From the files of Project Blue Book, this event involved two objects- a “smoke” trail and a bright light.
To view more incidents around the world, visit this link.
UFO Database
Iuka Ravine, much like Glen Echo Ravine to its north, is a hidden gem in the heart of the city. Columbus isn’t exactly known for its interesting topography, so such features offer welcome variety from the otherwise endless flatness of Central Ohio. That the feature sits in the middle of the Campus area makes it even more special.
Iuka Ravine was named by Robert Neil when he returned home from the Civil War and built a home along it. Neil gave names to many local streets in the area, all based on his time in the Union Army and the places he had visited. He named the ravine after the Battle of Iuka, and Indianola Avenue was named after the location of that battle, Indianola, Mississippi.
The ravine went largely untouched until the early part of the 20th Century. Large homes sprung up along its edges beginning in the early 1900s, built to take advantage of the natural scenery. Iuka Avenue seems to have been built around 1905 given references for it don’t appear in any media before then. In 1912, Iuka Avenue was improved and the viaducts were built over the ravine at Indianola and Summit.
Before
The before photo shows the Indianola viaduct over Iuka Avenue in 1916. Strangely enough, the ravine appears rather treeless, most likely due to construction of the viaducts and improvements 4 years prior to the time of the photo. A large building behind the bridge to the right was home to the Chi Phi fraternity at 2000 Indianola Avenue.
After
In the 2020 image, Iuka Ravine is now filled with trees- and, unfortunately, many cars- but otherwise remains remarkably untouched. Even the old Chi Phi house can still be seen peeking above the viaduct.
Over the years, Iuka has been threatened by development, but is now on the National Register of Historic Places. This popular running road and adjacent Iuka Park will likely continue to offer a bit of nature in the growing city for generations to come.
The Battle of Iuka was not a huge battle overall in comparison to other Civil War events, but over 400 soldiers still lost their lives during the fighting.
Depending on the source, the first official Columbus Gay Pride event was held in either June 1981 or June 1982. Going through newspaper and other records, it does seem like the first official Pride Parade in Columbus occurred on June 26, 1982. There were smaller demonstrations prior to 1982, but nothing officially recognized. In the 1970s, before events became more commonplace, small marches would take place through Downtown. Some participants of those early events would wear bags over their heads so that they would not be recognized. Very few protections, if any, existed for the LGBT community then, so a public outing could be very detrimental to someone’s life. In 1982, Columbus City Council passed a resolution recognizing Gay Pride Week 13 years after the Stonewall Riots, and allowed the parade to take place. The City had been somewhat of an early adoptee of LGBT equality when, in 1974, it passed an ordinance expanding housing and other public accommodation protections based on sexual orientation.
The 1982 parade.
Between 500-1000 people showed up to Columbus’ first Pride. The group took a route from Goodale Park, down Front Street and eventually to Capitol Square for a rally. The first parade was somewhat low key compared to today’s enormous party atmosphere. Participants carried signs, sang songs and waved American flags. The now iconic rainbow flag had only existed since 1978 and was not yet in widespread use.
The parade faced surprisingly few hecklers along the route for a time in which support for LGBT equality was very much a minority position within the greater population. Some local churches organized small protest groups that shouted at the crowd to repent, but were booed down by the parade- a scene that unfortunately continues to the present day.
These brave participants helped pave the way for what is now one the largest such events in the nation and possibly the world. From less than 1000 marchers and spectators, the still-growing event now attracts in excess of half a million. Based on global statistics, this would put Columbus’ Pride in the top 25 largest in the world and around 8th in the United States.
Happy Pride!
For more information on local Pride history and events, as well as LGBT resources, visit the following:
Stonewall Columbus
LGBT Resources
LGBT Health Resources
Aerial photos have been around for more than a century, ever since someone thought to take photos from airplanes. These photos go back to at least the 1910s, when the airplane was still very much a new technology. I thought it might be interesting to do show a few of these before and after Downtown aerial photos to give an idea of how the same areas look today.
Before
Downtown around 1923.
Downtown in 2019.
Photo taken in 1929.
Photo taken in 2019.
Before
This photo of Capitol Square in 1919 is one of the earliest aerials of Downtown I was able to find. This photo predates all highrise construction. The city was compact, dense and dominated by brick buildings.
After
In the 2019 image, skyscrapers have now replaced many of the older buildings. While the Capitol itself a handful of other buildings remain, the density has largely been lost over the years, with parking lots where many once stood.
Before
The 1919 image shows the intersection of High and Broad Streets, arguably the very center of Columbus.
After
Aside from the 8 on the Square building, virtually everything else from 1919 is long gone.
Before
This much more modern image of Downtown and the riverfront was taken in 1980.
After
The 2019 Google Earth image from the same angle shows significant changes in 40 years. New skyscrapers and other development are obvious, but the massive changes to the riverfront itself almost make this look like a different city altogether.
What might these areas look like in another century?
Thousands of additional before and after photo sequences can be found at the Historic Building Database
General information about Downtown can be found at https://www.experiencecolumbus.com/neighborhoods/downtown/
Back in 1962 on Columbus’ 150th anniversary, local politicians, educators and industry leaders were interviewed by the Columbus Dispatch on what they thought the future might look like. The predictions were made for the year 2000, but even 20 years past that date, many of the predictions have proven wildly inaccurate… and a few that have surprisingly come true. Let’s look back on the 1962 predictions to see just which ones proved prescient and which ones flopped.
How Columbus was supposed to look in 1992.
Growth, Population and Demographics
Prediction: The city would have a population of 1.5 million in 2000 with 2.2 million in Franklin County.
Result: In 2000, the city had less than half the prediction, with just 711.5K and roughly 900K today. The county had 1.069 million in 2000 and 1.318 million today. Both are a far cry from the 1962 predictions, despite relatively strong growth since then, especially by Ohio standards.
Prediction: Columbus and Franklin County would be merged and operated under a single government.
Result: While there have been proposals for this going back to the 1930s, it has never happened and isn’t seriously under consideration today.
Infrastructure Predictions
Prediction: Downtown would have “grass-bordered pedestrian parks with auto traffic running underground”.
Result: While several new parks have been created over the years in and around Downtown, the only significant tunnels built under the city have been for sewage and water.
Prediction: Downtown’s streets would be multi-level, with elevated decks for pedestrians, and cars travelling on lower decks.
Result: There are currently no elevated or multi-level roadways. If anything, an increasing number of such structures are being torn down nationally.
Prediction: Renovation of the Scioto River levees in 1962 would allow for new recreation and parks along the river.
Result: Any infrastructure improvements along the river at the time made little impact on the overall use of the Scioto. It took another 50 years with the development of the Scioto Mile and the Scioto Greenways to significantly alter how Columbus residents interacted with the riverfront- ironically redevelopment that included the removal of a dam.
Prediction: Instead of walking, electronic sidewalks would move people around.
Result: Technically, these already existed at the time in the form of escalators, and while they haven’t proliferated around cities, people-moving sidewalks of a sort are now common at airports in long corridors, though not in Columbus’ single-terminal airport.
Prediction: Cars would be under the control of cables buried under streets instead of drivers.
Result: While no cable system exists, autonomous vehicles are now a thing and Columbus has at least one autonomous shuttle currently operating in Linden.
Prediction: The Ohio Penitentiary would be replaced by an office complex.
Result: The Pen closed in the 1980s and was demolished in the late 1990s for the development of the Arena District. While there is some office space, the AD is a far greater development than envisioned in 1962.
Prediction: Union Station would be used as a transit hub for a monorail, bus and helicopter transit system.
Result: Union Station was torn down in 1976 to build the convention center after much controversy. There is currently no multi-modal transit hub in the city, despite numerous attempts to build one over the years. The city still only has a bus system.
