Grove City--The Town with a Future - Part 4

(The following was written by Lewis Garrison, and is reprinted from 1927’s “Grove City - The Town with a Future”,  available at the Grove City Welcome Center and Museum. Any opinions made in the article are from the author.)Grove City is now furnishing several hundred mechanics and laborers to Columbus concerns who could well and profitably be employed locally if factories were established. The town is not ridden by conditions that usually exist in a factory town and manufacturers would be received with open arms and given every assistance. Good transportation facilities, good roads, easy access to Columbus, cheap land, plenty of water for fire protection, cheap current for light and power, and plenty of skilled and unskilled labor which may be easily trained, are a few features beckoning proposed factories.Grove City people, as a rule, are thrifty, and a good percentage own their homes. The wealth of the town is fairly well divided, which goes towards making a substantial community. A congenial atmosphere obtains in Grove City for those living here. Residents can enjoy all of the big things that go on in Columbus and return to their homes from the center of Columbus within 20 to 30 minutes. Less traffic will be encountered and far quicker time can be made in this direction than to any suburb of Columbus of equal distance, because the territory traversed is through the thinnest populated section of Columbus. All railroad crossings are overhead; there are no hills; no streetcar traffic; no objectionable section of the city to pass through, and no unsightly freight yards.Those who know this section best and have watched developments can see in no distant future that the road between Grove City and Columbus will be solidly built up and the town eventually become a part of the city of Columbus. In the past year no less than 50 houses have been built between Grove City and Greenlawn Cemetery. These new houses cost in the neighborhood of $4,000 to $5,000 each.The town of Briggsdale in between has practically doubled its population within the last three or four years. There have been four or five additions laid out along this road this year and it is almost impossible to find acreage large enough available for addition purposes. Values have gone up by leaps and bounds. Land between Grove City and Columbus that was valued at $200 to $400 per acre on the Highway four or five years ago, has sold for $800 and $900 per acre the past year. Lots 60 by 150 feet on this road are being quoted at $750 and $1,000. This was formerly acreage that sold at $300 per acre. This land is being picked up and build upon and everything points to the continuance of this growth. If the same advancement and development continues in every direction in the Capital City as in the past, Grove City should be within the city limits of Columbus within the next 10 years. If a circle were drawn from the center of Columbus seven miles out, Grove City would be in equal distance of two well-populated districts of Columbus.Grove City offers special facilities in agriculture for the reason that Columbus is a high-priced market reached at a minimum of expense. Truck gardening, berry raising and poultry farms will be found most remunerative in this section.