Hot off the press: Fire destroys Columbus City Hall, Jan. 13, 1921

Editor's note

Each Sunday, The Dispatch features a front page from this week in history to celebrate the newspaper's 150 years of publication, with a little update on what's happened since.

There had already been some discussion about moving Columbus City Hall to the riverfront.

A fire at the existing city hall, at Pearl and State streets, on Jan. 12, 1921, made it a foregone conclusion.

The Dispatch reported the following day that while city officials entered the burned building with the intention of figuring out how to eventually return, they left calling it a lost cause. 

They immediately started the search for temporary quarters and called for work to begin on plans for a new home.

The current City Hall opened in 1928.

The Loew's theater chain opened the Ohio Theatre that same year on the site of the former City Hall.

The theater operated until 1969, but it started losing its luster much earlier that decade. After it closed, a local real estate developer planned to raze the building to make way for a new office tower.

The threat prompted a "Save the Ohio" campaign that ultimately led to the creation of the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts. CAPA raised the money to save and renovate the theater.

CAPA has since taken on the Palace Theatre and Southern Theatre, both Downtown.