The Wigwam and the Kenley Players

At a glance

Overview

Two places that older central Ohioans remember as "where the stars were" turn out to be two quite different things. The Wigwam is a log lodge and later a whole campus of buildings in the beech woods on Blacklick-Eastern Road near Pickerington, built from 1928 by the Wolfe family, owners of the Columbus Dispatch. For about 90 years it was a private retreat, lent to women's clubs, charities and the newspaper's own country club, and since 2018 it has belonged to Violet Township, which keeps its offices in the old cabin and rents the rest for events. The Kenley Players were John Kenley's summer-stock company, which from 1961 to 1981 put Hollywood and television names into Broadway musicals at the 4,000-seat Veterans Memorial Auditorium in downtown Columbus, on a circuit that also ran through Warren and Dayton. The tent theater north of Worthington that many people connect with Kenley was a third outfit, Playhouse on the Green.

The name

The township's history says the family first thought of calling the place "Wolfe Woods," or "WW," and then took the name Wigwam from native motifs they had seen in their travels to Sun Valley, Idaho, and the Seigniory Club in Montebello, Quebec. (source) The initials survived on the gate: a 1974 invitation told guests to look for "a large iron gate with posts marked WW." (source) In 2019 John Eisel, then the township's director of operations, said the name was chosen because it "signified a place of comfort." (source) Violet Township itself was set off in 1808 and, according to a 1912 county history, named for its variety and abundance of wild flowers. (source) The Kenley Players took their name from a lunchtime joke, described below.

Native American history

Nothing Native American is recorded at the Wigwam site itself, and its "Indian" decoration was borrowed from resort lodges, not from the place. The real wigwams of the area stood farther south. A 1912 history of Fairfield County says that when settlers arrived around 1789, at least 500 Wyandots lived in the county, and that their chief town, named for the chief Tarhe ("The Crane"), had at least one hundred wigwams in 1790 on the north branch of the Hocking southeast of present Lancaster. (source) A second Wyandot town, Toby's town, stood at or near present Royalton in Amanda Township. (source) The same book gives the Delaware meaning of Hockhocking as "bottle" and describes the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, which opened the region to settlement. (source) The northern twelve sections of Violet Township lay in the Refugee Tract, land Congress set aside for Canadians who had aided the American side in the Revolution. (source)

• Tarhe town: village, North branch of the Hocking southeast of Lancaster, Fairfield County (about 15 miles south of the Wigwam), c. 1790
• Toby's town (Tobeytown): village, At or near Royalton, Amanda Township, Fairfield County, c. 1790

Stories

A cabin of telephone poles

The township's history, compiled by former administrator John Eisel in 2018, says that in the fall of 1927 Bob Wolfe and Arthur Johnson found a 20-acre beech woodland in northeast Fairfield County and bought it from the Reynoldsburg Bank. (source) Five German carpenters built the cabin from National Road utility poles bought for $1 each, and the two fireplaces were laid with bricks from an old kiln near McArthur, placed unevenly on purpose. (source) The Dispatch, reporting in 2026, put the purchase of the first 20 acres in 1927 and said the family added land over the years. (source) The complex grew to include two industrial kitchens, a theater of about 300 seats, a ballroom, a bar and a swimming pool. (source) A Dispatch artist painted murals of the old West on the card room walls, now the township meeting room, and outside stood a totem pole. (source)

The birthday dinner, and a date that does not fit

The township history says the young men kept the cabin a secret from Wolfe's father, Harry P. "H.P." Wolfe, and his uncle Robert, until April 26, 1928, when they invited H.P. to dinner there; he told his son to buy the place at any price, and Robert laughed that he already owned it. (source) April 26 was Harry Preston Wolfe's birthday: he was born on April 26, 1872, so the dinner fell on his 56th. (source) The uncle in the story cannot have been Robert F. Wolfe, the brother who built the family business with him, because Robert died on January 13, 1927, after a fall from a fifth-floor window of the Dispatch building. (source) The brothers had founded the Wolfe Brothers Shoe Company, bought the Ohio State Journal in 1903 and the Dispatch in 1905, and Harry organized BancOhio in 1929. (source)

Reindeer and a zoo

Harry P. Wolfe was the driving force behind the Columbus Zoo, which he conceived with Mayor James Jay Thomas after a visit to the St. Louis zoo; in December 1926 he bought six reindeer from Alaska for the Dispatch's Christmas party and gave them to the city. (source) The township history adds that monkeys, bears, peacocks and reindeer lived at the Wigwam in its early years. (source) The Columbus Zoo page tells the rest of that story.

