A Walking Tour of Granville’s Broadway: This tour covers significant buildings in the central business and historical district of Granville from Main Street to the Granville Inn, starting at the Granville Historical Society.

We welcome you to experience the tour virtually from your home computer or LIVE on your mobile device while wandering town. Before you get started, check out the introduction then prepare yourself to fall in love with Granville!

Introduction

The Village of Granville is unique in its warmth and beauty. A planned community from its beginning in Massachusetts, the selected site is sheltered by the rolling Welsh Hills to the north and east and open to Raccoon Creek to the south. A line of springs in the hills provided copious water. Streets were laid out in a regular pattern aligned with the compass. Granville still retains the wide tree-lined streets envisioned by the founders and many of its early homes as well. This walking tour is meant to give the visitor a brief introduction to some of those homes and public buildings on “The Broadway.”

The village was founded on the main stage road from Zanesville to Worthington and with access to the Ohio and Erie canal; there were hopes that it would become a commercial center. However, both the National Road and the early railroads passed south of Granville and, gradually, the business of Granville became education. Three institutions of higher education flourished in Granville in the last two-thirds of the 19 th century – Shepardson College for Women merged with Denison University in 1900 and today the University is among Granville’s most prominent features.

As the forest gave way to house lots, gardens and farm fields, the village was surrounded by bare hills at mid-19 th century. About 1890, in response to the landscape movement in the United States, residents began replanting and many street names were changed. By 1920, trees again covered the bare hills. Houses too, were influenced by styles of the times. The first log cabins were replaced in turn by homes in the Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic, Georgian Revival, Victorian, Queen Anne, and Eastlake styles.