Circleville, Ohio facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Circleville, Ohio
City
Circleville's Main Street
Seal
Nickname(s):  Roundtown
Motto(s):  "Home of the Pumpkin Show"
Location in Pickaway County
Circleville, Ohio Location in Ohio
Country	United States
State	Ohio
County	Pickaway
Area
• Total	7.31 sq mi (18.93 km2)
• Land	7.19 sq mi (18.62 km2)
• Water	0.12 sq mi (0.31 km2)
Elevation	696 ft (212 m)
Population  (2010)
• Total	13,314
• Estimate  (2019)	14,050
• Density	1,954.37/sq mi (754.58/km2)
Time zone	UTC-5 (Eastern (EST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (EDT)
ZIP code	43113
Area code(s)	740 Exchanges: 420,474,477
FIPS code	39-15070
GNIS feature ID	1056803

Circleville is a city in and the county seat of Pickaway County, Ohio, United States, set along the Scioto River, 25 miles (40 km) south of Columbus. The population was 13,314 at the 2010 census. The city is best-known today as the host of the Circleville Pumpkin Show, an annual festival held since 1903.

The city's name is derived from its original layout created in 1810 within the 1,100 ft (340 m) diameter of a circle of a Hopewell tradition earthwork dating to the early centuries of the Common Era. The county courthouse was built in the center of the innermost circle. By the late 1830s, for numerous reasons residents decided to gain authorization from the state legislature to change the layout to a standard grid, which was accomplished by the mid-1850s. All traces of the Hopewell earthwork were destroyed in Circleville, although hundreds of other monuments may be found in the Ohio Valley.

History

A map of Circleville from 1836

By the mid-18th century, the Lenape (Delaware Indians) were pushed west from Pennsylvania by English-led settlers flowing into the colony. The Lenape were given permission by the Wyandot to settle in the Ohio country. One of their settlements was Maguck, built by 1750 on the banks of the Scioto River. Modern Circleville was built to the north of this site.

Noted frontier explorer Christopher Gist was the first recorded European visitor to the Circleville area. Gist reached Maguck, the small Lenape village of about 10 families on the east bank of the Scioto River, on January 20, 1751. He wrote that he had stayed in the town for four days.

Circleville was founded by European-American settlers in 1810, as migrants moved west after the American Revolutionary War. It derived its name from the circular portion of what is now known to have been a large Hopewell culture earthwork; the town was built on top of the remains of this. The original town plan integrated Circleville into the remains of the Hopewell earthworks with a street layout 1100-foot diameter circle. This was connected to a 900-foot square. These dated from the early Common Era; the Hopewell tradition flourished up to 500CE. An octagonal courthouse was placed directly in the center circle of the town.

The Hopewell circles were documented by Caleb Atwater, a resident and historian who was considered an early archeologist; the earthworks were illustrated in Plate 5 of his Description of the Antiquities Discovered in the State of Ohio and Other Western States, a 160-page report he published in 1820 in the first volume of the Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society.

Dissatisfaction among residents rose over Circleville's layout, however. In 1837 at the request of the town, the Ohio General Assembly authorized the "Circleville Squaring Company" to convert the town plan into a squared grid, as was typical of other platted towns. In 1856, this had been completed in several phases. No traces of the original earthworks remain. A few of the older buildings have curved walls built to conform to the town's original circular layout.

Tornado

On October 13, 1999, an F-3 tornado hit the city, set off by a squall line moving through the region. The tornado touched down on the north side of town, doing substantial damage to a barber shop and a masonry building. A furniture store was also damaged with a hole in its roof, where it was reported that items from inside the store were sucked out. Damage to nearby buildings occurred as the tornado moved east across the north-central part of town.

The tornado moved into a residential area in the Northwood Park neighborhood, destroying several homes along Fairlawn Drive. Trees and vehicles were also heavily damaged. The tornado lifted as it crossed Edgewood Drive, but snapped the tops of some nearby trees.

Geography

Circleville is located at 39°36′N 82°57′W / 39.600°N 82.950°W / 39.600; -82.950 (39.60, −82.95).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.76 square miles (17.51 km²), of which, 6.64 square miles (17.20 km²) is land and 0.12 square miles (0.31 km²) is water.

Calamus Swamp is a 19-acre public reserve located 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the town.

Demographics

Median home prices in the Circleville area as of 2009 were $120,147.

2010 census

As of the census of 2010, there were 13,314 people, 5,402 households, and 3,447 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,005.1 inhabitants per square mile (774.2/km²). There were 6,024 housing units at an average density of 907.2 per square mile (350.3/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 95.4% White, 1.9% African American, 0.2% Native American, 0.4% Asian, 0.4% from other races, and 1.7% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 1.1% of the population.

There were 5,402 households, of which 30.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.2% were married couples living together, 14.5% had a female householder with no husband present, 5.1% had a male householder with no wife present, and 36.2% were non-families. 30.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.36 and the average family size was 2.90.

The median age in the city was 39.3 years. 23.3% of residents were under the age of 18; 8.9% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 24.8% were from 25 to 44; 25.4% were from 45 to 64; and 17.7% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 47.9% male and 52.1% female.

Events

Circleville hosts the Circleville Pumpkin Show every October.

In Popular Culture

Circleville 1810 was reference on Milo Murphy's Law on Disney XD, episode 6a "Family Vacation"

Education

Circleville City School District operates one elementary school, one middle school, and Circleville High School.

Ohio Christian University, an institution affiliated with Churches of Christ in Christian Union, has been in operation at Circleville since 1948.

Circleville has a public library, a branch of the Pickaway County Library.

Notable people

The Ted Lewis Museum, the last remaining building from the town's circular plan

• Caleb Atwater – known as the "father of Ohio's public school system", the state's first historian, and an early scholar of the ancient Native American mounds and other earthworks in the Ohio Valley
• Conchata Ferrell – actress, best known for playing Berta the housekeeper in the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men
• Tony Laubach – storm chaser and meteorologist featured on the Discovery Channel
• Ted Lewis – vaudeville performer and bandleader during the Roaring Twenties; a Ted Lewis Museum is located in the city, and a local park bears his name
• Ralph Haswell Lutz (1886–1968) – historian and chair of the Board of Directors of the Hoover War Library, 1925–1943
• Dwight Radcliff – longest serving sheriff in US history
• Kohl Sudduth – actor known for the Jesse Stone series of TV movies

Images for kids

• 

  Map of Circleville's original layout

• 

  The Circleville Pumpkin Water Tower

See also

In Spanish: Circleville (Ohio) para niños