Riverlea

How Riverlea began

Riverlea is a small, young village carved out of Sharon Township farmland that had belonged, since 1804, to the orbit of Worthington, the planned New England colony James Kilbourn led to the Olentangy River. The Van De Boe-Hager Company of Cleveland platted 102.29 acres as an upscale subdivision of 267 home sites in 1924, advertising lots through the Worthington News the next year, and residents incorporated their own village government in January 1939 rather than be absorbed by their much older neighbor. Bounded by Worthington on three sides and the Olentangy River on the fourth, Riverlea has stayed fiercely independent, most recently voting in 2011 to reject annexation, and remains one of Franklin County's smallest municipalities at 599 residents in 2020.

Platted 1924-06-09, incorporated 1939-01-04, by The Van De Boe-Hager Company of Cleveland platted the 102.29-acre subdivision, filed as "Addition No. 11," on land in Sharon Township; residents incorporated the Village of Riverlea on January 4, 1939.

Where the name comes from

No source we found explains who chose the name "Riverlea" or exactly why, though the village sits directly on the Olentangy River and "lea" is an old word for meadow or open farmland, which the subdivision was before 1924; this reading is plausible but not confirmed by any source and should not be treated as established fact.

Before the town

No Native American village, mound, earthwork, or trail specific to the Riverlea site itself turned up in the sources checked. The surrounding township was originally surveyed as part of the United States Military District (Township 2, Range 18) and organized in 1803 as Liberty Township before being renamed Sharon Township in 1806. The land lies within the area the Treaty of Greenville (August 3, 1795) ceded to the United States, seven years before the Scioto Company's settlers arrived.

Nations recorded here: Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga).

Timeline

1. 1802 — The Scioto Company, a group of Connecticut and Massachusetts investors led by James Kilbourn, purchases 16,000 acres along the Olentangy River, including the future site of Sharon Township, at $1.25 an acre.
2. 1803 — Ezra Griswold arrives on October 26 as the first of Kilbourn's colonists to reach the settlement; the township holds its first election at the house of Joseph Beaty.
3. 1804 — James Kilbourn lays out the village of Worthington in 162 lots in May, on the Scioto Company's purchase; the Worthington Public Square is established the same year.
4. 1806 — The surrounding township, originally organized in the United States Military District survey and first called Liberty Township, is renamed Sharon Township on March 4.
5. 1818 — The Aurora Buttles House, built for one of Worthington's founding families, goes up near the future site of Riverlea.
6. 1835 — Worthington incorporates as a village on March 9.
7. 1924 — The Van De Boe-Hager Company of Cleveland files a plat on June 9 for 102.29 acres of former farmland in Sharon Township, calling it "Addition No. 11" — the origin of Riverlea.
8. 1925 — The Worthington News runs an advertisement on July 16 announcing the new subdivision's 267 home sites, priced from $6,000 to $12,000.
9. 1939 — Riverlea incorporates as an independent village on January 4.
10. 1940 — The first census after incorporation counts 92 residents.
11. 1950 — The population reaches 324, more than tripling in a decade as postwar home-building fills out the subdivision.
12. 2011 — Riverlea residents vote to reject annexation by the city of Worthington, choosing to remain an independent village.

Stories

An upscale subdivision on the Olentangy

In June 1924, the Van De Boe-Hager Company of Cleveland, a firm already at work on Columbus-area developments like Beechwold and Sharon Heights, filed a plat for 102.29 acres of farmland in Sharon Township, laying out what it called "Addition No. 11." The Worthington News announced the project to readers on July 16, 1925, promising 267 home sites on land already platted, subdivided, and improved. At $6,000 to $12,000, the houses were priced well above what most 1920s buyers could afford, and the development drew residents who wanted a quiet, planned neighborhood on the river's edge rather than a farm town or a streetcar suburb. Within a decade and a half, enough of those homes had been built and sold that residents chose to incorporate their own village rather than be governed as part of Sharon Township or absorbed by Worthington next door.

Sixteen thousand acres for a New England colony

The land Riverlea would eventually occupy was part of a much larger purchase: in December 1802, the Scioto Company, a group of investors from Connecticut and Massachusetts led by James Kilbourn, bought 16,000 acres along the Olentangy River at $1.25 an acre, intending to plant a transplanted New England town in the Ohio wilderness. Ezra Griswold reached the site on October 26, 1803, the first of Kilbourn's colonists to arrive, and by May 1804 Kilbourn had laid out the village of Worthington in 162 lots around a central square. Worthington incorporated in 1835 and grew steadily for the next century, its early families like the Buttleses building substantial homes still standing today, while the farmland just south and west of the village, including the ground that became Riverlea, stayed in agricultural use for another hundred-plus years.

The historic houses next door

Several National Register-listed houses associated with this area's ZIP code, including homes built for the Buttles, Adams, Evans, and Gardner families, turn out on closer inspection to stand within Worthington itself rather than in Riverlea, whose own oldest ground was still farmland when those houses went up in the nineteenth century. The Aurora Buttles House, for instance, dates to 1818, built for a member of one of Worthington's founding families, decades before anyone platted a lot in what became Riverlea. Riverlea does hold at least one National Register property of its own, though: the Mark Russell House, listed under reference number 76001429, stands within the village's small boundary along the Olentangy.

Staying independent

Riverlea has spent nine decades as a very small, very independent place, surrounded on three sides by the much larger city of Worthington and bounded on the fourth by the Olentangy River. Its population never grew large: 92 residents at the first census after incorporation in 1940, a jump to 324 by 1950 as the subdivision filled in, and a slow drift since then between roughly 500 and 700. Full absorption into Worthington would have been the easier administrative path more than once over the decades, but Riverlea's residents chose otherwise as recently as 2011, voting down an annexation proposal and keeping their own mayor and village council rather than becoming another Worthington neighborhood.

Photographs

Local history sources: riverleaohio.org · riverleaohio.org · en.wikipedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Every historic place in Franklin County on the full map

Big Walnut Creek at the plant's low-head dam and screen house on Morse Rd, below Hoover Dam The water here

• Columbus Public Water System100% of residentsScioto River (Griggs & O'Shaughnessy), Hoover Reservoir on Big Walnut Ck, plus wells

Who holds office

Roster as of 8/17/2026: county board of elections.

Money issues on the ballot since 2025: 2 of 2 passed; of those asking for new or higher taxes, 2 of 2.

Ballot issues

Elections for office

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

Auditor of State record

• No fiscal caution, watch or emergency on the Auditor of State's lists.
• Agreed Upon Procedures, 2022 to 2023, released 2024-09-17

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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