Polly

February 2026.

The Barrett, as it is known today, was once the original home of South High School. It closely resembles East High School’s older, demolished location in Franklin Park. The former school has recently been adaptively reused into apartments.

The Barrett is located at 345 East Deshler Avenue in the Merion Village neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by Deshler Avenue to the north, the newly built apartments and Thurman Avenue to the south, new houses and Washington Avenue to the east, and Bruck Street to the west.

History

South High School, along with East High School, was established due to overcrowding at North and Central High Schools. (North High School itself was founded in 1892 after Central High School was outgrown.) This was a result of the desegregation of Columbus schools in the 1880s and stricter attendance laws for students. The rapidly growing south and east sides of Columbus were seen as suitable candidates for new high school buildings. German Village was already densely populated, but nearby Merion Village was seeing rapid growth as factories were built further south in Steelton. Prior to the construction of the first purpose-built school for South High, students attended classes at Ohio Avenue Elementary beginning in 1895 and Central High School in 1897.

The Barrett in 1909. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)

The Barrett was built as South High School by Columbus City Schools resident architect David Riebel. A Renaissance Revival design with a concrete and steel frame, it opened on October 12, 1900 in a ceremony attended by Ohio State president William Oxley Thompson. (Thompson would soon go on to advocate for resegregation of Columbus’s schools.) Riebel modeled the building after his then-recently built East High School, which was nearing completion when South High School’s construction began in 1898. The NRHP listing noted that many of the original interior finishes remained in 2015, including wooden trim and stamped tin ceilings. Aside from conventional classrooms, the basement had a kitchen and trade classrooms, and the third floor once housed an auditorium.

As of 1901, the surrounding area had lots divided and two outhouses built for the school’s use, but only a few houses had then been built. However, the school’s completion spurred rapid development in the area. The school property was extended southward to Thurman Avenue circa 1920. 

1924 postcard of The Barrett. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)

In the 1920s, every single high school in Columbus received a new building. South High School was the second of these, completed in 1923 at 1160 Ann Street a few blocks east down Deshler and opening in March 1924. East High School’s new building was completed a year earlier in 1922, North and Central High Schools also opened in 1924, and the new West High School was the last to be completed in 1929. Howard Dwight Smith designed some alterations to the old East High School building in 1924, namely new steel and concrete stairs with partitions for fire safety. Smith also converted the third floor’s auditorium to a gymnasium. Old South High School became Barrett Junior High School (later Barrett Middle School) thereafter, named after South High School’s first principal, Charles S. Barrett.

A one-story Modern addition was built onto the southeast end of The Barrett in stages, with the three opening in 1953, 1958, and 1963, respectively. The first two were designed by Benham, Richards, & Armstrong, while the third was by C. B. Forward & Associates with David E. Jones. The addition was demolished as part of the conversion process to apartments, but it had minimal effect on the original building. This added more classroom space and two gymnasiums, allowing the older gymnasium/former auditorium to be subdivided into classrooms. At this time, the original site was expanded to its current configuration, extending eastward to Washington Avenue and demolishing the houses formerly between the alley and Washington Avenue.

The school building as of 2015. (NRHP listing)

Barrett Middle School operated until 2006, and the building was temporarily used by South High School from 2007 to 2009, while their newer building was being renovated. After that, it was abandoned for a period of time. It was listed on the Columbus Register of Historic Properties in 2006 and the National Register of Historic Places in 2015 as the Charles S. Barrett Building. 

The vacant building was converted to apartments circa 2015-2016, now known as The Barrett. Along with the school, five three-story apartment buildings were built to the south, as well as 22 houses to the east.

Photos

Approaching the building from the west:

It was tough to get a shot of the entire facade due to its length and the houses right behind me. Here is an angled view that does a fair job:

Very Renaissance design with the rougher stone foundation, string courses separating each floor, and a “piano nobile” on the top floor. Each wing appears to be a disparate part, but they are all connected with smaller passages.

