Wonderland, Ohio

Wonderland was a United States resort community, just outside the Columbus suburb of Gahanna, near a bend in Big Walnut Creek. It was abandoned in the late 1920s. In the mid-1990s there were still decaying roads and abandoned residential buildings; however, this land was being bought by the Port Columbus International Airport for future expansion, which razed the remaining structures and fenced off the land. A reminder of the town is the Wonderland Church, on Friendship Drive, next to the interchange of Interstate 270 and Hamilton Road.

History

Local folktales and rumours in Gahanna and on the east side of Columbus up until the early 1980s said that Wonderland was developed after World War I as a "utopia" of sorts, although this has never been proved. The Columbus Citizen, April 23, 1927, page 7 Wonderland Opens Sunday.

Until the early 1980s there were still people living in the community, most of whose children attended Gahanna schools. By this time Wonderland had gone from the resort it had once been in the 1920s and 1930s to a slum. Many of the homes built during its creation were now well below flood level and when the Big Walnut river rose it would flood houses in the community.