, and population turnover increased. Some properties became rental housing, while others deteriorated.

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The North Hilltop was affected by the same broader forces that affected many older American urban neighborhoods. But it did not disappear — the residential street grid remained, the houses remained, families continued to live there, and the neighborhood continued to function as a distinct community.

The late twentieth century

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By the 1980s and 1990s, much of the North Hilltop's housing stock was several generations old. A house built in 1915, for example, was now approximately 75 years old. Some homes had been carefully maintained and remained family properties; others needed substantial rehabilitation.

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The neighborhood's relatively inexpensive housing made it attractive to working families and renters, but lower property values also made it more difficult to generate private investment. This created the pattern still visible today: well-maintained houses immediately beside properties requiring significant rehabilitation.

North Hilltop developed a reputation as an older, working-class neighborhood with considerable housing potential but significant infrastructure and investment needs.

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The Twenty-First Century: Preservation and Reinvestment

The most recent chapter of the North Hilltop's history is one of gradual reinvestment. Rather than undergoing wholesale redevelopment, the neighborhood has generally experienced house-by-house rehabilitation. Older houses are being renovated, properties are being improved, and vacant or deteriorated structures are being replaced in some locations. Current housing observers specifically identify the neighborhood's early-twentieth-century housing stock as an important part of its appeal.

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The North Hilltop Neighborhood Association has become an important institution in this process. Its current improvement priorities include:

• sidewalks and curbs

• traffic calming

• alley rehabilitation

• water-line replacement

• pedestrian safety

• improvements around Holton Community Center

• neighborhood cleanups

• broader neighborhood revitalization

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The neighborhood's current story is not simply one of decline; it is increasingly a story of incremental rehabilitation of an existing historic urban neighborhood.

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The Significance of the North Hilltop

The North Hilltop is best understood as a historic working-class residential neighborhood created during Columbus's transition from a nineteenth-century agricultural city into a twentieth-century industrial metropolis.

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Its importance is not tied to a single famous event or landmark. Instead, its history is embedded in the physical neighborhood itself — the narrow streets, small lots, two-story houses, rear garages, mature trees, and commercial activity along Broad Street are all remnants of the period when Columbus was rapidly expanding westward.

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Unlike some newer suburbs, the North Hilltop was built around a very different assumption: people would live close to where they worked, shop locally, walk to nearby institutions, and remain part of a defined neighborhood. That basic structure survives.

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Today, the North Hilltop remains a distinct neighborhood within the Greater Hilltop, with its own neighborhood association and community identity. Its housing stock is predominantly early- to mid-twentieth-century, and its current revitalization efforts are largely focused on preserving and improving an existing neighborhood rather than replacing it.