The main “block” of the school:

That cherry picker in the way made my life difficult, too. The first two floors are pretty unremarkable aside from the slightly larger lintels on the second floor with keystones. The third floor is double-height, with tall vaulted windows lining the facade. A massive denticulated cornice with modillions runs below the building’s roof. The third floor here is taller and has a larger cornice than the others, which also establishes a hierarchy in relation to the smaller wings.

The entrance is also emphasized with this large stone portico, which has doubled Doric columns supporting an entablature and balustrade:

 

The columns themselves look good, but the cornice seems pretty nasty with age. Hard to believe it’s only 120 years old instead of 2000 like the Greek temples it was modeled after.

Main entrance, which has two pilasters supporting an arch:

Had to peek through the gap made by the steel decking…you can sort of make out the tin ceiling here:

Zoomed in on the third floor:

More yummy Renaissance details:

Is that paint or bird poop on the keystones? Something makes me think the former.

One of the recessed connectors, which also has a secondary entrance:

A closer look at the entrance here:

Eastern wing:

From the northeast:

Back to the western end--here’s the west facade:

It is shorter and less intricate, with regular window openings across the entire span.

The new apartments aren’t really similar to the old high school, which was likely deliberate. Their height and simpler design does not compete with the historic building.

At least they make a nice frame for the building and reinforce its classical axis:

MUCH better framing and distance from the facade here, even if it’s just the rear.

It is remarkably similar to the front aside from absent string courses and the vaulted third-floor windows. Remember, it was designed to be viewed from all sides.

Not sure what’s up with the aluminum foil on the third floor’s windows:

Zoomed in on the cornice:

It appears to be metal, not stone.

The side wings are pretty much identical, only missing the string courses. It seems like a few modillions and dentils on the cornice have gone missing over the years.

Seems like some openings on the inside have been infilled, too:

Same case on the eastern end, too. They seem smaller than windows, but there’s big gaps below that were also bricked up…were they skybridges? I don’t know what’s up with the scorching, either.

On the eastern end, you can see how the fancier stone details abruptly end when they reach the corner:

I do love my corner cornice shots…this one isn’t as good as usual, though.

Definitely one of the better adaptive reuse projects I’ve seen across Columbus.

Sources:

https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/b3b87a7e-7aae-4775-92b9-3f9c07c07348/

https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/ohio/id/11630/rec/3

https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/ohio/id/21685/rec/10

https://www.barrettcolumbus.com/

https://allcolumbusdata.com/school-and-education-history/

The Foundation of Hope

February 2026.

Shiloh Baptist, a historic church in King-Lincoln Bronzeville, has been orphaned with the construction of I-71. Once centered on a major Black commercial street (Mt. Vernon Avenue), its connection to downtown Columbus has been severed, and Mt. Vernon now hooks southwest towards Spring Street, bypassing this church entirely. 

Shiloh Baptist Church is located at 720 Mt. Vernon Avenue in the King-Lincoln Bronzeville neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by I-71 to the north and west, Mt. Vernon Avenue and apartments to the south, and a Columbus rowhouse to the east.

History

Shiloh Baptist is the third-oldest Black church in Columbus. (The two oldest are St. Paul A.M.E. and Second Baptist.) The congregation was founded in 1869, as 40 members separated from Second Baptist Church. Though Columbus had 573 Black residents in 1840 (a year after Second Baptist was founded), this number had tripled by 1870, with 1,847 citizens. This growth was part of the impetus of Shiloh Baptist’s founding. Its first pastor was Rev. L. B. Moss.

Sketch of the original Shiloh Baptist. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)

Shiloh Baptist’s first church building was located at the northeast corner of 4th Street and Gay Street in downtown Columbus, and at first they used the second floor of the building (the first was a grocery store). Under Rev. George Scott’s leadership, the church’s pastor from 1880 to 1884, the congregation expanded and a new church building formerly used by Christie Methodist Episcopal Chapel was acquired on Cleveland Avenue (8th Street at that time) near its intersection with Spring Street. This pocket of Columbus was where many Black residents lived, along with Irish immigrants who attended church nearby at St. Patrick’s.  

