Portsmouth-Columbus Club Co - Unissued Stock Certificate

General Stock. Vignette of a torch. Unissued.

Portsmouth is a city in and the county seat of Scioto County, Ohio, United States. Located in southern Ohio 41 miles (66 km) south of Chillicothe, it lies on the north bank of the Ohio River, across from Kentucky, just east of the mouth of the Scioto River. The population was 20,226 at the 2010 census. Portsmouth also stands as the state's 88th most populated city.

The area was occupied by Native Americans as early as 100 CE, as indicated by the Portsmouth Earthworks, a ceremonial center built by the Ohio Hopewell culture between 100 and 500 AD.

According to early 20th-century historian Charles Augustus Hanna, a Shawnee village was founded at the site of modern-day Portsmouth in late 1758, following the destruction of Lower Shawneetown by floods.

European-Americans began to settle in the 1790s after the American Revolutionary War, and the small town of Alexandria was founded. Located at the confluence, Alexandria was flooded numerous times by the Ohio and the Scioto rivers.

In 1796, Emanuel Traxler became the first person to permanently occupy land in what would later be known as Portsmouth, after the United States gained its independence.

In 1803, Henry Massie found a better location slightly east and somewhat removed from the flood plains. He began to plot the new city by mapping the streets and distributing the land. Portsmouth was founded in 1803 and was established as a city in 1815. It was designated as the county seat. Settlers left Alexandria, and it soon disappeared. Massie named Portsmouth after the town of Portsmouth in New Hampshire.

The Ohio state legislature passed "Black Laws" in 1804 that restricted movement of free blacks and required persons to carry papers, in an effort to dissuade blacks from settling in the state. These provisions were intermittently enforced by local governments and law enforcement, and sometimes used as an excuse to force African Americans out of settlements. In 1831, Portsmouth drove out African Americans from the city under this pretext. Many settled several miles north in what became known as Huston's Hollow, along the Scioto River. Its residents, especially Joseph Love and Dan Lucas, provided aid to refugee slaves in the following years and assisted them in moving north.

Although southern Ohio was dominated in number by anti-abolitionist settlers from the South, some whites also worked to improve conditions for blacks and aid refugee slaves. Portsmouth became important in the antebellum years as part of the Underground Railroad. Fugitive slaves from Kentucky and other parts of the South crossed the Ohio River here. Some found their future in Portsmouth; others moved north along the Scioto River to reach Detroit, Michigan, and get further away from slave catchers. Many continued into Canada to secure their freedom. A historical marker near the Grant Bridge commemorates this period of Portsmouth's history. James Ashley of Portsmouth continued his activism and pursued a political career. After being elected to Congress, he wrote the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery in 1865 after the American Civil War.

Portsmouth quickly developed an industrial base due to its location at the confluence of the Ohio and Scioto rivers. Early industrial growth included having meat packing and shipping facilities for Thomas Worthington's Chillicothe farm, located north of Portsmouth on the Scioto River. The city's growth was stimulated by completion of the Ohio and Erie Canal in the 1820s and 1830s, which provided access to the Great Lakes, opening up northern markets.

But the construction of the Norfolk and Western (N&W) railyards beginning in 1838 and the completion of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) junction at the city in the late 1850s quickly surpassed the canal in stimulating growth. The railroads soon carried more freight than the canal, with the B&O connecting the city to the Baltimore and Washington, DC markets. By the end of the 19th century, Portsmouth became one of the most important industrial cities on the Ohio River between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cincinnati, Ohio. It became an iron and steel factory town with new companies like the Portsmouth Steel Company.

The city's growth continued. By 1916, during World War I, Portsmouth was listed as being a major industrial and jobbing center, the fourth-largest shoe manufacturing center in the country, and the largest manufacturer of fire and paving bricks in the United States. Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel (later called Empire-Detroit Steel) employed over one thousand people. There were 100 other manufacturing companies producing goods from furniture to engines.

Such industrial and shipping growth greatly benefited Boneyfiddle (a west-end neighborhood in Portsmouth), where grand buildings were constructed with the wealth from the commerce. As time passed, much of the commerce began to move toward Chillicothe Street, which has continued as the main thoroughfare of Portsmouth. While Boneyfiddle is receiving new life, it is a shadow of its former self.

