ZIP code 43081: Westerville

Drinking-water compliance

A health-based violation is a contaminant above its limit or a treatment rule not followed; monitoring, reporting and public-notice violations are paperwork. Lead is the 90th-percentile result across sampled homes, not a reading at any one tap.

Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System (Envirofacts, pulled September 2026), violations and lead and copper sampling for the system that serves most of this ZIP · EPA SDWIS (Envirofacts) · EPA ECHO

Byproducts and contaminants

TTHM

50.5 µg/L yearly mean in 2019, the last year in the file (limit 80); worst yearly mean 68.5, highest single sample 146; 128 samples from 2012 to 2019

HAA5

13.1 µg/L yearly mean in the last year sampled (limit 60); worst yearly mean 49.3, highest sample 80.3; 128 samples

Nitrate

highest of 96 samples was 1.64 mg/L as nitrogen (2019; limit 10); 1.64 in 2019, the last year sampled. Nitrate above 10 is unsafe for infants

Arsenic

not detected in 8 samples (limit 10)

Solvents and fuels

benzene, carbon tetrachloride, 1,2-dichloroethane, trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, vinyl chloride not detected in 8 samples

Bacteria

4 of 4,031 routine tap samples (0.1%) tested positive for total coliform in 2012 to 2019, 0 of 504 in 2019; E. coli never found in the 4 tap samples tested for it. Coliform itself is a warning sign; E. coli means sewage or manure reached the water

Farm chemicals

atrazine in 7 of 25 samples, highest 0.6 µg/L (limit 3); alachlor not detected in 25 samples

Metals

barium in 7 of 8 samples, highest 19.7 µg/L (limit 2,000); chromium, cadmium, mercury, selenium, thallium not detected in 8 samples

EPA's file stops at 2019; Ohio EPA's Drinking Water Watch has newer results. Byproducts are judged on running yearly averages at each sampling site, so one high sample is not a violation. Nitrate and arsenic are measured where water enters the pipes.

Source: EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring data, 2012 to 2019 (TTHM, HAA5 and coliform from distribution-system samples of Westerville City; nitrate, arsenic, radionuclides, solvents, herbicides and metals from the entry points of the same system); non-detects counted as zero

PFAS

UCMR 5

4 samples in 2024 to 2025 at the entry point to the distribution system: PFBA 5.6 ng/L

Ohio EPA 2020

1 plant tested (latest 2020-10): nothing detected for the six PFAS tested

Ohio EPA latest

1 plant sampled by Ohio EPA, most recently 2025-08; the status map flags PFAS detected at the plant (Ohio EPA statewide sampling status map)

Firefighting foam: 7 fire departments or other holders in Franklin County registered 3,800 gallons of PFAS-based AFFF foam with Ohio EPA, 3,165 gallons in opened containers; the state is collecting it for disposal so it is never sprayed again.

Lithium: not detected in 4 UCMR 5 samples at Westerville City (the method reports from 9 µg/L). Lithium is unregulated; EPA's draft health reference level is 10 µg/L, and it occurs naturally in deep groundwater, so well systems in the northwest run highest.

PFAS are the forever chemicals from firefighting foam, plating shops and non-stick coatings. One sample above 4 ng/L is not a violation; compliance is judged on running annual averages, and systems are adding carbon filters ahead of the 2029 deadline. Results are for water leaving the plant, not your tap.

Source: EPA UCMR 5 occurrence data (final release, August 2026) and Ohio EPA statewide PFAS sampling 2019 to 2021 and its current status map, for the system that serves most of this ZIP; EPA SDWIS record OH2503411; results in nanograms per litre (parts per trillion) · Ohio EPA PFAS

Lead at the tap

Latest period

1.5 ppb in the sampling period ending 2023-12

Record

5 sampling periods since 2016, none above 10 ppb

Service lines

12,547 inventoried: 0 lead, 21 galvanized needing replacement, 567 unknown, 11,959 not lead (reported all required service line types)

Children: this ZIP is not on the Ohio Department of Health's high-risk list for childhood lead testing; children on Medicaid or in pre-1978 housing with peeling paint should still be tested.

Housing age: 8% of the homes here were built before 1960 and 4% before 1940, when lead service lines, lead solder and lead paint were common; 38% predate 1980 (Census ACS 2020 to 2024).

