Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1969. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
one of 65 National Register listings in Lucas County · listed in 1969 · category: Building · one of 2 National Historic Landmarks in Lucas County.
National Register reference number.69000146- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Fires near this property
4 since 2002
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 4 fires within 5 miles of Columbian House between
2002 and 2015, burning about 6 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Recreation and ceremony
2
Smoking
1
Debris and open burning
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 756 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Columbian House between 1860 and
1975: 668 Animalia, 81 Plantae, 5 Fungi, 1 Unrecorded, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. D. Selby, A. Lose, A.E. Daugherty and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
4 workings within 5 miles of Columbian House: 3 producers, 1 past producer.
3 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Dimension, Limestone, General, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Waterville, the town this property stands in, in 19 storm reports between 1998 and 2024: 13 thunderstorm wind, 5 hail, 1 flood.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Heavy rain fell across many areas of northwestern Ohio during the first half of the week from August 19th through the 22nd. Some locations across northwest Ohio picked up between 5 and 10 inches of rain during this time. The Maumee River gage at Waterville showed that the river gradually rose through the day on the 20th and 21st, and then went above flood stage of 9.0 feet just before 7:00 pm on the 21st. The river continued to rise through the entire day of the 22nd and much of the day on the 23rd. The river finally crested during the evening of the 23rd at around 11.9 feet. Over the next several days the river slowly fell as it had to handle drainage from upstream rivers, including the Blanchard River. The river remained above flood stage for just over four and a half days, and finally fell below flood stage during the afternoon hours of August 26.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
From the nomination file
1,240 words on record
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
eaves and cornice soffit, as well as the dentil course, are in the classic pilasters, deep friezes, and projecting cornices are equally consistent with the style. Due to a fortunate lack of alterations, the structure John W. Keefe October 21, 1969 CONDITION DESCRIPTION Excellent The Columbian House represents an important late flowering pretation of the Georgian style in provincial America.It is one of the few such structures in this idiom remaining in Northwestern Ohio.
retains its character intact and represents a particularly fine inter- retains the tall style of the late 1825's.The mutules in the pediment (Check One) Good Toledo Museum of Art - Unexposed tions, fenestration and sash schemes of the Georgian style, the structure PERIOD (Check One or More as Appropriate) Pre-Columbian | - 16th Century - Prehistoric STATEMENT OF
Statement of significance
1828 by John Pray, who founded the town of Waterville in 1831. It-became The three-story structure was constructed with fourteen-inch timbers, all walnut doors have witch panels. added to the same power, a carding machine, a hemp machine, and a distillery.
Architecture Engineering Commerce Conservation Art losophy Communications Theater Transportation Education Literature Landscape NATIONAL Music SIGNIFICANCE Agriculture Science Military Aboriginal The first floor was furnished with bar room and a great number of supplies Sculpture ing public.He and Mrs.Pray enjoyed sixty-three years together.He was with which the white man traded with the Indians.Sleeping quarters occu- hand hewn.The woodwork of the twenty-three rooms is black walnut.The Mr.Pray's educational advantages in early life did not enable him to take hundred Windsor chairs in bright yellow to place around the ball room. ceiling and two wide fireplaces at either end.
in Northern Ohio on Granger Island.Shortly after completion, there was Industry Mr.Pray brought his building traditions with him when he came from Rhode Urban Planning He reared eleven children and his house was always the home of the travel- was one of the Board of County commissioners from the organization of Wood pied the second floor and the third was a ball room with beautifully arched of the countryside revolved about it. The building was opened by a grand ball which was the affair of the Island in l8l7.He was his own architect and his own builder. After his death in 1872, the inn tried to keep pace with the times and Social/Human Upon Mr.Pray's arrival here, the nearest flouring mill was at Monroe, Political Religion/Phi. County in 1820,until the formation of Lucas in 1835.
Invention AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE (Check One or More as Appropriate) pass, was a difficult one. In 1821 Mr.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 69000146, 13 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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