The city population peaked at just over 42,000 in 1930 (see "Demographics", below). In 1931, the Norfolk Southern Corporation built a grand, art deco passenger station in Portsmouth, that provided a substantial entry to the city. It was located at 16th and Findlay streets. Passengers used the station for access to both interstate and intrastate train lines, which provided basic transportation for many. The widespread availability of affordable automobiles and changing patterns resulted in reduction in rail passenger traffic here and nationally. The station was later used for offices and its keys were turned over to Scioto County in 2003, and the building was demolished in 2004.

Suburbanization also affected the city. By the 1950 census, the population had begun to decline, falling below 40,000. Some of this change was due to the effects of highway construction, which stimulated suburban residential development in the postwar years. But during the late 20th century, foreign competition and industrial restructuring resulted in the loss of most of the industrial jobs on which Portsmouth's economy had been based; the jobs were moved out of the area, with many going overseas.

Further decline occurred in 1980, following the suspension of operations at Empire Detroit Steel's Portsmouth Works, which took place after the sale of the steel plant to Armco Steel. Armco Steel closed the plant because they did not want to replace the obsolete, Open Hearth Furnaces with the more efficient basic oxygen steel furnaces. The plant also needed a continuous caster to replace the obsolete soaking pits and blooming mill in 1995. When the steel mill was closed, 1,300 steelworkers were laid off.

As of 2010, Portsmouth has a population of approximately 20,000. It has shared in the loss of jobs due to unskilled labor outsourcing and population migration to more populous urban areas. Despite its relatively small size, Portsmouth has been a regular stop for recent Presidential campaigns of the 21st century. In September 2004, George W. Bush visited the city as part of his reelection campaign. Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards also visited Portsmouth that month. The campaigns of 2008 resulted in numerous candidates and surrogates visiting Portsmouth, and some spoke at Shawnee State University: Bill Clinton on behalf of his wife Hillary Clinton, Republican candidate John McCain, and US Senator Barack Obama, who won the election. In 2012, candidate Mitt Romney spoke at Shawnee State University. In March 2016, Bill Clinton visited Portsmouth again to campaign for his wife, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. In August 2017, US Senator and former presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, spoke at a rally held at Shawnee State University.

Portsmouth, and other parts of Scioto County, have worked to redevelop blighted properties and create a new economy. Along with adapting disused residential properties, Portsmouth has begun the process of transforming abandoned industrial and commercial properties to other uses.

The city has initiated new developments in its downtown. The Ohio Legislature passed House Bill 233 on April 20, 2016 to authorize cities to create Downtown Redevelopment Districts. They operate similarly to a Tax Increment Finance (TIF) District. The city of Portsmouth formed a Downtown Redevelopment District (DRD) in 2017 in the Boneyfiddle neighborhood of the city to increase investment and development there.

Through the early 21st century, there has been a noticeable increase in investment in Portsmouth's local economy. New investments and developments in the local economy led to Portsmouth's inclusion in Site Selection Magazine's "Top 10 Micropolitan areas". Celina, Defiance and Portsmouth were among a group of cities tied for 10th. Portsmouth attracted nine significant economic development projects in 2016, nearly as many as it had from 2004 to 2013 combined.

In 2014, Portsmouth was one of 350 cities to enter a submission in the America's Best Communities competition, hoping to win the $3 million first place prize. In April 2015, Portsmouth was chosen as one of the 50 quarter-finalists, winning $50,000 to help prepare a Community Revitalization Plan. In January 2016, Portsmouth's plan, which emphasized using its most valuable asset, the Ohio River, as a key to revitalizing the city, earned it one of 15 spots in the competition's semi-finals. In April 2016, Portsmouth was one of seven cities eliminated at the semi-final round, but received an additional $25,000 for use in continuing to develop its plans to improve commercial and community access to the Portsmouth riverfront by making the port a premier regional destination for industrial development, small business development, and riverfront recreation.

In 2019, Portsmouth was named Hallmarks' Hometown Christmas Town. The Friends of Portsmouth group held the annual Winterfest celebration event that brought Christmas lights, vendors, ice skating, carriage rides, tree lighting, and more to Market Square.

In 2020 the National Civic League named Portsmouth as an "All-American City," along with nine other cities.

