The Village of Bexley was founded in 1908. The Pleasant Ridge community, located south of Main Street, and the Bullitt Park community, located north of Main Street held a special election in the summer of 1908 to merge and incorporate as the Village of Bexley. Shortly after its founding, the newly formed village was sued by the city of Columbus on the grounds that the village‘s land was already annexed and was subject to Columbus taxes. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that Bexley was a legally incorporated village and not subject to Columbus taxes and Bexley’s future was secured.
The first mayor of Bexley was Frank P. Holtzman. From the village’s founding until 1916, the council met at Capital University. From 1916 to 1923, they met in the basement at Main Street School. In 1923, Mayor Stephen Ludwig authorized $2,500 to be spent on the construction of a new Village Hall. It opened in 1925, and was designed and built by O.P. Dunlap, who was then a councilman and would later become the building inspector for Bexley. By 1928, Bexley had reached the 5,000 residents needed to become a city, but it could not be made official until the 1930 census results were available. On January 1, 1932, the Village of Bexley became the City of Bexley.
Starting in 1935, money was set aside each year for the building of a new city hall building, as the city was quickly outgrowing the original building. The new building was dedicated on April 5, 1952, and the 1925 building was moved to a location on Margaret Street off of North Cassady Avenue. The new municipal building was praised as “beautiful, modern, and functional in every aspect” by the Columbus Dispatch. In 2013, it was announced that City Hall would be moving into the Bexley Square Shopping Center and a Giant Eagle would be built on the current location of City Hall.
Photo Courtesy of Bexley Historical Society
Sources:
Bexley Historical Society Collection “Bexley's New Ultra-Modern City Hall Will be Dedicated at Ceremony Saturday” Columbus Dispatch, April 4, 1952 “The History of Bexley” by Midge Krumm www.bexleymain.com/midge/midgehisory.htm Retrieved 23 Aug 2004 The History of Public Secondary Education in Bexley, Ohio: a Thesis by Omar W. Lindner “Issues keeping Giant Eagle grounded for now” by Chris Bournea, This Week in Bexley, 2 September 2014
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