The Dispatch Country Club

The Dispatch had a country club of its own employees by 1930, when the trade weekly Editor & Publisher called news director Charles J. Rieker one of its founders. (source) In 1958 the same magazine reported a stereotype-department man named to a fifth term as the club's president. (source) By 1962 the Ohio Jewish Chronicle was describing "the beautiful lodge known as the Wigwam, at the Dispatch Country Club east of Reynoldsburg." (source)

Luncheons behind the WW gate

For at least a quarter century the Wolfes opened the Wigwam to invited groups. The women's units of the Columbus Philharmonic Orchestra Association held their annual meeting there in April 1949. (source) On February 27, 1958, a kickoff luncheon there opened a $30,000 Columbus Symphony women's fund drive. (source) A month later the United Jewish Fund's women's division met at the Wigwam "through the courtesy and generosity of the prominent Wolfe family." (source) On May 12, 1965, more than 100 women came to a Columbus Civic Ballet tea and wandered "the formal gardens" and "the various wings and lodges of the Wigwam, all of which are finished in Indian motif," before a ballet program in the theater of the lodge. (source) The invitations kept coming into the 1970s: a ballet women's tea in October 1973 (source), a National Council of Jewish Women luncheon in October 1974 (source) and a B'nai B'rith Women luncheon on March 2, 1975, at $2.50 a plate. (source)

Stars, coaches and the FBI

The township history repeats three more stories. It says Bob Hope, Gene Autry and Jimmy Stewart performed on the original theater stage "before a capacity audience of 20." (source) It says the FBI held its National Academy at the Wigwam back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover. (source) And it says Woody Hayes brought the Ohio State football team there for dinner and lodging every Friday night before home games. (source) The township history also says the original lodge and theater were torn down and rebuilt as separate buildings in 1987. (source)

From the Wolfes to the township

In November 1977 the Home Echo Club bought 12 acres from the Wolfe family for a nursing home and housing complex, land described as part of the family's private country club. (source) The family used the Wigwam until 2016, closed it in 2017 and put it on the market. (source) The complex had been slated for demolition and subdivision when township staff opened talks with Capitol Square, the family's development arm. (source) Wolfe Enterprises Inc. conveyed the 62.393-acre parcel to the township trustees on July 11, 2018; the county's record shows no price because the buyer is tax-exempt. (source) The township paid with a bond that runs to June 2049; critics pointed out that the property had owed about $100,000 a year in taxes, $19,000 of it to the township. (source) By 2019, a magazine reported, the township had "demolished nothing," building inner walls for offices and turning the old pool into a courtyard with a gazebo. (source) Today the township describes the Event Center at Violet Woods as a "historic property formerly used as a private retreat," with a banquet hall and theater for weddings, conferences, concerts and plays. (source)

Ohio State buys the edge

On June 3, 2026, Ohio State's board of trustees approved buying about 17 acres of unimproved land near Taylor Road and Blacklick-Eastern Road from Violet Township for $8.75 million, for outpatient medical buildings. (source) The Dispatch reported that the sale did not appear to include the Wigwam building itself, and that the township did not respond to requests for comment. (source)

John Kenley before Ohio

John Kenley was born John Kremchek in Colorado on February 20, 1906, the son of saloon keepers who later moved the family to Cleveland. (source) In the 1920s he danced in John Murray Anderson's Greenwich Village Follies; from 1928 he read plays for the Shuberts and from 1930 was assistant to Lee Shubert. (source) He later recalled the actors he lunched with: "We'd walk together down Shubert Alley and call ourselves the Kenley Players, and I've used that name ever since." (source) His first summer theater opened in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania, in 1940 with No More Ladies, starring the silent film actress Lila Lee. (source) In 1950 a production of his in Washington, D.C., made him, in Variety's words, "the first producer on record to bring desegregation into live theater" there. (source)

The circuit: Dayton, Warren, Columbus

Kenley moved his players to the refurbished Memorial Hall in Dayton in 1957, lost it the next year when Dayton businessmen arranged for his own set designer to lease the hall, and landed at Packard Music Hall in Warren. (source) Warren became home base in 1958, with seasons that rarely ran fewer than 10 shows and sometimes as many as 15. (source) In 1961 he leased Veterans Memorial in Columbus, and in 1966 Dayton leaders invited him back, making it a three-city circuit. (source) A former props mistress described the route: a show started at Packard Music Hall in Warren, traveled to Memorial Hall in Dayton, and then came to "Vets" in Columbus. (source) The apprentices, five to eight per city, ran the box office, loaded trucks, ran the shows and did the laundry for $50 a week. (source)