Columbus is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a population of 905,748 for the 2020 census, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest after Chicago, and the third-most populous state capital. Columbus is the county seat of Franklin County; it also extends into Delaware and Fairfield counties. It is the core city of the Columbus, OH Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses ten counties. The metropolitan area has a 2020 population of 2,138,926, making it the largest entirely in Ohio.

Columbus originated as numerous Native American settlements on the banks of the Scioto River. Franklinton, now a city neighborhood, was the first European settlement, laid out in 1797. The city was founded in 1812, at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, and laid out to become the state capital. The city was named for Italian explorer Christopher Columbus. The city assumed the function of state capital in 1816 and county seat in 1824. Amid steady years of growth and industrialization, the city has experienced numerous floods and recessions. Beginning in the 1950s, Columbus began to experience significant growth; it became the largest city in Ohio in land and population by the early 1990s. The 1990s and 2000s saw redevelopment in numerous city neighborhoods, including downtown.

The city has a diverse economy based on education, government, insurance, banking, defense, aviation, food, clothes, logistics, steel, energy, medical research, health care, hospitality, retail, and technology. The metropolitan area is home to the Battelle Memorial Institute, the world's largest private research and development foundation; Chemical Abstracts Service, the world's largest clearinghouse of chemical information; and Ohio State University, one of the largest universities in the United States. As of 2021, the Greater Columbus area is home to the headquarters of six corporations in the U.S. Fortune 500: Cardinal Health, American Electric Power, L Brands, Nationwide, Alliance Data, and Huntington Bancshares.

The city of Columbus was named after 15th-century Italian explorer Christopher Columbus at the city's founding in 1812. It is the largest city in the world named for the explorer, who sailed to and settled parts of the Americas on behalf of Isabella I of Castile and Spain. Although no reliable history exists as to why Columbus, who had no connection to the city or state of Ohio before the city's founding, was chosen as the name for the city, the book Columbus: The Story of a City indicates a state lawmaker and local resident admired the explorer enough to persuade other lawmakers to name the settlement Columbus.

Since the late 20th century, historians have criticized Columbus for initiating the European conquest of America and for abuse, enslavement, and subjugation of natives. Efforts to remove symbols related to the explorer in the city date to the 1990s. Amid the George Floyd protests in 2020, several petitions pushed for the city to be renamed.

Nicknames for the city have included "the Discovery City", "Arch City", "Cap City", "Indie Art Capital", "Cowtown", "The Biggest Small Town in America", and "Cbus".

Between 1000 B.C. and 1700 A.D., the Columbus metropolitan area was a center to indigenous cultures known as the Mound Builders. The cultures included the Adena, Hopewell and Fort Ancient people. The only remaining physical evidence of the cultures are their burial mounds and what they contained. Most of Central Ohio's remaining mounds are located outside of Columbus city boundaries, though the Shrum Mound is upkept, now part of a public park and historic site. The city's Mound Street derives its name from a mound that existed by the intersection of Mound and High Streets. The mound's clay was used in bricks for most of the city's initial brick buildings; many were subsequently used in the Ohio Statehouse. The city's Ohio History Center maintains a collection of artifacts from these cultures.

The area including modern-day Columbus once comprised the Ohio Country, under the nominal control of the French colonial empire through the Viceroyalty of New France from 1663 until 1763. In the 18th century, European traders flocked to the area, attracted by the fur trade. The area was often caught between warring factions, including American Indian and European interests. In the 1740s, Pennsylvania traders overran the territory until the French forcibly evicted them. Fighting for control of the territory in the French and Indian War (1754-1763) became part of the international Seven Years' War (1756-1763). During this period, the region routinely suffered turmoil, massacres, and battles. The 1763 Treaty of Paris ceded the Ohio Country to the British Empire.

Until just before the American Revolution, Central Ohio had continuously been the home of numerous indigenous villages. A Mingo village was located at the forks of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, with Shawnee villages to the south and Wyandot and Delaware villages to the north. Colonial militiamen burned down the Mingo village in 1774 during a raid.

After the American Revolution, the Virginia Military District became part of the Ohio Country as a territory of Virginia. Colonists from the East Coast moved in, but rather than finding an empty frontier, they encountered people of the Miami, Delaware, Wyandot, Shawnee, and Mingo nations, as well as European traders. The tribes resisted expansion by the fledgling United States, leading to years of bitter conflict. The decisive Battle of Fallen Timbers resulted in the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, which finally opened the way for new settlements. By 1797, a young surveyor from Virginia named Lucas Sullivant had founded a permanent settlement on the west bank of the forks of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers. An admirer of Benjamin Franklin, Sullivant chose to name his frontier village "Franklinton". The location was desirable for its proximity to the navigable rivers—but Sullivant was initially foiled when, in 1798, a large flood wiped out the new settlement. He persevered, and the village was rebuilt, though somewhat more inland.