Systems sample taps in the homes most likely to have lead pipes or solder; the 90th-percentile figure means nine in ten sampled homes were at or below it. Lead comes from the service line and the house plumbing, not the source water, so a low system result does not clear an old house. The action level drops from 15 to 10 ppb in 2027, and every lead line must be replaced within ten years of that.

Source: EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System lead and copper 90th-percentile results (Envirofacts) and EPA's service line inventory dashboard (2026 Q2), for Westerville City (OH2503411), the system that serves most of this ZIP · ODH childhood lead testing · ODH high-risk ZIP list (CCBH PDF) · Ohio EPA lead and copper · H2Ohio

Fluoride and treatment

Treatment on file: corrosion control, coagulation and settling, chlorine disinfection, iron and manganese removal, granular activated carbon, lime softening, powdered activated carbon, sand or media filtration.

Measured fluoride: 0.87 mg/L on average at the plant's entry points in 2019 (in the range dentists aim for); samples ran from 0.78 to 0.99 mg/L across 8 samples in 2012 to 2019 (EPA compliance monitoring). Natural fluoride in Ohio well water runs from a trace to over 2 mg/L in parts of the northwest.

The health department counts 99.9% of Franklin County residents on community water as receiving fluoridated water.

Ohio law (ORC 6109.20, 1969) makes systems serving 5,000 or more people fluoridate unless the water already carries 0.8 mg/L naturally or the community exempted itself by ordinance or referendum in the months after the law passed; smaller systems choose for themselves. The treatment list is what each system registered with EPA and can lag a plant upgrade.

Source: CDC My Water's Fluoride, fluoridation status of each system as reported by the Ohio Department of Health; EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System treatment table for Westerville City (OH2503411); EPA Six-Year Review 4 compliance monitoring, 2012 to 2019; Ohio Department of Health fluoridation report (DataOhio) for the county share · EPA SDWIS search

Algal toxins

Raw water

1 detection at the intake across 1 bloom season (2022); none since 2024

Treated water

never detected after treatment

Monitoring

384 samples from 2016 to 2026, latest 2026-08-12

Raw-water readings show what the plant has to remove; any detection at the intake triggers weekly paired raw and treated-water testing until two clean weeks, and carbon, ozone or chlorine destroys the toxin in nearly every case. The ten-day advisory levels for treated water are 0.3 µg/L for children under six and 1.6 µg/L for everyone else. Since November 2022 the bloom season runs June through November (sampling continues into early December), with treated water tested every two weeks the rest of the year; the 2016 to 2022 rule monitored year-round and stepped testing up to three days a week when raw water passed 5 µg/L.

Source: Ohio EPA public water system harmful algal bloom monitoring (HAB data and map, DrinkingWater/HAB service, fetched 2026-09-09), total microcystins by ELISA in raw and treated water, for the system that serves most of this ZIP · Ohio EPA HAB information for public water systems

Groundwater

Under the surface

till over sand and gravel, part of the Westerville Complex Aquifer (complex setting); wells there yield 5 - 25 gallons a minute, deposits > 100 ft thick

Bedrock

Ohio and Olentangy Shales, yielding 0 - 5 gpm to a well

Setting

Sand and Gravel; water table 15-30 ft down, 4-7 in/yr recharge, clay loam soil (hydrogeologic setting 7Ja); pesticide index 140

Well logs

1,242 drilled wells on file (19.3 per 1,000 residents), median 52 ft deep, 11 gallons a minute median test yield, water 15 ft down

Aquifers

52% of wells in bedrock, 48% in sand, gravel and other unconsolidated material; typical well drilled 1981, 378 since 2000; uses: Domestic 725, Monitor 132

Wellhead protection

3% of this ZIP lies inside Ohio EPA source water protection areas for 4 public water systems (Westerville City PWS, Aqua Ohio - Huber Ridge PWS), 1% inside inner management zones, the ground a well draws from within a year; the largest, Westerville City PWS, is rated high susceptibility in a alluvial/river valley setting

Geology

53% of the ZIP is a sensitive geologic setting, where thin or sandy cover leaves the aquifer open to what soaks in from the surface; nearest verified sinkhole 7.9 mi away (Ohio EPA and ODNR Geological Survey)

Injection wells

102 Class V injection wells on Ohio EPA's books inside this ZIP (80 active): 3 large septic, 97 cleanup injection, 2 vehicle waste; these put fluids underground above or into drinking water aquifers