Snippet of the 1887 Sanborn map depicting Shiloh Baptist’s second church building, the first on Cleveland Avenue. (Library of Congress)

Shiloh Baptist’s second pastor of note was Rev. William Cradic, who expanded the church building of Cleveland Avenue and began publishing the church’s first bulletin, Our Journal. Cradic served for a decade, and after his death, he was succeeded by Rev. W. L. Burr. Burr founded Shiloh Baptist’s first mission on Grant Avenue, which eventually became its own congregation known as Mt. Olivet Baptist (now located at 428 East Main Street). He built a new church on the site of the old one at Cleveland Avenue in 1901, which was a Romanesque Revival design. Under Rev. Burr’s tenure, the congregation’s first choir was established by Nettie Anderson Black, and the church’s mission efforts continued to expand.

Colorized photo of the second Cleveland Avenue church. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)

Columbus’s Black population kept climbing in the early 20th century due to the Great Migration. Nearly 13,000 citizens of Columbus in 1910 were Black. Rev. Burr’s successor, George Davis, created the Shiloh Publishing Company for the church’s writings in 1917. Under Rev. Davis’s leadership and the ever-expanding congregation, the Cleveland Avenue church was sold to the Seventh Day Adventists in 1921 and Shiloh Baptist moved eastward. Columbus’s Near East Side had become the epicenter of the Black community in the city, hence this decision. The nearby Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, & St. Louis Railway employed Black residents (who otherwise struggled to find jobs due to discrimination), and two major thoroughfares of King-Lincoln Bronzeville, Mt. Vernon Avenue and Long Street, became lively commercial strips of Black-owned businesses.

Shiloh Baptist under construction. (Columbus Metropolitan Library)

Construction of Shiloh Baptist’s current church building was spearheaded by new Rev. James Burks, who became the pastor in 1922. Its site was on Mt. Vernon Avenue, one of the aforementioned business centers of the area. Ground was broken on April 23, 1922, though it seems like the parish was critical of the building’s location, design, etc. The congregation held its first service inside the basement in August 1923. The remainder of the church was built in 1924 by the O. A. Day Construction Company, owned by a woman named Olive A. Day who built several churches across the country. (This was extremely unusual for the time.) Interestingly, Rev. Burks stipulated that he would be the construction superintendent, and he reportedly had a role in the building’s design. Since its architect is unknown, I’ll credit Burks with its design instead. Shiloh Baptist Church is a Gothic Revival design and was completed at a cost of $210,000.

Postcard of the church’s interior from 1909. (CardCow)

Shiloh Baptist struggled during the Great Depression, but they nonetheless continued to offer aid to the hungry and jobless citizens who lived nearby, reportedly feeding hundreds of people a day with soup lines. In 1932, the church defaulted on its mortgage payments, and Bellefontaine Building & Loan began to foreclose on the building before having a change of heart and selling it back to the congregation. The Depression also did not stop Shiloh Baptist from founding a mission in Africa, either.

After Rev. Burks retired in 1935, his replacement Rev. Sandy Ray continued Shiloh Baptist’s work and growth. 300 new members joined during Ray’s nine-year tenure, and he hosted several important events at the church, such as the National Baptist Sunday School and the National Convention of the NAACP. Rev. Burks was also granted the $1,200 of pay he missed during the Great Depression in a Pastors’ Recognition Day held by the church. Shiloh Baptist’s community-based contributions at this time were a local nursery school and aid for 300 victims of the Ohio River’s flood in 1937.

Parishioners outside the church c. 1950s. (WOSU)

Rev. Ray moved to Brooklyn in 1944 and was succeeded by Rev. James Parrish, who held the pastor position for the next 35 years. In 1947, Rev. Parrish established the Shiloh Federal Credit Union, which was especially intended to give loans for local Black citizens for cars and home improvement, as they faced discrimination from traditional banks at the time. During his tenure, 2,000 new members joined Shiloh Baptist, the church paid off its mortgage, and a scholarship fund was created for parishioners’ children. 