Prediction: High-rise apartment buildings would go up along the edges of Downtown.
Result: Only a handful of legitimate high-rise apartment buildings have gone up since 1962 Downtown, including Miranova, North Bank Condos and Waterford Tower. A few more are in the works, though none are really planed for the “edges” of Downtown.
Prediction: Products and people would be shipped across the country by rocket ships.
Result: Rocket ships didn’t happen, but there are proposals for a super-fast system of transit. The closest example would be the Hyperloop, which is currently under testing and with which Columbus could one day be a beneficiary.
Prediction: Big Darby Creek would be dammed by at least 2 structures to provide water for the city and as flood control, with a new water purification plant built along its banks.
Result: Thankfully, this didn’t happen, as the Big Darby watershed is one of the most pristine in Ohio. Instead, it has been expanding as one of Columbus’ largest MetroParks- Battelle-Darby Metro Park- currently encompassing more than 7,000 acres.
Health and Safety
Prediction: Organ transplants would be possible and common, with many made of plastic.
Result: While organ transplants are indeed common now, they are largely just the flesh and blood type.
Prediction: “Irradiated” food would allow the “housewife’s chores” to be “revolutionized, preparing meals weeks in advance.
Result: This one, of course, didn’t happen and is an obvious example of the 1960s limited imagination of a what a woman’s role in society could be or would end up becoming.
Culture and Entertainment
Prediction: Instead of washing machines, people would use “sound waves” to clean clothing as it hung in home closets.
Result: Unfortunately, doing laundry the old-fashioned way is still in our present and future.
Prediction: Clothing would be made out of paper and be thrown away after single-use.
Result: I’m not even sure how this would be possible or practical.
Prediction: The use of “magnetically inscribed cards…read by electronic cash registers” would be used for purchases.
Result: Credit and debit cards are now just as popular, if not moreso, than paper money.
Prediction: Schools would operate year-round.
Result: While a year-round school year has been toyed with over the last 50 years, there are very few districts that have switched to it.
Prediction: Movies could be rented for personal use, and televsions could provide commercial free programs to individual households.
Result: Movie rentals did happen with the invention of the VCR and DVD player. The second part of the prediction is basically describing a streaming service like Netflix, which has killed the rental market.
Another imagined view of Columbus by 2000. Notice that only LeVeque Tower and the Statehouse remain recognizeable, showing obvious atttudes towards historic preservation at the time.
Out-There Predictions
Prediction: Columbus would have its first resident visit the moon.
Result: Ohio has seen several astronauts, a few of which did end up making it to the moon, but no Columbus residents to date have been there.
Prediction: People would be able to read minds with “electronic gadgets”.
Result: While no actual mind reading exists today, the study and understanding of human behavior, and therefore predictions of it, have come a long way.
Prediction: Interplanetary travel would be in its early years and “colonists” would be travelling regularly to Mars and Venus.
Result: There is some truth to this as there are plans to venture to Mars, as well as experimental technology in development that could allow us to travel to other stars and planetary systems someday. Unmanned probes have been getting closeup looks at other planets for decades. However, no one is going to Venus, which we now know is an incredibly hostile place where no human could ever visit, let alone live.
Planners had many grand ideas in 1962, but they were definitely a product of the times. The city they imagined was full of the bright and shiny hope of the Space Age, with everything old and natural swept away for a Jetsons future. Technology has advanced in ways that they saw coming decades before it happened, but in many ways they never could have imagined. They didn’t imagine, however, the consequences of all that technology and highways and consumption and how we’d still be cleaning up the mess from those mistakes. Not to mention making new ones along the way.
The future we face today perhaps doesn’t have the same irrational, aspirational hope of the 1960s, but there is still hope. We face some of the gravest threats of our existance, with many of them of our own making. We have the capacity and ability to solve them, however, and to have a future every bit as bright as the one imagined almost 60 years ago. This is true perhaps in ways that we too could never have imagined.