Moment in Time (August 31, 2021)
Charles Salzgaber was born in 1861 to Charles and Barbara Ohnaman Salzgaber on the family farm on Walcutt Road, which is now called Grandview Avenue. The Salzgabers were descendants of one of the first 15 settlers of Columbus, Johann Christian Heyl, whose family were the first Germans and the first Lutherans to settle in Columbus. Heyl founded the city's first Lutheran Church and helped financially underwrite the German Theological Seminary, which later merged with what would become Capital University.
One of the original homes in Grandview was on the northeast corner of what is now Grandview
and First Avenues. The home was on the Charles Salzgaber farm, and was built in 1903 to
accommodate the growing family. Three generations of Salzgabers occupied the home until it
was sold in 1984.
Almost adjacent to the Salzgaber farm was another modest 50 acre farm, belonging to Henry Schwartz, who purchased it in 1845. Schwartz’ son Henry and his wife Rosina had a daughter Mary Catherine, who ultimately would inherit a portion of the Schwartz farm, including land that is now at the intersection of First and Grandview Avenues.
Charles and Mary Catherine married in 1887, and built a small two-room frame house (lower left inset photo) at 1196 Grandview Avenue. Charles built most of it himself, and over the next year added a kitchen and pantry. By 1896 they had four sons, Charles, Clarence, Harry, and Howard, and obviously needed a larger home. So in 1903 they built a large 8-room home on the property adjacent to the small house at what is now 1192 Grandview Ave. This 1912 photo shows the farmhouse and members of the Salzgaber family and some of their farmhands standing in a field, which would now be right in the middle of First Avenue.
According to an article in 1933 in the Ohio State Journal, “every Sunday, Charlie and Mary walked to the old Grace Lutheran Church, formerly situated on Fourth St. between Fulton and Mound. And when St. Mark’s Lutheran Church was built at Dennison and Fifth Ave. for the convenience of north end parishioners, the Salzgaber’s rejoiced because they’d no longer have to “walk so far’ to church.”
Charles and his sons farmed the property, and purchased an additional approximately 20 acres. The farm was one of the 126 "truck farms" in Franklin County that in the early 1900s encompassed over 2000 acres, producing fresh vegetables for families in the region. Charles was president of the Columbus Vegetable Growers Association, which accounted for about $400,000 sales annually. The Salzgabers planted and harvested vegetables that were sold at several farmers' markets, including the North Market, the Central Market, and a local farmers' market on Grandview Avenue. Mary also sold butter that she had churned herself in the family home. The upper right inset shows Charles Salzgaber with a load of produce on his truck.
As the area was developed, demand for property for new homesites skyrocketed. Charles sold the first portion of his farm in 1916 so that First Avenue could be built from Grandview Avenue east to Northwest Blvd. and soon after sold a large section to King Thompson's Northwest Boulevard Company for the company’s new subdivisions. The Masonic Temple was built on the northwest corner of First and Grandview on former Salzgaber property in 1922. Charles’ son Clarence sold part of the remaining farm on the west side of Grandview Avenue for the development of the Bank Block in 1927. The family retained the original homestead (finally selling it in 1984) and several lots just north of the Masonic Temple.
The Salzgabers relocated their business to Lane Avenue across from the current Lane Avenue Shopping Center, where they continued farming and built the Salzgaber Greenhouses. They subsequently relocated again to a farm at Reed and McCoy in Upper Arlington. Other members of the family remained active in Grandview life.