The West Side, in Columbus, Ohio is a geographic and cultural region of Columbus, Ohio, United States. Unlike most Columbus neighborhood names, which follow formal planning boundaries or subdivision lines, the West Side is a term of collective local identity — the way residents, media, and civic institutions describe the southwestern quadrant of the city. The area is bounded roughly on the north by Interstates 70 and 670, on the east by Interstate 71, and on the south and west by the city limits, which extend well beyond the I-270 outerbelt. It encompasses ZIP codes 43204, 43222, 43223, and 43228.
The area holds some of the oldest continuously inhabited land in Franklin County, with a history spanning Native American earthworks, early American settlement, Civil War encampment, and a twentieth-century peak as a manufacturing-anchored working-class community. Policing is provided by the Columbus Division of Police (Precincts 8, 10, and 19), the Franklin Township Police Department, and the Franklin County Sheriff's Department.
Geography
The West Side occupies the southwestern portion of Columbus and is among the city's largest geographic areas. The region includes several incorporated and unincorporated jurisdictions: portions of Franklin Township, Prairie Township, and Jackson Township, along with the City of Urbancrest and the Village of Valleyview.
To the west, the urban grid gives way to farmland and the floodplains of the Big Darby Creek watershed, federally designated as a National Scenic River and recognized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for aquatic biodiversity among the highest of any Midwestern stream.U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. "Big & Little Darby Creeks." National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The Scioto River marks the eastern edge, separating the West Side from Franklinton and downtown.
The main commercial spine is West Broad Street (U.S. Route 40), the old National Road route and still the most significant east-west artery in Franklin County. Sullivant Avenue, Hague Avenue, and Georgesville Road serve as additional major corridors.
Neighborhoods
"The West Side" is an umbrella term encompassing a number of distinct, named communities, each with its own character and history.
Franklinton is the oldest of these communities and one of the oldest in all of central Ohio, founded in 1797 by Lucas Sullivant on the west bank of the Scioto River — predating the city of Columbus itself by 15 years.Franklinton Development Association. "Neighborhood History." Long known as "The Bottoms" because of its low-lying position along the Scioto floodplain, Franklinton was repeatedly inundated throughout its history. The federal government prohibited new development there in the 1980s. That changed with the completion of a 7.2-mile floodwall — at a cost of more than $134 million — in 2004, which unlocked the neighborhood for a generation of creative reinvestment.WOSU Public Media. "A tale of two Franklintons." February 12, 2024.
The Hilltop is both the largest of The West Side's neighborhoods and, in many ways, its civic and cultural center of gravity. Covering approximately 9,917 acres, The Greater Hilltop planning area functions less as a single neighborhood than as a collection of smaller ones — which is the point of its motto, "A Neighborhood of Neighborhoods."Columbus Planning Division. Greater Hilltop Area Community Plan. City of Columbus, 2010. It encompasses multiple jurisdictions, its own Area Commission, its own library branch, and a community identity strong enough to have put two consecutive mayors in Columbus City Hall.
Westgate is one of Columbus's more distinctive streetcar suburbs, developed in the early 1920s on land with a complicated past — first a Civil War prison camp, then briefly a Quaker settlement, then a real estate subdivision whose street names still quietly honor the Quaker families who owned the land between those chapters."Westgate, Columbus, Ohio." Columbus Neighborhoods. The housing it produced — Cape Cods, bungalows, Tudor cottages, Colonial Revival homes — gives the neighborhood an architectural variety that has made it a reliable draw for buyers who want character without the price tag of higher-profile Columbus neighborhoods.
Lincoln Village was a planned community founded in 1955 by the Peoples Development Company, a real estate subsidiary of what would become Nationwide Insurance. Named for Nationwide president Murray D. Lincoln, the $30 million project broke ground on 1,270 acres of farmland and was designed from the outset to be a self-contained community — with its own school, library, churches, civic center, shopping center, and parkland — built to house 10,000 residents. Lincoln Village made national news and was featured in Life magazine for its modern homes and "climate control" amenities. It was deliberately sited close to the General Motors and Westinghouse plants on the west side, so that workers could, as one company representative told the Columbus Dispatch, "use [their saved commuting time] for rest in the morning and recreation in the afternoon."WOSU Public Media. "Was Lincoln Village a 'model city'?" April 29, 2025.
Georgian Heights and its neighbor Holly Hill are mid-century residential communities south of the Hilltop core. Cherry Creek, Murray Hill, Riverbend, Briggsdale, Hardesty Heights, and Wiltshire Heights round out the West Side neighborhood geography, each a distinct residential community within the broader west-side identity.