Opening night at Vets Memorial, 1961

On April 4, 1961, the Circleville Herald announced that "All Kenley productions will be staged at the Veterans' Memorial auditorium, 300 W. Broad St.," with Teresa Brewer to open on June 13 in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. (source) The same notice promised Zsa Zsa Gabor, Hugh O'Brian, Jack Carson and Betty White, Ida Lupino, Kathryn Grayson and "possibly Bette Davis." (source) By June the first week's production had become Bells Are Ringing with Gordon and Sheila MacRae, and Super Duper markets gave shoppers coupons for a third off seats that "regularly sell for $2.25." (source) That first season brought Zsa Zsa Gabor in Blithe Spirit, Andy Williams in Pal Joey, Jack Carson and Betty White in Take Me Along, and Mae West. (source) The hall, completed in November 1955, had a 4,000-seat main auditorium, an 800-seat assembly hall and a 40,000-square-foot exhibition hall. (source) A 1962 preview boasted that the Kenley Players had "the highest paid chorus in America," drawn mainly from Broadway, and opened that season with John Raitt in Carousel, a role he had created on Broadway. (source)

Stars by the week

Dated ads and photographs give a fair sample of who came. In August 1963 Dorothy Collins starred in South Pacific. (source) The 1963 lineup also had Howard Keel in Show Boat, Merv Griffin in Come Blow Your Horn and Phyllis McGuire in The Unsinkable Molly Brown. (source) The week of July 6, 1971, Joel Grey played George M! at Vets Memorial. (source) The week of June 20, 1972, Ann Miller played Cole Porter's Can-Can. (source) In August 1973 William Shatner, Sylvia Sidney and Peter Lupus did Arsenic and Old Lace. (source) The summer of 1974 brought Paul Lynde in Mother Is Engaged (source), Gene Kelly in Take Me Along (source) and Vincent Price in Oliver. (source) Mickey Rooney opened in Sugar on June 17, 1975. (source) Rock Hudson played Camelot in 1977 in a room one theatergoer said was "like seeing it at the Horseshoe." (source)

The money

Kenley told Cleveland Magazine in 2003 that stars did not do it for love: "I deal with their managers and pay them $30,000 a week." (source) Tickets stayed cheap. In 1974 a Vets Memorial seat cost $2.25 to $3.95, with evening shows at 8:30 and weekend matinees. (source) In 1980 seats were about $8, or $9 for the Mitzi Gaynor Show. (source) A lighting designer said she did not think his prices "ever went up to over $25," and that this was why he could not keep pace with what stars were offered elsewhere. (source)

A program as a time capsule

The 1971 Kenley program, scanned by the Columbus Metropolitan Library, carries an ad for the Kahiki Supper Club at 3583 East Broad Street, a Sheraton offer of dinner for two plus two Kenley tickets for $15.92, and a dry cleaner billing itself as "Official Dry Cleaners for the Kenley Stars." (source) The 1972 program invited patrons to a party for "the Kenley stars and cast every Tuesday after the show" at the Ramada Inn North at I-71 and Route 161, and to meet the stars at Lazarus on Thursdays at noon. (source)

The tent north of Worthington

The tent was Playhouse on the Green, advertised in 1966 as "On N. High St. - 4 Miles North of Worthington" and "Central Ohio's Only Professional Tent Theatre." (source) It opened its 12th season on June 13, 1966, with Arsenic and Old Lace, so its first season was 1955. (source) Sallie Jones Sexton of Granville became its producer-manager in 1961, by a 1972 newspaper account. (source) A library note gives its final date as August 19, 1972. (source) The two companies shared more than an audience. In 1971 one Central Ticket Office at 37 N. High St. sold "KENLEY PLAYERS TICKETS" and "PLAYHOUSE ON THE GREEN" from the same counter. (source) In the summer of 1962 Playhouse on the Green opened with The Marriage-Go-Round (source), and Kenley staged the same comedy that season with Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. (source) A third summer stage, Ohio State's Stadium Theatre, was set up under the stands of Ohio Stadium and had played since 1950. (source)

