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Educational Presentations for Adults & School Children
Walking Tours of the Historic District
Guided Walking Tours of the Historic District are held three times a year (spring, summer and fall) by a board member of the Upper Arlington Historic Society. They leave from Miller Park library. Registration is not needed.
A self-guided “Walking Tour” brochure for the Upper Arlington Historic District is available from the Miller Park Library, located at 1901 Arlington Avenue. The tour provides information on the architectural details and history of some 90 homes located within the Historic District.
Homes featured on the tour include:
1860 Cambridge Blvd.
Built: 1916-1917
Style: Georgian Revival
This house is of brick construction with a hipped roof of slate and chimneys at either end, which is very typical of Georgian Revival. There are four bays on the front of the house with a belted wall treatment. It has a small window in the roofline referred to as an “eyebrow” window. Windows in the main part of the house are various shapes and sizes. There is one arched window at the stair landing on the façade. The house is symmetrical in shape.
1861 Cambridge Blvd.
Built: 1916-1917
Style: English Country Revival
This lovely stone house has many beautiful features. There is a turret on the front of the house. The chimneys have chimney pots. There are cut stone lintels over three windows and many other interesting windows. The front entry has a large three-part entablature with a cornice, frieze and architrave supported by two decorative brackets. The front gate is between two, freestanding stone walls.
1922 Arlington Avenue
Built: 1920
Style: American Colonial Revival
This house is symmetrically shaped with a slate gabled roof and interior chimneys. On the center of the front façade is a three-sided bay with a hip roof intersecting the main roofline and an entry porch with pillars and a simple cornice. A one story five-sided room to the south is similar to its neighbor’s directly across Arlington Avenue. A five-sided room on the north side of the house has been sensitively added to match the original on the south side.
Educational Presentations
In addition to educational programming for adults, the Historical Society takes 3rd and 6th graders from throughout Upper Arlington on tours of the Historic District. We point out architectural features on homes and visit the Miller Ice House, talking about the Miller family, who sold the land to King and Ben Thompson so they could build Upper Arlington.
Our Student Tour starts at Miller Park with everyone having lunch. We gather after lunch and walk up to the Mallway on Arlington Avenue and talk about when Ben and King Thompson built Upper Arlington and planned the Civic Center where they placed businesses to serve the residents of the new community, the Municipal Building (City Hall), which is now the Fire House, and Jones Middle School. The Old Municipal Building and Jones are built on axis from each other. The school, built in 1924 on land donated by King Thompson, was the new school in Upper Arlington and housed all grades K-12. This building became Upper Arlington Junior High School when the new high school on Ridgeview Road was built.
The Student Tour continues with homes of the original streets of Upper Arlington. The first street built in the new community was Roxbury Road, followed by Arlington Avenue and Cambridge Boulevard. Students learn about some homes’ architectural features such as “eyebrow” windows, hipped roofs, stretcher and header pattern of brick, quoins and the styles of Revival architecture.
We then walk along Upper Chelsea and go into First Community Village, the property on which the Miller Farmhouse was located. We visit the Miller Ice House before heading back to the bus waiting at Miller Park.
Updated 01/07
Upper Arlington Historical Society
1901 Arlington Avenue
Upper Arlington, Ohio 43212
Phone: 614-470-2610
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