Moment in Time (December 29, 2022)
Former Marble Cliff mayor and resident Robert Beightler became a famous Ohio political insider and military leader. Major General Beightler commanded the “Buckeye Division”, the 37th Division of the Ohio National Guard, activated for battle in the Pacific during the Second World War. The Beightler Armory in Columbus is named for him. He is shown here receiving a medal from the deputy commander of the Second Army after the war ended.
Robert Sprague Beightler was born in 1892 in Marysville. His father was the president of the Perfect Cigar Company, and was a surveyor who served as city and state engineer. His mother was the daughter of a Delaware judge, and was a cousin to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and Rhode Island Governor William Sprague IV (his father was the U.S. Representative and Senator William Sprague III from Rhode Island).
After graduating from Marysville High School in 1909, Beightler enrolled in civil engineering at Ohio State University, where he became friends with John W. Bricker, who would later become Ohio’s governor. In 1911 Beightler enlisted with the Ohio National Guard, and his military and political career began. In 1914, he earned the rank of Second Lieutenant, and married his wife Anna the same year. He was sent to the Mexican border to pursue the legendary bandit and outlaw, Pancho Villa, and his unit was activated to go to France during World War I.
After the war, he returned to Columbus and civilian life, working for the State of Ohio and starting his own civil engineering firm. He and Anna purchased a home in Marble Cliff at 1291 (now 1541) Cambridge Boulevard in 1925, and several years later was elected mayor of Marble Cliff. During this period he remained active in the National Guard and completed several officer courses of study. He resigned his mayor position in 1932 when he was reactivated to plan the Interstate Highway System for the U.S. military. He and Anna divorced in 1933. He moved to Washington DC, and she remained in the Cambridge Blvd. house for another decade.
In 1936 Beightler returned to Ohio, working as chief of staff for the 37th Infantry Division of the Ohio National Guard, and commander of the 74th Infantry Brigade. In 1939 he was appointed as the Ohio State Highway Director by his friend and Governor John Bricker and the following year, he was appointed commanding General of the 37th Division. After Pearl Harbor, the National Guard unit was mobilized and was sent to the war in 1942. The "Buckeye Division", as it was called, participated in combat victories in battles in the Pacific Theater. On September 5, 1945, then Major General Beightler accepted the articles of surrender from Major General Iguchi, Commanding General, 80th Brigade, Imperial Japanese Army, in Luzon, Philippines. A month later the 37th was demobilized and returned to the U.S.
At the end of World War II, Major General Beightler was commissioned in the regular army. After processing his troops home, he returned to Columbus with the Ohio National Guard. Beightler also served in international, national, and state leadership roles, including as the military Governor of Okinawa, United States War Department General Staff, head of the Ohio State Highway Department, and Director and Board member of the Ohio Turnpike Commission. In 1965, the headquarters of the Ohio National Guard (Beightler Armory, on West Dublin Granville Road) was named for him. Beightler died in February 1978.
References:
1. Kennedy-Ohl, John. Minuteman: The Military Career Of General Robert S. Beightler. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001
2. MSS 593 Robert S Beightler Papers, Ohio History Connection, 1983
3. United States Army, "Pictorial history, Thirty-Seventh Division, United States Army, 1940-1941" (1941). World War Regimental Histories. 182
https://core.ac.uk/download/234781431.pdf