Columbus Neighborhoods - "Kahiki Supper Club "
The Kahiki Supper Club on The State of Ohio with Karen Kasler
Kahiki Supper Club: A Polynesian Paradise in Columbus
Inspired by Florida's famed Mai-Kai restaurant, Bill Sapp and Lee Henry opened the Kahiki Supper Club in 1961. They set out simply to build a nice Polynesian restaurant and ended up establishing the most magnificent one of them all. Patrons lined up for hours to see the celebrities who dined there—everyone from Betty White to Raymond Burr. Outside, two giant Easter Island heads with flames spouting from their topknots stood guard while customers dined in a faux tribal village with thatched huts, palm trees and a towering fireplace moai. One wall featured aquariums of exotic fish and another had windows overlooking a tropical rainforest with periodic thunderstorms. For nearly forty years, the Kahiki was the undisputed center of tiki culture. (The History Press, 192 pages, 80 illustrations)
The Kahiki Scrapbook
To aficionados of Polynesian Pop, the Kahiki Supper Club was and remains the touchstone for all things tiki. The epitome of a fad that started at the end of Prohibition, it has been rediscovered by each successive generation, with relics of the original “mothership” proudly displayed in tropical restaurants and bars throughout the country. Years after its razing in August 2002, the legacy of the Kahiki continues to inspire artists, entrepreneurs, and other visionaries who never set foot inside the fabled tiki palace. From the authors of Kahiki Supper Club comes a new collection of more stories, more images, and more delicious recipes that explain why the Kahiki was such a historically, culturally, and sociologically important artifact of the twentieth century.
Tales of Ohio's Underground Railroad
Authors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker separate fact from fiction in the story of Ohio’s Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was a macabre sort of dance between good and evil in which each side was trying to steal away the other’s partner. However, in the upside-down-world of pre-Civil War America, the law was firmly on the side of evil and the dance often ended in death. It was a time when the newly formed country was deeply divided on the question of slavery and its fate hung in the balance. Just how long could a house divided against itself be expected to stand?
Historic Black Settlements of Ohio
In the years leading up to the Civil War, Ohio had more African American settlements than any other state. Owing to a common border with several slave states, it became a destination for people of color seeking to separate themselves from slavery. Despite these communities having populations that sometimes numbered in the hundreds, little is known about most of them, and by the beginning of the twentieth century, nearly all had lost their ethnic identities as the original settlers died off and their descendants moved away. Save for scattered cemeteries and an occasional house or church, they have all but been erased from Ohio's landscape. Father-daughter coauthors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker piece together the stories of more than forty of these black settlements.
Sandusky Library Brown Bag: Historic Black Settlements of Ohio
Click to access genealogical information on many of the settlements.
The Reverse Underground Railroad in Ohio
Prior to the Civil War, thousands escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad. Untold others failed in the attempt. These unfortunate souls were dragged into bondage via the Reverse Underground Railroad, as it came to be called. With more lines on both roads than any other state, the Free State of Ohio became a hunting ground for slavecatchers and kidnappers who roamed the North with impunity, seeking "fugitives" or any person of color who could be sold into slavery. And when they found one, they would kidnap their victim and head south to reap the reward. David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker, authors of Historic Black Settlements of Ohio, reveal not only the terror and injustice but also the bravery and determination born of this dark time in American history
The Reverse Underground Railroad in Ohio - Massillon Library & Spring Hill Historic Home
A Murder in Amish Ohio
In the summer of 1957, a young Holmes County farmer was gunned down in cold blood. There was little to distinguish this slaying from hundreds of others throughout the United States that year except for one detail: Paul Coblentz was Amish. A committed pacifist, Coblentz would not raise a hand against his killers. As sensational crimes often do, the "Amish murder" opened a window into the private lives of the young man, his family and his community--a community that in some respects remains as enigmatic today as it was more than half a century ago. Authors of Wicked Columbus, Ohio's Black Hand Syndicate and others, David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker unravel the intricacies surrounding one of Ohio's most intriguing murder cases.
Euclid Public Library: Meet the Author
Wicked Columbus Ohio
Ohio's capital city once teemed with crime bosses, rampant corruption and unpunished perversion. The Bad Lands of Columbus was a nationally recognized slum controlled by "Smoky" Hobbs. Columbus native Dr. Samuel B. Hartman, the world's most successful snake oil salesman, was almost single-handedly responsible for the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act. Local gambler "Pat" Murnan had an unlikely love affair with Grace Backenstoe, the madam of the most popular brothel in town. The two were a symbol of the area's salaciousness. Authors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker explore the heyday of Columbus's most notorious fiends, corrupt politicians and con men.
Lynching and Mob Violence in Ohio
In the late 19th century Ohio was reeling from a wave of lynchings and other acts of racially motivated mob violence. Many of these acts were attributed to well-known and respected men and women yet few of them were ever prosecuted--some were even lauded for taking the law into their own hands. In 1892, Ohio-born Benjamin Harrison was the first U.S. President to call for anti-lynching legislation. Four years later, his home state responded with the Smith Act "for the Suppression of Mob Violence." One of the most severe anti-lynching laws in the country, it was a major step forward, though it did little to address the underlying causes of racial intolerance and distrust of law enforcement. Chronicling hundreds of acts of mob violence in Ohio, this book explores the acts themselves, their motivations and the law's response to them.