The fade-out

The Kenley Players moved from Warren to Akron in 1978 after 20 seasons. (source) Kenley left Columbus in 1981 "after years of dwindling box office," left Dayton in 1983, and played Cleveland's Playhouse Square from 1984. (source) The players returned to Columbus once more in 1986, when Mariette Hartley starred in A Little Night Music. (source) The last season, in 1995 in Akron and Dayton, ended with The Mitzi Gaynor Show. (source) In 2004 Actors' Equity voted him honorary life membership; its president said, "From 1957 to 1995, Kenley put the stars in summer skies over Ohio." (source) Kenley died in Cleveland on October 23, 2009, of complications of pneumonia, at 103. (source) Playbill reported in 2024 that he was intersex and that a musical about his life, A Complicated Woman, had been staged that spring. (source)

Where the stages stand now

Demolition of the Veterans Memorial in Columbus began in January 2015. (source) The National Veterans Memorial and Museum opened on its site on October 27, 2018. (source) Packard Music Hall in Warren is still booking shows in 2026. (source) The Wigwam's original cabin, walls and all, now holds the township's building, zoning and fiscal offices. (source)

Myths and the record

• "The Kenley Players played in a tent on U.S. 23 north of Worthington." Some recollections place them there. The record puts Kenley's Columbus seasons of 1961 to 1981 at Veterans Memorial Auditorium downtown; the tent four miles north of Worthington was Playhouse on the Green.
• "The Wigwam was a nightclub or ballroom." Its own new owner calls it a property "formerly used as a private retreat"; before 2018 outside groups came by invitation of the Wolfe family.
• "Bob Hope, Gene Autry and Jimmy Stewart performed at the Wigwam." This appears only in the township's 2018 history.
• "Uncle Robert laughed that H.P. already owned it." The 2018 history says so, but Robert F. Wolfe died on January 13, 1927, 15 months before the April 1928 dinner.
• "Kenley opened in Columbus in 1960." Some accounts give 1960; the April 1961 announcement and the 1975 count of a 15th season point to 1961.
• "Joe Namath starred in Picnic in 1971." The New York Times obituary says 1971; Columbus Monthly quotes Namath on doing it in Akron, Dayton and Columbus in 1979.
• "Kenley started a three-city Ohio circuit in 1940." 1940 was Deer Lake, Pennsylvania; the three-city circuit dates from 1966.
• "Crowds of 5,000 a night." The Times obituary says audiences reached as many as 5,000, but Vets Memorial's main hall seated 4,000.
• "Stars came because Port Columbus was close." The stars came on contract, at about $30,000 a week by Kenley's account.

Timeline

• 1872: Harry Preston Wolfe is born on April 26. (source)
• 1905: The Wolfe brothers buy the Columbus Dispatch, two years after buying the Ohio State Journal. (source)
• 1906: John Kenley is born John Kremchek on February 20. (source)
• 1926: H.P. Wolfe buys six Alaskan reindeer for the Dispatch Christmas party and gives them to the city. (source)
• 1927: Robert F. Wolfe dies on January 13. (source)
• 1927: In the fall the first 20 acres of beech woods are bought, by the township's account. (source)
• 1928: Five German carpenters build the log cabin; on April 26 H.P. Wolfe dines there on his birthday. (source)
• 1930: Editor & Publisher names a founder of the Dispatch Country Club. (source)
• 1940: Kenley opens his first summer stock theater, in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania. (source)
• 1949: The Columbus Philharmonic's women's units meet at the Wigwam. (source)
• 1950: Kenley's Washington production desegregates live theater there. (source)
• 1955: Playhouse on the Green plays its first summer season north of Worthington. (source)
• 1955: Veterans Memorial Auditorium is completed in November. (source)
• 1957: The Kenley Players come to Memorial Hall in Dayton. (source)
• 1958: Kenley moves to Packard Music Hall in Warren, his home base for 20 seasons. (source)
• 1961: The first Columbus season opens on June 13 at Vets Memorial with Bells Are Ringing. (source)
• 1962: The Wigwam is called the lodge of the Dispatch Country Club. (source)
• 1965: A Columbus Civic Ballet tea tours the Wigwam's gardens and lodges on May 12. (source)
• 1966: Dayton invites Kenley back, completing a three-city circuit. (source)
• 1971: One ticket office on North High Street sells both Kenley and Playhouse on the Green seats. (source)
• 1972: Playhouse on the Green closes on August 19, by a library note. (source)
• 1975: B'nai B'rith Women hold a luncheon at the Wigwam on March 2. (source)
• 1977: The Home Echo Club buys 12 acres of Wolfe land for a nursing home. (source)
• 1978: The Kenley Players move from Warren to Akron. (source)
• 1981: Kenley leaves Columbus after years of dwindling box office. (source)
• 1986: The Kenley Players make their last Columbus visit. (source)
• 1995: The final Kenley season plays Akron and Dayton. (source)
• 2009: John Kenley dies in Cleveland on October 23, at 103. (source)
• 2015: Demolition of Veterans Memorial begins in January. (source)
• 2017: The Wolfe family closes the Wigwam and puts it up for sale. (source)
• 2018: Wolfe Enterprises conveys the Wigwam to the Violet Township trustees on July 11. (source)
• 2018: The National Veterans Memorial and Museum opens on October 27 on the site of Veterans Memorial. (source)
• 2026: Ohio State's trustees approve buying about 17 acres near the Wigwam from the township on June 3. (source)