Water table

FR-523 AT NGWA monitoring well (USGS), 1.2 mi away: water 20.9 ft below ground on 2026-09-08; averaged 20.5 ft in 2015 to 2019 and 21.4 ft over the latest year, so the table is running about 0.9 ft lower; range 18 to 23.2 ft over 4,245 readings since 2015

Nitrate risk

EPA researchers put the chance that a public water system in the Bliss Run-Alum Creek subwatershed exceeds the nitrate limit at 29% if it draws on groundwater and 64% if it draws on rivers or lakes, judged from land use, geology and past results (EnviroAtlas nitrate violation index; the typical Ohio subwatershed scores 23% for groundwater and 39% for surface water)

Quality monitoring

Ohio EPA's nearest ambient groundwater monitoring well is Fancher Road (Licking County), 8.9 mi away: 56 ft deep in sand and gravel (Johnstown Groveport aquifer); wells there yield 5 to 25 gallons a minute; not currently sampled. 7 active wells within 15 mi

Vulnerability rates how easily a spill at the surface reaches the aquifer, not whether anything has. Well logs include abandoned and replaced wells, so counts overstate wells in use; a private well owner is the only one who tests it.

Source: ODNR Division of Geological Survey, Groundwater Vulnerability (DRASTIC) map (polygon at the ZIP's population-weighted center), karst feature inventory, and the Ohio water well log database (logs inside the ZIP boundary) · ODNR Geological Survey · Ohio EPA GIS services · USGS water data

Aquifer exposure

Karst

no karst-prone bedrock under the population center; no mapped sinkhole inside the ZIP; nearest verified sinkhole 7.9 mi from the center

Wellhead protection

3% of the ZIP lies inside Ohio EPA source water protection areas for 4 public water systems (Westerville City PWS, Aqua Ohio - Huber Ridge PWS), 1% inside inner management zones, the ground a well draws from within a year; the largest, Westerville City PWS, is rated high susceptibility in a alluvial/river valley setting

River intakes

1% of the ZIP is in the emergency management zone for Columbus Public Water System and Westerville City PWS, where a spill reaches the intake within hours; 26% in the 1,000-foot stream corridor zone

Vulnerability index

DRASTIC 121 (ODNR; higher means a spill at the surface reaches the aquifer more easily)

Sensitive settings are outwash plains, buried valleys, karst and shallow bedrock, mapped statewide by Ohio EPA for siting decisions. Exposure is not contamination: it says how quickly a spill, a failing tank or heavy manure would reach the water table, not whether one has.

Source: Ohio EPA Sensitive Geologic Settings and karst geology layers (geology/Geology), ODNR Geological Survey karst and spring points, Ohio EPA source water protection areas (DrinkingWater/SWAP); shares by ZIP boundary overlay, karst by a point query at the population-weighted center · Ohio EPA geology layers · Ohio EPA source water protection (SWAP) · ODNR Geological Survey

Sewage treatment

Size

1.03 million gallons a day design flow; a major facility

Compliance

2 of the last 12 quarters with a violation; no open violation; 4 effluent limit exceedances in 3 years

Other discharge permits: 5 facilities inside this ZIP other than sewage plants hold a Clean Water Act permit (factories, water plants, quarries, package plants, storm water); 6 facility-quarters with a violation in the last three years.

Sludge source: nearest Westerville Estates MHP, 4.5 mi away; 4 within 10 miles (Ohio EPA).

State water loans: 2 projects inside this ZIP have borrowed $82.5 million from Ohio EPA's revolving loan funds since 2023 (2 sewer, storm water and runoff projects for $82.5 million). Largest: Big Walnut Trunk Extension Phase 2 (Columbus, 2023, $81.5 million); latest: Walnut Street Sanitary Sewer Extension 650033-100006 (Columbus, 2025, $973,447). Below-market loans are how most Ohio treatment plants and water mains get rebuilt.

Sewer planning: this ZIP falls in the Columbus City Community-level FPA; 95% of it is assigned to City of Columbus as the designated sewage management agency (with Franklin County) under Ohio's Clean Water Act section 208 plan (generic and specific prescriptions); 3 agencies share the ZIP. The 208 plan decides who may build and extend sewers.

