MUSCOGEE COUNTY, GA - HISTORY Historic Homes ***************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm *********************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Christine Thatcher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 City’s Houses Have Often Played Musical Chairs By Clason Kyle Sesquicentennial Editor What do a Dragon House, the late Dr. Mercer Blanchard's waiting room and a wing of Villa Reich have in common? The answer is mobility. Columbus houses are downright mobile, moveable, non-stationary. They might be "born" on 12th Street but they end their days at 14th Street and Second Avenue, or are "birthed" on 14th Street and wind up in Midland. It has been that way since Columbus's founding days. Let me quote from Basil Hall's account of his visit to our embryonic city on March 31, 1828. It was then hardly more than a clearing in the forest that he describes as "a very curious place." After recounting how it had come to be legally, Hall - a Scottish naval officer who spent his retired years in private travel and literary-scientific pursuits - noted that "as none of the city lots were yet sold, of course no one was sure that the spot upon which he had pitched his house would eventually become his own. Every person, it seemed, was at liberty to build where he could find room, it being understood that 40 days after the sale would be allowed him to remove his property from the ground on which it stood, should he not himself become its purchaser." He continued, "In consequence of this understanding, many of the houses were built on trucks - a sort of low, strong wheel, such as cannon are supported by for the avowed purpose of being hauled away when the land should be sold. At least 60 frames of houses were pointed out to me, lying in piles on the ground, and got up by the carpenters on speculation, ready to answer the call of future purchasers." The Walker- Peters-Langdon House, built in 1828, is traditionally regarded as being one of those prefabricated types that Capt. Hall observed. Whether or not it ever had another site, to satisfy my restless-house theory, is quite immateral because I know the back outbuilding on that property was built elsewhere and brought to the WPL House site to enhance It as a typical dwelling of early Columbus. I know because I wrote the check to the carpenters who disassembled it on the rear of property in the 1400 block of Second Avenue and reassembled it behind the big fig tree at 716 Broadway. (I planned for this structure to contain a small museum of architectural artifacts pertaining to Columbus buildings and regret that the Historic Columbus Foundation has not seen fit to establish such exhibit, either there or in the new Chattahoochee Promenade center. Actually, we need a Columbus Museum, to preserve and record not only the architectural heritage of our town, but its social and economic legacy as well. Now, there's a challenge to some groups as a fitting folIow-up to the Columbus Sesquicentennial observance.) House-moving number two was in 1858 when the First Presbyterian Church purchased a corner lot at 11th Street and Second Avenue. On that corner was a house which then was moved brick by brick to the corner of 15th Street and Second Avenue. This is the house that locally is known as the Schley-Peabody Warner House. Next came - or rather, went - a house that set on property now occupied by the former Ralston Hotel, which has reopened as The Ralston Towers. The Hudson- Compton House was moved to the Southwest Corner of 14th Street and Second Avenue. As the years passed and the fanciful Queen Anne-style house mellowed with age, it became known as the Dragon House because its shingled sides and gray color resembled the skin of that mythical monster. It stood there some 60 years before being demolished, an effort to move it once again to a more sympathetic property failing lamentably. Happier is the story regarding the cottage behind the old Slade home on the southeast corner of 14th Street and Second Avenue. When this property was sold in the early '60s, the cottage was moved by the Fred Dismukes to "Westmoreland," their Midland, Ga. country estate. They placed it, as a guest house overlooking their swimming pool and adjoining a formal garden that is laid off in the pattern of the Confederate battle flag. To my knowledge, this is the longest move of a Columbus house. The late James W. Woodruff Jr., a vital force in the local preservation movement, moved two structures, both in downtown Columbus. The first and the most ambitious was moving the Wellborn-Goetchius House from 11th Street and Second Avenue to a site on Lower Broad, almost in the shadow of the Oglethorpe Bridge. Sliced into three sections to facilitate the move, the 1839 mansion was rejoined as a restaurant, the Goetchius House. Just before his death, Woodruff had effected another historic property relocation. This one was the rectory of the Church of Sts. Philip and James, on the northeast corner of Second Avenue and Seventh. It went to Lower Broad also, directly across from the Goetchius House, and is occupied by the Chamber of Commerce's Visitors and Convention staff. (The church itself, this area's first Roman Catholic Church structure and the forerunner of the present Church of the Holy Family, disappeared long ago.) The next longest trip by a local house is one that was in Bibb City. In fact, it was the Boss's House of Bibb Manufacturing Co., and was shipped to Lower Broad by A.B. Duncan Ill, its owner. As major a project as moving the Goetchius House, was the 1906 move involving "Wynnton," the former home of cotton planter William L. Wynn, which today serves as the home of the Christian Fellowship Association. Utilizing teams of mules and greased logs, this huge Greek Revival house was dragged forward several hundred feet to its present vantage point atop Wynn's Hill, overlooking the gardens of the Columbus Museum of Arts and Sciences and downtown Columbus.. Local legend has it that the superintendent of the project went home for lunch during the move and, when he returned to the jobsite, the house was where it is today, aesthetically too close to the brow of the 'hill. But nothing could be done, because mules can't be made to back up. Early in, 1976, the Historic Columbus Foundation was given a Sixth Street house. HCF moved its three front, rooms, and pierced-column front porch further west, on Sixth Street where it was purchased and restored by contractor Frank Langdon and is now the home of Mrs. Sally Quillian. A house at 527 Front Ave., was formerly a wing of the Villa Reich, an 1870s casino-beer garden which was the amusement center of Victorian Columbus -- the scene of theatricals, dances, skating parties and the Columbus Guards annual picnic. Next door to it is another building that also was a wing of the Villa, converted into a dwelling. But it is on its original site and hasn't been gyrated about as was 527 which has to hold the record for the shortest move. Both have suffered from a fire late in '77. Promenade Center, an 1871 house on the southeast corner of Front Avenue and Seventh Street, was moved by the Columbus Housing Authority across Front Avenue to the Commons. It was restored by the Junior League of Columbus as the focal point of the Promenade, Columbus's Bicentennial project. One room houses a pictorial history of the growth of Columbus and another features changing exhibits. Oops, I almost forgot the Pemberton House, the first purchased home of the inventor of Cola-Cola, Dr. John S. Pemberton. It was given to HCF by the Coca-Cola Company as a memorial to the Columbus druggist and HCF moved this circia-1853 house 11 Seventh Street, restoring it with funds donated by “friends of Coca- Cola.” Perhaps there are others I don’t know about. Let me know if you know of one that has been included. In the meantime, I think I have pretty well proved my hypothesis about a mobile Columbus. Special Sesquicentennial Supplement III Ledger- Enquirer, Sunday, April 30, 1978, pg S-15