I LOVE COLUMBUS

Tucked in with the trees that line quiet E. Town St. in downtown, Columbus is a truly awesome remnant of our city’s history. Built in 1852 (when Town St. was a dirt road on the very outskirts of town), the Kelton House was passed down through three generations of family and willed to the Columbus Foundation by its final owner. Grace Kelton was an independent and worldly interior decorator with the foresight to preserve the home’s past, present and future…lest it fall into the wrong hands and be converted into apartments (fun fact: she was a consultant during the White House restoration by Jackie Kennedy). Here’s the thing…the Kelton family was always on the progressive side: this home was a stop on the Underground Railroad and the eventual home of one slave girl who was too sick to make the trip further north. As a former house manager, I could go on and on, but I’ll shut up now. Just go take a tour and see it for yourself! This living history museum is available for meetings and weddings too…

Thanks to digital and social media, this entire scrapbook (including the telegrams notifying the Keltons of their teenage son’s death during the Civil War) will soon be available to browse online! In the mean time, check out columbusmemory.org for a timeline of Columbus history and an archive of vintage visuals.