History
Native American presence and early settlement
Long before European-American settlement, the land now known as the West Side was inhabited by Native Americans, whose presence is evidenced throughout the region in the form of earthworks, artifacts, and burial sites. The fertile terrain along the Scioto River and the elevated ridgeline that would later be called "Sullivant's Hill" — and eventually The Hilltop — made the area particularly attractive for habitation.
Lucas Sullivant arrived in 1795 and became the first person to be granted a deed to land in what is now The Hilltop and Franklinton area, establishing Franklinton on the west bank of the Scioto River in 1797.Greater Hilltop Area Commission. History of the Greater Hilltop. Columbus: Greater Hilltop Area Commission, 1984. Sullivant retained approximately 1,600 acres of elevated land to the west, which he transferred to his sons, making them the area's first documented landowners. The land remained within the Sullivant family for over a century. During this early period, the area was largely agricultural, with farmers producing corn, clover seed, and hay and raising livestock.
Franklinton and the War of 1812
Before Camp Chase, before the National Road, Franklinton itself played an outsized role in American military history. In the fall of 1812, General William Henry Harrison — later the ninth President of the United States — established Franklinton as the central headquarters and supply depot for the Army of the Northwest during the War of 1812.Franklinton Historical Society. "War of 1812." Up to 3,000 troops assembled in the public square for inspections and training before marching north toward the frontier. The settlement's strategic position at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers made it the most logical staging point in the region.
The building traditionally associated with Harrison's headquarters, a Federal-style brick structure at 570 West Broad Street built in 1807, still stands today. Known as the Harrison House, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and is described by preservationists as the only remaining building in Ohio associated with Harrison's military presence in the region.Historical Marker Database. "The Harrison House Historical Marker." See also: Columbus Historical Society. "Harrison House and Sullivant Land Office." National Register of Historic Places, Reference No. 72001010, designated December 15, 1972. In 1973, the building's owner announced plans to demolish it for a gas station. Councilwoman Fran Ryan led the effort to save it, and the Columbus Society for the Preservation of the Harrison House purchased the building in 1975. The adjacent Sullivant Land Office — built c. 1822 and the only remaining structure associated with Franklinton founder Lucas Sullivant — stands on the same site, having been relocated there from its original location on W. Gay Street in the early 1980s to prevent demolition.
The National Road and early development
The most transformative early development in the West Side was the construction of the National Road — or Route 40 — in the 1830s. The road, which followed an earlier trace through the area and became what is now known as West Broad Street, instantly elevated the region's commercial and strategic importance. Establishments such as the Four-Mile House and the Jaybird Hotel appeared along this thoroughfare, providing lodging and services for travelers moving west across the young nation. The National Road remains designated an Ohio Scenic Byway and is recognized by the Ohio Department of Transportation as a historic corridor.Ohio Department of Transportation. "ODOT Historic National Road Byway."
Camp Chase and the Civil War
One of the most historically significant sites on the West Side — and indeed in the entire state of Ohio — is Camp Chase, a Union military installation established in May 1861 on land leased by the U.S. Government four miles west of downtown Columbus.Historical Marker Database. "Camp Chase." See also: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. "Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery." National Register of Historic Places, Reference No. 73001434, added April 11, 1973. Named for former Ohio Governor and then Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, the camp's boundaries corresponded to the present-day intersections of Broad Street (north), Hague Avenue (east), Sullivant Avenue (south), and near Westgate Avenue (west).
Camp Chase began as a training and mustering ground for Ohio Union volunteers but quickly grew into the largest prisoner-of-war camp in the North. Between 1861 and 1865, more than 150,000 Union soldiers and over 25,000 Confederate prisoners passed through its gates. At its peak in February 1865, more than 9,400 men were held there. Four future United States presidents — Andrew Johnson, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, and William McKinley — passed through Camp Chase during the war.Ohio Exploration Society. "Camp Chase."
When the camp closed in 1865, a small portion of the land was preserved as a cemetery. The Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery, located at 2900 Sullivant Avenue, holds the remains of Confederate soldiers who died in captivity. A memorial boulder installed in 1897 bears the inscription "2260 Confederate Soldiers of the war 1861–1865 buried in this enclosure," though the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs official count records approximately 2,168 remains. The memorial arch at the cemetery was dedicated in 1902, and the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 11, 1973. The Hilltop Historical Society sponsors an annual memorial service at the cemetery on the first Sunday of June.
The land once occupied by Camp Chase was gradually developed into the Westgate neighborhood beginning in the late 1920s.
Urban growth and industrialization
By 1900, the population of what is now The Hilltop had grown to over 2,000 residents, the majority of them young married couples engaged in a variety of occupations. The early twentieth century brought rapid urbanization. Residential subdivisions emerged around major institutional anchors, streets were laid along former rural roads, and a streetcar line connecting High Street to the Columbus State Hospital accelerated the area's development.