By 1830, massive German immigration to the city had occurred. These South Enders had little time or money for extras. As the local newspaper, “Der Westbote,” described in 1855: “The people who live in these small houses work very hard. You will not find silver on the doors, but you will find many little gardens which produce vegetables for the city’s market. You will not find silk or other very expensive things; but the houses are very clean, the people work hard, and are very healthy, and they are very happy.”

By 1856, few had settled east of Third Street. Still waiting to be developed was the area below Kossuth Street, the city’s southern boundary. By 1872, area development forced Columbus to extend that boundary. The city turned Stewart’s Grove into a City Park surrounded by empty building lots in 1865. When it was renamed Schiller Park in 1891, those lots were not so empty. Settlement in the area north of Whittier and west of Mohawk was becoming fairly dense. The majority of the Village’s existing buildings date from the last quarter of the 19th century.

German Village grew and developed before anyone thought of zoning regulations. As a result, businesses were scattered throughout the neighborhood, though few blocks had more than one or two commercial buildings. This allowed the Village to retain its predominantly residential character. Typically, a business owner set up shop on the first floor and lived above the store.

Decline

Under Columbus’s first zoning ordinance in 1923, the South End was zoned for manufacturing and commercial use. Such zoning permitted virtually any land use and ended the original residential quality of the neighborhood. This zoning classification accurately reflected changes in the area that began during World War I and would continue through the 1950s.

Social and political changes combined to send the neighborhood into decline: As Germans became Americanized, they depended less on the traditional German community. Perhaps most devastating was the onset of World War I, which stirred strong anti-German sentiment in Columbus’ largely American-born population. German books were burned, German newspapers closed; speaking German was also verboten. Officials renamed Schiller, Germania, Kaiser, and Bismarck streets as Whittier, Stewart, Lear, and Lansing Streets. Schiller Park became Washington Park. Anti-German sentiment contributed to decline as teaching of German in public schools was banned and German textbooks were burned.

Further decline occurred later due to the closing of the local breweries during Prohibition (1920-33) when national laws closed the doors of South End breweries. The German workers were forced to find work elsewhere. They also found homes elsewhere as a trickle of South Enders began moving to newly developed suburbs.

After World War II, that trickle had become a flood, accelerating the neighborhood’s decline. After the war, the South End was zoned for manufacturing, leading to the erosion of the area’s residential feel. By the 1950s, the area had become a slum. The city then demolished one-third of the neighborhood (between Main Street and Livingston Avenue) to make way for the new interstate highway system. The remainder of the South End was seriously deteriorated and a prime candidate for leveling.