Despite the continued growth of Shiloh Baptist, the 1960s led to rapid change for the congregation. The construction of I-71 immediately to the west demolished many nearby homes and isolated the church from downtown Columbus. The city of Columbus originally wanted to seize Shiloh Baptist and demolish it, but the congregation refused to sell. Additionally, with more civil rights being granted to Black citizens, the more affluent residents of the Near East Side moved out of the neighborhood to places they were formerly forbidden to live in. The church clung to life despite the decline of the surrounding neighborhood.

The church in 2004. (NRHP listing)

In the early 1990s, Shiloh Baptist experienced a major rift, as the pastor (Rev. C. Dexter Wise) wanted to build a new church in a different location. Rev. Wise and 70 members ultimately left to found a new congregation known as Faith Ministries, and the remaining parishioners stayed in the Mt. Vernon Avenue location. In 1993, Rev. Otha Gilyard became the church’s pastor. Rev. Gilyard led the church to build an addition onto its north side in 2002, known as the Education Wing. In 2004, the church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Shiloh Baptist remains an invaluable asset for homeless, impoverished, and imprisoned citizens of Columbus. Some of the sources cited by the NRHP listing extol the value of Black churches in the community--in particular, Dr. Kenneth Hamilton, a professor of Black history at Ohio State, wrote: “The Black church…has been the main-stay while other institutions have faltered or failed Black people. It has been the foundation of hope in America…the Black church is the only institution that has been owned, controlled and guided by Black people for over 200 years.”

Photos

East facade of the church from Mt. Vernon Avenue:

Very asymmetric and picturesque massing here.

This east window is original and a Von Gerichten Art Glass Studio design. However, it’s not looking so hot lately:

The Postmodern education wing, which was built in 2002:

It takes some cues from the original building but falls a little flat in the process. A big difference is a lack of depth, which the 1923 church has with its wildly varying wall planes and recessed panels.

Another view, with the projecting tower:

The facade was brilliantly lit by the bright winter sun:

It is in very remarkable condition for its age--the stone shines as brightly as it probably did when it was first installed.

These doors are replacements, and though they are of higher quality than most renovations to these kinds of churches, I think the red is a bit too jarring compared to the earthy tones of the masonry.

Loving the super eclectic Gothic font used here.

The fine, English-inspired rose window:

I’m unsure of the glass’s age, but its wood framing is definitely original. The NRHP listing only goes into detail about the east and west windows. However, given its similarity to the windows elsewhere on the building, it seems to be some of the historic glass installed by Von Gerichten.

Taller southeast tower:

Its setbacks have a bit of Art Deco-ish spice to them.

The cornerstone is embedded in this tower. Despite the church’s intricacies, it is very simple:

The southwest tower is much shorter, with a boxy, slightly asymmetrical appearance:

The parapet has a sort of castellated appearance, but only on the corners. 

Mt. Vernon Avenue hits a dead end right in front of this church--very Silversteinesque. Where the Municipal Investment Ends, maybe?

Nearby Ohio Historical Marker:

Anyways, I stood about where that fence was, I-71 snaking its way through the two incommunicable halves of the neighborhood, to take this nice picture of the entire church:

One of the nave’s smaller lancet windows--note its similarity to the rose window:

The west transept:

This window was replaced in the 1960s with its current design. That’s probably around the same time the vintage sign above was put in, too.

Hmm…it looks like the letters once had neon tubes in front of them. Definitely in character with the area. (They were removed after 2004.)

This area seems to be the rectory, and it has a small chapel, too:

Education wing, devoid of all character here:

I guess the only people seeing it are idiots speeding down I-71, anyways. Their discerning eyes can’t quite make out the architectural intricacies seen elsewhere on this building. You’d think being right next to a major highway would have done more damage to Shiloh Baptist, but it’s still going strong to this day.

Sources:

https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71988591

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4084cm.g4084cm_g066561887/?sp=40&st=image

https://www.cardcow.com/204169/columbus-ohio-shiloh-baptist-church/

https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/african/id/31847

https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/ohio/id/13605/rec/1

https://www.dispatch.com/in-depth/lifestyle/2020/12/03/black-columbus-ohio-homes-impact-highways-east-side/3629685001/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_3L_gvqZnU