herr2ck: Yukon Ho!

February 2026.

The oldest building in the Short North is the Yukon Building, a wide Italianate that is an excellent example of the style. I’ve visited other buildings with a similar stature in the North Columbus Commercial Historic District, but never in enough depth to warrant their own article, so I’m pretty excited about this one. Its large cornice and massive sign are landmarks on the southern end of the district, but don’t be fooled by its date of 1929, as the architecture of that time was much too tall and streamlined to be building anything like this.

The Yukon Building is located at 601-615 North High Street in the Short North neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by Milay Alley and a contemporary building to the north, Poplar Avenue and the I-670 cap to the south, High Street to the east, and apartments to the west.

History

Yukon Building as the Portland Block on the 1887 Sanborn map. Note the house next door, indicating the residential atmosphere at the time. (Library of Congress)

The Yukon Building was originally known as the Portland Block. “Block” was a common suffix for Italianate buildings that indicated the structure contained a wide “block” of several storefronts. My sources vary on the year of construction, as Architecture: Columbus and the Columbus Metropolitan Library state it was built circa 1885 while the NRHP listing for the Short North says “around 1888.” However, I managed to find a source that narrowed it down further--a March 1887 issue of The Catholic Columbian writes that decorator and “wall paper man” Isaac Aston and jeweler James Savage moved their stores to the “new Portland Block.” It also appears on the 1887 Sanborn map.

The Portland Block was built and superintended by William Monypeny Jr., son of banker and grocer William Monypeny. (I briefly covered the elder William’s house in my Columbus Museum of Art article, and William Jr.’s brother Perrin lived in an Italianate house I visited on East Broad Street.) It is unclear if the building had an architect, but it is equally possible that William Jr. designed it himself. When the Portland Block opened, the original tenants included a bank, a clothing store, and shoe stores.

An advertisement from the Capitol Clothing Company from 1912. The building depicted appears to be Beaux-Arts in style and not the Yukon Building, but Capitol Clothing would move there later on and install a similar dome. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)

The Capitol Clothing Company began renting space in the Portland Block circa 1920, and they combined the formerly separate storefronts into one large retail space, staying there for several decades thereafter. Notably, the company installed a large faux dome on top of the roof, modeled after the one on the United States Capitol building. According to the 1921-1922 Sanborn map, it was clad in iron and stood 40 feet above the roof, on top of a square pedestal also framed in iron with steel bracing. The Yukon Realty Company acquired the building in 1929. During their tenure, they renamed it and conducted several alterations to the exterior, such as the panels with the name and date, new ornamental features, and the purple glass prism transom windows on the storefronts.

The exterior in 1984. (Library of Congress)

Capitol Clothing closed in 1945, and the roof dome was removed sometime soon after. Evidently, the building was heavily altered through the following decades, as indicated by the above picture from 1984. The storefronts were modernized with Art Moderne glass and cladding in the 1930s or 1940s, and the brick exterior was painted white at some point.

A clearer 1986 photo of the Yukon Building. (All Columbus Data)

The above image shows the building in more detail and highlights the hodgepodge of tenants it once had. Along with a post office at far right, there was also an appliance store with a vintage neon sign, a convenience store, and a furniture store. Another sign indicates that the second and third floors were known as the “Yukon Apartments.”

The Yukon Block during the construction of the I-670 cap in June 2003. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)

The Yukon Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 as part of the Short North Historic District. Although it is unclear when exactly the building was restored, it occurred between 1986 and its listing on the NRHP, contemporary to the time that Short North was being revitalized. The exterior brick was stripped while the cornice and ornamental details were repainted. The current storefront design is a later alteration and occurred between 2003 and 2007.

Photos

I think everyone who isn’t Joanna Gaines would agree that the original brick facade is much better than white paint:

The facade is divided into seven main bays, which each held a different storefront originally. The layout has obviously shifted over time, as Marcella’s now occupies what would have been two separate stores. Marcella’s has bomb Italian food, if a little bougie, and my girlfriend and I had our first Valentine’s Day date there together.

I always liked the fire escape on this side with a pulley to lower the staircase:

The wide facade and parked cars made it difficult to get a satisfactory picture of the High Street elevation:

It’s either some janky angled picture of the facade (as seen above) or one taken way off center like this:

It uses a repetitive design common to Italianate buildings, with identical storefronts and tall, thin hood-molded windows above. The cornice also repeats its design until the gable in the center. Here’s a clearer view of the southern three bays to make this easier to understand:

I like these little stone panels with reliefs of holly leaves:

The storefronts each have mosaic tile flooring:

The central one has been pretty heavily modernized, though.

Remarkably, I think these windows have their original wooden frames, or at least antique ones:

These central windows also have slightly more elaborate hood molds than the others.

The piers between the bays each lead upwards to a large corbel, with a smaller one centered between the two. There are also brickwork panels in the voids left open in the metal cornice:

I was having a difficult time capturing the metal panels with the building’s name and date of renovation. The light arch is centered exactly on the midpoint of this building, so I couldn’t get any shots straight-on.

For alterations completed in 1929, these are remarkably antiquated decorative details, and they are harmonious in style with the original 19th-century architecture. I would have expected Vitrolite panels or some wonky Bauhaus font.

…and then getting it centered meant chopping off half of the letters. I can’t win.

One of the pinnacles at the edges--this one is missing a decorative rosette panel:

Once we round the corner, much of the more detailed features on the High Street side disappear facing Poplar. The cornice is simplified, the projecting hood molds and sills diminish in size, and the piers dividing each bay vanish. It also seems that the side uses a lighter, poorer-quality brick:

Modern sign, historic glass prism windows, and stone ornamentation:

A nice detail of the cornice’s edge:

In back are some Commercial-style garages not related to the Yukon Building. Still, you can see the segmentally-arched windows in the rear, which also appear to be original to the building: