Welcome to Westerville Local

Welcome to Westerville Local, a free community guide from Smart Ride Central Ohio. Explore local history, find places to visit, and check upcoming events with links to their organizers. This is an independent guide, not an official city service. Choose any story, or listen to the collection in order. You can replay it whenever you like, with no account, payment or time limit. If you are driving, set up before moving and leave the controls to a passenger. Let your next outing begin with a little curiosity.

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The Hanby family purchased their Westerville home in 1854. The house connects local history with the story of Benjamin Hanby, a composer and abolitionist whose life belongs to a wider history of faith, education and opposition to slavery. A preserved home can help bring that history down to a human scale: rooms, family life and the work people chose to do. Check the historical society’s current arrangements before planning an interior visit; a historic landmark is not necessarily open every day.

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Alum Creek Park North sits on West Main Street and opened in 1935. Today the city lists an amphitheater, playground, paths and places for games among its amenities. It offers another way to experience Westerville beyond the storefronts of Uptown: as a community that makes room for outdoor gathering. Facilities and organized activities have their own schedules. Check the parks department’s current information when planning a concert visit, a family outing or a longer walk.

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Westerville’s nickname, the Dry Capital of the World, points to a time when this community influenced a national argument. In nineteen oh nine, the Anti-Saloon League of America moved its headquarters and printing company to Westerville. The American Issue Publishing Company helped carry the campaign for alcohol prohibition far beyond local streets. The Westerville Public Library records a circulation of more than one million seven hundred thousand copies for five issues of The American Issue in July nineteen twenty alone. That scale makes the story easier to picture: this was a place where printing and organized persuasion could reach an enormous audience. The history was contentious. Earlier local conflicts over saloons became known as the Westerville Whiskey Wars. Today, the library’s historical collections preserve material from the movement. Exploring those records is a chance to ask how campaigns shape public opinion, and to understand a complicated chapter of Westerville’s past without confusing it with the city’s present.

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Towers Hall is more than a recognizable building on Otterbein’s campus. It is a reminder that a university and its town can help shape one another. Otterbein’s own history describes a fire that destroyed its Main Building in eighteen seventy. Supporters from both the college and Westerville raised money for a replacement, dedicated in eighteen seventy-two and now known as Towers Hall. The relationship faced another test in nineteen hundred, when trustees proposed moving the university to Dayton. Westerville residents raised money and sought additional support for local infrastructure, helping secure Otterbein’s future in the community. On a campus visit, that history gives the architecture another layer: the building represents decisions and contributions by people who wanted education to remain part of their town. Follow the university’s visitor guidance and respect teaching spaces. A campus walk can be an opportunity to notice how closely the streets of Westerville and the life of Otterbein are connected.

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Inniswood’s gardens and woods began as a deeply personal landscape. Sisters Grace and Mary Innis acquired their Westerville property in nineteen sixty and moved into their new home the following year. Grace loved horticulture and cultivated gardens. Mary enjoyed the woods, birds, and wildlife. Those different interests help explain why Inniswood feels like both a garden destination and a nature retreat. According to Metro Parks, the sisters wanted the property preserved for public enjoyment. After Mary’s death, Grace pursued that vision, and the park board formally accepted the proposal in nineteen seventy-two. Years of planning, investment, and volunteer work followed before the gardens opened to visitors in nineteen eighty-four. On your next visit, look beyond the flowers at their seasonal peak. The contrast between designed beds and woodland is part of the legacy. Check the current garden map and visitor rules, and leave time for the quieter features that a hurried walk can miss.

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At Heritage Park, Everal Barn and Homestead invites a different way of looking at Westerville. Before the site became a setting for celebrations and gatherings, it was a working farm landscape. The city dates the house to the eighteen seventies and the barn to the eighteen eighties. Both buildings were renovated in two thousand, giving them a continuing role in community life. A barn can be impressive as a backdrop, but try reading it as a working building: imagine the space needed for storing materials, handling equipment, and organizing the tasks of a farm. Informational signs around the park explain the buildings, land, and families who lived here. The site is also used for private rentals, so a visit to the park does not automatically include access inside the barn or house. Check current arrangements and respect any event boundaries. The value of the place is in seeing how older buildings can remain useful while keeping local history visible.

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Near Westerville, Hoover Reservoir offers a broad view that can make it easy to forget the engineering behind the landscape. The reservoir was created as part of the Columbus water supply system, with Big Walnut Creek feeding the impoundment. In September nineteen fifty-five, the dam was dedicated in memory of Charles and Clarence Hoover, brothers who served the Columbus Waterworks. The name honors those local public servants. Looking across the water, consider how a growing region depends on infrastructure that most people rarely think about until they need it. This landscape has a practical role as well as a recreational one, and protecting the water matters beyond the shoreline. Plan any visit using current information from the managing agencies, since construction, access rules, and permitted activities can change. From a designated viewing area, the reservoir becomes more than a scenic stop: it is a visible part of the system that supports daily life across Central Ohio.

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