Historic Columbus Crimes
In Historic Columbus Crimes, the father-daughter team of David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker looks back at sixteen tales of murder, mystery and mayhem culled from city history. Take the rock star slain by a troubled fan or the drag queen slashed to death by a would-be ninja. Then there's the writer who died acting out the plot of his next book, the minister's wife incinerated in the parsonage furnace and a couple of serial killers who outdid the Son of Sam. Not to mention a gunfight at Broad and High, grave-robbing medical students, the bloodiest day in FBI history and other fascinating stories of crime and tragedy. They're all here, and they're all true!
Ohio's Black Hand Syndicate
Organized crime was born in the back of a fruit store in Marion. Before America saw headlines about the Capone Mob, the Purple Gang and Murder Inc., the specter of the Black Hand terrorized nearly every major city. Fears that the Mafia had reached our shores and infiltrated every Italian immigrant community kept police alert and citizens on edge. It was only a matter of time before these professed Robin Hoods formed a band. And when they did, the eyes of the world turned to Ohio, particularly when the local Black Hand outfit known as the Society of the Banana went on trial. Authors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker unfold this first and nearly forgotten chapter on crime syndicate history.
Inside the Ohio Penitentiary
Uncover the full extent of mayhem and madness locked away in one of history's most notorious maximum-security prisons. As ""animal factories"" go, the Ohio Penitentiary was one of the worst. For 150 years, it housed some of the most dangerous criminals in the United States, including murderers, madmen and mobsters. Peer in on America's first vampire, accused of sucking his victims' blood five years before Bram Stoker's fictional villain was even born; peek into the cage of the original Prison Demon; and witness the daring escape of John Hunt Morgan's band of Confederate prisoners.
Inside the Ohio Penitentiary: The State of Ohio with Karen Kasler
Central Ohio's Historic Prisons
With the opening of the Ohio State Reformatory in 1896, the state legislature had put in place "the most complete prison system, in theory, which exists in the United States." The reformatory joined the Ohio Penitentiary and the Boys Industrial School, also central-Ohio institutions, to form the first instance of "graded prisons; with the reform farm on one side of the new prison, for juvenile offenders, and the penitentiary on the other, for all the more hardened and incorrigible class." However, even as the concept was being replicated throughout the country, the staffs of the institutions were faced with the day-to-day struggle of actually making the system work.
Look To Lazarus: The Big Store
Department stores were a midwest institution, none more prominent in downtown Columbus Ohio than F&R Laazarus & Company. For more than 150 years, F&R Lazarus & Company was the heart of downtown Columbus. Headed by the "first family of American retailing" with an eye for flair and a devotion to the customer, this uniquely midwestern institution won the hearts and minds of a community. Look to Lazarus draws on the memories of those who worked and shopped in this grand emporium to tell the unlikely story of a love affair between a city and a store. It was a love affair born of the solemn promise "You can always take it back to Lazarus, no questions asked."
Carrying Coal To Columbus: Mining in the Hocking Valley
As early as 1755, explorers found coal deposits in Ohio's Hocking Valley. The industry that followed created towns and canals and established a new way of life. The first shipment of coal rolled into Columbus in 1830 and has continued ever since. In 1890, the United Mine Workers of America was founded in Columbus. Lorenzo D. Poston became the first of the Hocking Valley coal barons, and by the start of the twentieth century, at least fifty thousand coal miners and their families lived and worked in Athens, Hocking and Perry Counties. Authors David Meyers, Elise Meyers Walker and Nyla Vollmer detail the hard work and struggles as they unfolded in Ohio's capital and the Little Cities of Black Diamonds.
Columbus State Community College
For half a century, the mission of Columbus State Community College has remained essentially unchanged – to provide skilled men and women to meet the workforce needs of Central Ohio employers. What has changed, however, is the way it goes about fulfilling that mission. Columbus State Community College: An Informal History is the story of how this remarkable institution grew from a handful of classes in a high school basement into the largest two-year college in Ohio. It is also the story of the community it replaced and the community it is helping to create by action and example. Profusely illustrated and packed with fascinating facts, this highly readable book provides an entertaining introduction to the development of higher education in the Buckeye State.
A Glance of Heaven: The Design and Operation of the Separatist Society of Zoar
THE MACHINE IN THE GARDEN -- The Separatists of Zoar in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, chose their own metaphor in the magnificent garden which was the focal point of the community. Designed in the shape of a wheel, it represented the New Jerusalem mentioned in the Book of Revelation. A tall Norway spruce in the center stood for Christ and life everlasting. It was encircled by a hedge of arbor vitae, around which ran a green path which symbolized the Kingdom of God. Twelve Irish juniper trees, one for each apostle, stood just outside the path, and twelve paths radiated out from the center path to the edges of the garden like spokes. These represented the many different walks of life leading to Heaven. But there was more to Zoar than met the eye. It was a many faceted organization whose separate paths had to intermesh in an orderly manner if it were to perform the job for which it was created. The society was a machine – a machine in a garden. Just beyond the hedge rows, surrounded by the flower beds, shaded by the apple trees, almost hidden from view, it sat and quietly ran for nearly eighty years.
Original Ohio: Dreamsville, The Magic City & Other Historic Ohio Communities
Every community begins with a dream - a dream of a better life Home to thousands of settlements extending as far back as 13,000 years ago, Ohio has seen most of its architectural history fall to the wrecking ball. But there is still history all around if we know where to look. Located south of Dayton, SunWatch is the best-known Fort Ancient Indian village in the United States. On the other side of the state, Marietta is the oldest permanent settlement in the Northwest Territory. About fifty miles southeast of Cincinnati, antebellum Ripley grew to prominence as a bastion of abolitionism. Dennison, also known as Dreamsville, was born virtually overnight thanks to the railroads. Authors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker reveal twenty-one communities where the Ohio story can still be seen.