Commercial Point

How Commercial Point began

Commercial Point began as two rival hamlets in Scioto Township: Genoa, platted in 1841 by Wiley H. Beckett on land he had settled in 1829, and Rome, laid out two years later just to its east by James H. Burnley. The two grew together and incorporated as a single village, Genoa, in 1851; in 1872 the legislature renamed it Commercial Point on the suggestion of resident Eli Harsh. Never reached by a railroad, the village stayed small and agricultural for well over a century, its population still only 245 in 1900 and 776 as late as 2000, before Columbus-area growth reached it and its population nearly quadrupled to 3,078 by the 2020 census. It remains the only incorporated village within Scioto Township.

Settled 1829 (Wiley H. Beckett, from eastern Virginia), platted 1841 as Genoa (Beckett); 1843 as Rome (James H. Burnley, adjoining to the east), incorporated March 21, 1851, as Genoa, absorbing Rome; renamed Commercial Point by special act of the legislature in 1872, by Wiley H. Beckett and James H. Burnley.

Where the name comes from

No source consulted explains why Beckett named his plat Genoa or why Burnley named his Rome, after the Italian and ancient Roman cities. The post office at Genoa was for a time called Beckett's Store, after the first store there, run by Wiley H. Beckett from 1844 and later by three generations of his family. In 1872 the Ohio legislature changed the village's name to Commercial Point; local tradition, recorded in the 1906 county history, credits resident Eli Harsh with selecting the name, though no source explains his reasoning.

Before the town

No source found records a Native American village, camp, mound, or trail on the small footprint of Commercial Point itself. The township around it, Scioto Township, has undated earthwork and mound traces on the Scioto River bluffs attributed to the Mound Builders, and the county's best-documented Shawnee towns and the 1774 Camp Charlotte treaty ground lie several miles south in Pickaway Township. The 1795 Treaty of Greenville, signed by the Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Miami, Ottawa and other nations, ceded this land, along with most of the rest of Ohio, to the United States decades before Beckett and Burnley arrived.

Nations recorded here: Shawnee, Wyandot, Lenape (Delaware), Miami, Ottawa.

Timeline

1. 1829 — Wiley H. Beckett arrives from eastern Virginia and settles a 238-acre tract west of the future village.
2. 1832 — James H. Burnley arrives from Virginia and settles nearby.
3. 1841 — Beckett lays out the town of Genoa on his land.
4. 1843 — Burnley lays out the town of Rome immediately east of Genoa; the two eventually grow together, separated only by a narrow strip of grove.
5. 1844 — Wiley H. Beckett opens the village's first general store; his son and grandson continue the business for 62 years.
6. 1851 — The village is incorporated as Genoa by special act of the legislature on March 21, absorbing Rome as its eastern half; the first village election follows on March 8, 1852.
7. 1871 — The township of Scioto and the corporation jointly build a brick town house at Commercial Point, its upper story used as a Masonic lodge hall.
8. 1872 — The Ohio legislature renames the village Commercial Point, a name credited to resident Eli Harsh; the post office takes the same name.
9. 1874 — Battin Lodge No. 487, Free and Accepted Masons, is chartered at Commercial Point on October 21, following a dispensation granted that May.
10. 1881 — The village's post office building is constructed.
11. 1895 — Scioto Township builds its high school at Commercial Point, a $7,000 brick building called one of the finest in the county outside Circleville.
12. 1900 — The village's population is recorded as 245 in the federal census, having never gained a railroad connection of its own.
13. 2000 — The census records a population of 776, still a small village after more than a century.
14. 2020 — The census records a population of 3,078, nearly quadruple the 2000 figure, as Columbus-area growth reaches the village.

Stories

Two Plats, One Grove Apart

Wiley Beckett platted Genoa on his own land in 1841; two years later his neighbor James Burnley platted Rome right beside it, and the space between them was so narrow that a single strip of grove, left out of both surveys, was all that kept the two towns from touching. There was never any real prospect of them staying separate. When the Ohio legislature incorporated the combined settlement in 1851, it kept Beckett's name, Genoa, for the whole, with Rome folded in as its eastern half; twenty-one years later the legislature renamed the merged village again, to Commercial Point, on the suggestion of Eli Harsh. Through three name changes the Beckett family's store on the original Genoa plat kept right on selling dry goods, hardware, and farm implements, run in turn by Wiley, his son James, and his grandson John, sixty-two years under one family by the time the county history was written in 1906.

The Village the Railroad Missed

Nearly every other town in Scioto Township owed its growth to the railroad, but Commercial Point never got one. The 1906 county history notes plainly that 'various surveys have been made through the village, both for steam and traction lines,' and hoped a trolley line might yet come 'within a few years' -- a hope that was never realized. Without rail freight, Commercial Point stayed a farm-trade village of a few hundred people for more than a century, its population barely moving from 245 in 1900 to 776 as late as 2000. What eventually brought growth was not a railroad but the spread of Columbus's suburbs down U.S. 23: by 2020 the census counted 3,078 residents, nearly four times the 2000 population, making Commercial Point one of the fastest-growing places in Pickaway County.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · archive.org · archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Commercial Point Village97% of residentsGroundwater wells (6 wells)
• Columbus Public Water System1% of residentsScioto River (Griggs & O'Shaughnessy), Hoover Reservoir on Big Walnut Ck, plus wells
• Village of Orient1% of residentsGroundwater wells (7 wells)
• Darbyville Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (3 wells)
• Johnson Mobile Home Park0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Caravan Village MHP0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Timberlake Water System0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)
• Lockbourne Village0% of residentsScioto River (Griggs & O'Shaughnessy), Hoover Reservoir on Big Walnut Ck, plus wells
• Obetz Satellite 60% of residentsScioto River (Griggs & O'Shaughnessy), Hoover Reservoir on Big Walnut Ck, plus wells
• Obetz Village0% of residentsGroundwater wells (2 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Public schools (2)

Police stations (1)

Spills reported since 2021 (2)

Elections for office

Winners in bold. Results from the county board of elections' official canvass unless marked.

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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