Sources

• pickeringtononline.com: Violet's Wigwam, Now and Then, with John Eisel's 2018 history (2022)
• cityscenecolumbus.com: Wigwam gets new life while maintaining historical integrity (2019)
• aol.com: Columbus Dispatch, Ohio State buys land around the Wigwam (2026)
• fairfieldcountyauditor.ohio.gov: Fairfield County Auditor, parcel 0360073400
• violet.oh.us: Violet Township
• violet.oh.us: Event Center
• archive.org: History of Fairfield County, Ohio and Representative Citizens (1912)
• digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org: Harry Preston Wolfe (1911)
• digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org: Robert Frederick Wolfe (1911)
• news.wosu.org: What is the early history of the Columbus Zoo? (2021)
• archive.org: Editor & Publisher, July 19, 1930
• archive.org: Editor & Publisher, October 11, 1958
• ohiomemory.org: Ohio Jewish Chronicle, April 15, 1949
• ohiomemory.org: Ohio Jewish Chronicle, February 14, 1958
• ohiomemory.org: Ohio Jewish Chronicle, March 21, 1958
• ohiomemory.org: Ohio Jewish Chronicle, August 31, 1962
• ohiomemory.org: Ohio Jewish Chronicle, October 4, 1973
• ohiomemory.org: Ohio Jewish Chronicle, October 10, 1974
• ohiomemory.org: Ohio Jewish Chronicle, October 17, 1974
• ohiomemory.org: Ohio Jewish Chronicle, February 6, 1975
• ohiomemory.org: Pickaway County News, May 27, 1965
• archive.org: Columbus Call & Post, November 12, 1977
• archive.org: Columbus Call & Post, July 26, 1980
• bendbulletin.com: New York Times News Service, John Kenley took big stars to small-town productions (2009)
• web.archive.org: Variety, Producer John Kenley dies at 103 (2009)
• web.archive.org: Columbus Monthly, Those Summer Nights (2015)
• web.archive.org: Joe Florenski, A Kenley Players Timeline
• web.archive.org: Joe Florenski, The Kenley Players in Columbus, 1961-1986
• web.archive.org: Actors' Equity, Kenley honorary life membership (2004)
• playbill.com: Meet John Kenley (2024)
• archive.org: Circleville Herald, April 4, 1961
• archive.org: Circleville Herald, June 7, 1961
• archive.org: Eastern Review, 1961-1962 volume
• archive.org: Circleville Herald, August 21, 1963
• archive.org: Circleville Herald, July 26, 1966
• archive.org: Eastern Spectator, May 1966
• archive.org: Circleville Herald, March 11, 1972
• archive.org: Circleville Herald, August 10, 1973
• archive.org: Circleville Herald, July 6, 1974
• archive.org: Circleville Herald, August 10, 1974
• archive.org: Circleville Herald, August 26, 1974
• archive.org: Circleville Herald, June 13, 1975
• digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org: Kenley Players program, George M! (1971)
• digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org: Kenley Players program, Can-Can (1972)
• digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org: Veterans Memorial postcard (1965)
• digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org: Franklin County Veterans Memorial Auditorium postcard
• digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org: Sallie Sexton, Playhouse on the Green (1967)
• wosu.org: Demolition begins ahead of Ohio Veterans Memorial Museum (2015)
• wcbe.org: Veterans museum to open in late October (2018)
• packardmusichall.com: Packard Music Hall