After the Revolution, land comprising parts of Franklin and adjacent counties was set aside by the United States Congress for settlement by Canadians and Nova Scotians who were sympathetic to the colonial cause and had their land and possessions seized by the British government. The Refugee Tract, consisting of 103,000 acres (42,000 ha), was 42 miles (68 km) long and 3–4.5 miles (4.8–7.2 km) wide, and was claimed by 67 eligible men. The Ohio Statehouse sits on land once contained in the Refugee Tract.

After Ohio achieved statehood in 1803, political infighting among prominent Ohio leaders led to the state capital moving from Chillicothe to Zanesville and back again. Desiring to settle on a location, the state legislature considered Franklinton, Dublin, Worthington, and Delaware before compromising on a plan to build a new city in the state's center, near major transportation routes, primarily rivers. As well, Franklinton landowners had donated two 10-acre (4.0 ha) plots in an effort to convince the state to move its capitol there. The two spaces were set to become Capitol Square (for the Ohio Statehouse) and the Ohio Penitentiary. Named in honor of Christopher Columbus, the city was founded on February 14, 1812, on the "High Banks opposite Franklinton at the Forks of the Scioto most known as Wolf's Ridge." At the time, this area was a dense forestland, used only as a hunting ground.

The city was incorporated as a borough on February 10, 1816. Nine people were elected to fill the municipality's various positions of mayor, treasurer, and several others. During 1816–1817, Jarvis W. Pike would serve as the first appointed mayor. Although the recent War of 1812 had brought prosperity to the area, the subsequent recession and conflicting claims to the land threatened the new town's success. Early conditions were abysmal with frequent bouts of fevers, attributed to malaria from the flooding rivers, and an outbreak of cholera in 1833. It led Columbus to appoint the Board of Health, now part of the Columbus Public Health department. The outbreak, which remained in the city from July to September 1833, killed 100 people.

Columbus was without direct river or trail connections to other Ohio cities, leading to slow initial growth. The National Road reached Columbus from Baltimore in 1831, which complemented the city's new link to the Ohio and Erie Canal, both of which facilitated a population boom. A wave of European immigrants led to the creation of two ethnic enclaves on the city's outskirts. A large Irish population settled in the north along Naghten Street (presently Nationwide Boulevard), while the Germans took advantage of the cheap land to the south, creating a community that came to be known as the Das Alte Südende (The Old South End). Columbus's German population constructed numerous breweries, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, and Capital University.

With a population of 3,500, Columbus was officially chartered as a city on March 3, 1834. On that day the legislature carried out a special act, which granted legislative authority to the city council and judicial authority to the mayor. Elections were held in April of that year, with voters choosing one John Brooks as the first popularly elected mayor. Columbus annexed the then-separate city of Franklinton in 1837.

In 1850, the Columbus and Xenia Railroad became the first railroad into the city, followed by the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad in 1851. The two railroads built a joint Union Station on the east side of High Street just north of Naghten (then called North Public Lane). Rail traffic into Columbus increased—by 1875, eight railroads served Columbus, and the rail companies built a new, more elaborate station. Another cholera outbreak hit Columbus in 1849, prompting the opening of the city's Green Lawn Cemetery.

On January 7, 1857, the Ohio Statehouse finally opened after 18 years of construction. Site construction continued until 1861.

Before the abolition of slavery in the Southern United States in 1863, the Underground Railroad was active in Columbus; led, in part, by James Preston Poindexter. Poindexter arrived in Columbus in the 1830s and became a Baptist preacher and leader in the city's African-American community until the turn of the century.

During the Civil War, Columbus was a major base for the volunteer Union Army. It housed 26,000 troops and held up to 9,000 Confederate prisoners of war at Camp Chase, at what is now the Hilltop neighborhood of west Columbus. Over 2,000 Confederate soldiers remain buried at the site, making it one of the North's largest Confederate cemeteries. North of Columbus, along the Delaware Road, the Regular Army established Camp Thomas, where the 18th U.S. Infantry organized and trained.

