Columbus Board of Trade Building

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Columbus Board of Trade Building was a historic office building on Capitol Square in downtown Columbus, Ohio, at 30 East Broad Street opposite the Ohio Statehouse. Ground was broken in 1886, and the six-story building opened on July 23, 1889. It was built for the city’s Chamber of Commerce and designed by Elah Terrell and Joseph W. Yost in a mix of Richardsonian Romanesque and Gothic Revival styles.

The façade had three bays—the central six-story bay and two five-story side bays—each with a tall column topped by a conical roof. The central bay featured round-arched windows at the top and a steep hip roof, while the main entrance used two large columns supporting a deep stone cornice and a big stone arch. The exterior used smooth and rock-faced ashlar stone across all floors, giving the building a sense of permanence and stateliness.

Inside, the building housed a rear 2,000-seat auditorium (demolished in 1932). The Chamber of Commerce, established in 1884, bought the Buckeye House Hotel (Gardner House) for about $45,000 in 1886 to make way for the new building, which totalled roughly $165,000. In May 1888, a basement ceiling arch collapsed during construction, killing two workers and injuring another, but construction continued and the building opened later that year.

The Board of Trade Building was vacated in August 1964 after the chamber moved to North High Street and was demolished in December 1969. Today, the Rhodes State Office Tower stands on its former site.