A Cool Place to Be

Olde Towne East is a former bedroom community of the 19th and 20th century. It was one of the very first suburban areas in Columbus, Ohio which was made possible by the installation of the city’s first horse drawn streetcars starting in 1863.

Olde Towne East, as it is called today, was annexed into the city of Columbus in 1870. It had previously been an area of family operated farms and countryside stretching along the National Road, Main Street from Washington D.C. In 1882, trolley tracks were laid on Oak Street to Kelton Ave where the streetcar barn still stands, providing convenient transportation to former location of the Ohio State Fairgrounds, (now Franklin Park Conservatory), and to downtown Columbus. By 1886, large sections of the area had been subdivided into residential lots.