By virtue of the Morrill Act of 1862, the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College (which became Ohio State University) was founded in 1870 on the former estate of William and Hannah Neil.

By the end of the 19th century, Columbus was home to several major manufacturing businesses. The city became known as the "Buggy Capital of the World," thanks to the two dozen buggy factories—notably the Columbus Buggy Company, founded in 1875 by C.D. Firestone. The Columbus Consolidated Brewing Company also rose to prominence during this time and might have achieved even greater success were it not for the Anti-Saloon League in neighboring Westerville.

In the steel industry, a forward-thinking man named Samuel P. Bush presided over the Buckeye Steel Castings Company. Columbus was also a popular location for labor organizations. In 1886, Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor in Druid's Hall on S. Fourth Street, and in 1890 the United Mine Workers of America was founded at the old City Hall. In 1894, James Thurber, who would go on to an illustrious literary career in Paris and New York City, was born in the city. Today Ohio State's theater department has a performance center named in his honor, and his childhood-home, the Thurber House, is located in the Discovery District and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Columbus earned one of its nicknames, "The Arch City", because of the dozens of wooden arches that spanned High Street at the turn of the 20th century. The arches illuminated the thoroughfare and eventually became the means by which electric power was provided to the new streetcars. The city tore down the arches and replaced them with cluster lights in 1914 but reconstructed them from metal in the Short North district in 2002 for their unique historical interest.

On March 25, 1913, the Great Flood of 1913 devastated the neighborhood of Franklinton, leaving over ninety people dead and thousands of West Side residents homeless. To prevent flooding, the Army Corps of Engineers recommended widening the Scioto River through downtown, constructing new bridges, and building a retaining wall along its banks. With the strength of the post-World War I economy, a construction boom occurred in the 1920s, resulting in a new Civic center, the Ohio Theatre, the American Insurance Union Citadel, and to the north, a massive new Ohio Stadium. Although the American Professional Football Association was founded in Canton in 1920, its head offices moved to Columbus in 1921 to the New Hayden Building and remained in the city until 1941. In 1922, the association's name was changed to the National Football League. A decade later, in 1931, at a convention in the city, the Jehovah's Witnesses took that name by which they are known today.

The effects of the Great Depression were less severe in Columbus, as the city's diversified economy helped it fare better than its Rust Belt neighbors. World War II brought many new jobs and another population surge. This time, most new arrivals were migrants from the "extraordinarily depressed rural areas" of Appalachia, who would soon account for more than a third of Columbus's growing population. In 1948, the Town and Country Shopping Center opened in suburban Whitehall, and it is now regarded as one of the first modern shopping centers in the United States.

The construction of the Interstate Highway System signaled the arrival of rapid suburb development in central Ohio. To protect the city's tax base from this suburbanization, Columbus adopted a policy of linking sewer and water hookups to annexation to the city. By the early 1990s, Columbus had grown to become Ohio's largest city in land area and in population.

Efforts to revitalize downtown Columbus have had some success in recent decades, though like most major American cities, some architectural heritage was lost in the process. In the 1970s, landmarks such as Union Station and the Neil House hotel were razed to construct high-rise offices and big retail space. The PNC Bank building was constructed in 1977, as well as the Nationwide Plaza buildings and other towers that sprouted during this period. The construction of the Greater Columbus Convention Center has brought major conventions and trade shows to the city.

The Scioto Mile began development along the riverfront, an area that already had the Miranova Corporate Center and The Condominiums at North Bank Park.

The 2010 United States foreclosure crisis forced the city to purchase numerous foreclosed, vacant properties to renovate or demolish them–at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. In February 2011, Columbus had 6,117 vacant properties, according to city officials.

Since 2010, Columbus has been growing in population and economy; from 2010 to 2017, the city added 164,000 jobs, second in the United States. The city is focused on downtown revitalization, with recent projects being the Columbus Commons park, parks along the Scioto Mile developed along with a reshaped riverfront, and developments in the Arena District and Franklinton. In February and March 2020, Columbus reported its first official cases of COVID-19 and declared a state of emergency, with all nonessential businesses closed state-wide. There were 69,244 cases of the disease across the city, as of March 11, 2021. Later in 2020, protests over the murder of George Floyd took place in the city from May 28 into August.

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