Stormwater: 81% of this ZIP lies inside Ohio EPA's regulated MS4 areas, mostly the City of Westerville storm sewer system (8 permit holders overlap the ZIP); the towns, townships and counties that own those storm sewers hold a stormwater permit and must control what runs off streets and parking lots (2020 to 2030 designation). 6 sites with an address in this ZIP hold their own industrial stormwater permits (Scioto Materials LLC, Anderson Concrete Plants 3&5, Kurtz Bros - Westerville Satelite Facility and others) (EPA Facility Finder).

Plants inside this ZIP: Aqua Ohio Water Co. Inc. - Huber Ridge Wwtp (1.03 MGD, major).

Where a home's sewage actually goes depends on the sewer district, and rural homes are on septic systems the county health department permits; the nearest plant is a proxy. Violations range from paperwork to raw discharges.

Source: EPA Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO), Clean Water Act NPDES facilities with a POTW component in Ohio; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center. Compliance data lag about a quarter.; other Clean Water Act permit holders inside the ZIP from the same service · EPA ECHO · EPA CSO inventory · Ohio EPA GIS services · EPA Facility Finder

Stream health

Uses failing

aquatic life 89% of the land, recreation (bacteria) 70%, fish consumption 0%, drinking-water source 0% (that use is assessed on only 49% of the ZIP)

Causes listed

sediment and silt (89%), habitat damage (89%), low oxygen (89%)

Cleanup plans

89% of the land is under a TMDL pollution budget

Watersheds here: Bliss Run-Alum Creek (not supporting); Rocky Fork Creek (not supporting).

Nearest stream assessment (Ohio EPA): Mccammon Creek Dst. Bale Kenyon Rd. on the Mccammon Creek, 4.8 mi away, draining 1 square mile: full attainment of its warmwater use; fish IBI 52 of 60 (2022); bugs rated good; habitat QHEI 65.5 of 100. 0 within 3 miles, 17 within 10. Scores above about 40 (IBI), 36 (ICI) and 60 (QHEI) mean a healthy warmwater stream.

Stream designations (Ohio EPA water quality standards): 23.3 miles of designated streams cross this ZIP: 23.3 mi warmwater habitat. Nearest specially protected stream: the Rocky fork (U.S. route 62 (RM 5.1) to the mouth), 5.3 mi away, a Superior High Quality Water. Exceptional and coldwater streams are the state's healthiest; modified and limited-resource waters are channelized or ditched.

Proposed for 2026: the nearest reach Ohio EPA proposes to add to the antidegradation tiers is the Scioto River (Mill creek above O'Shaughnessy reservoir (RM 155.4) to the mouth), 11.3 mi away, as Outstanding State Water for recreation.

PFAS in the river (Ohio EPA large river survey): at Olentangy R. At Columbus @ Footbridge At O.S.U., 9.6 mi away, the water carried 84.78 ng/L of total PFAS (PFOA 3.6, PFOS 2.6 ng/L); fish fillets held 61.98 ng/g in bluegill and 22.51 ng/g in catfish (PFOS 30 in bluegill). Drinking water limits are 4 ng/L for PFOA and PFOS; river water is not drinking water, but treatment plants that draw from it start from these numbers.

Farm chemicals (USGS estimate, 2018): farms in Franklin County used about 55 metric tons of pesticide active ingredient, 102 kg per square mile, 59th of Ohio's 88 counties. Largest: glyphosate 21 t, atrazine 7 t, metolachlor 7 t, acetochlor 3 t, 2,4-D 2 t. Atrazine, the corn herbicide, is the pesticide that most often shows up in Ohio tap water after spring rains; this county used 7 t of it.

Farms (2022 Census of Agriculture): 372 farms work 48,728 acres of Franklin County, with 12% of its land in cropland, 131 acres to a farm. 293 cattle, 3,404 laying hens, 688 broilers, 46 turkeys; 11,727 acres of corn and 20,845 of soybeans. Sales $72 million, 22% from animals and animal products. Manure and fertilizer from farms like these carry the phosphorus and nitrogen behind Ohio's algae and nitrate problems; withheld figures protect individual farms.

A watershed unit fails when any sampled stream in it fails; ditches in flat farm country fail on habitat and nutrients, city creeks on bacteria and sediment. Ohio's own report is at epa.ohio.gov; the EPA link on each unit's report page has the sampling detail.

Source: EPA ATTAINS (Ohio EPA 2024 Integrated Report), watershed assessment units overlaid on the ZIP boundary in an equal-area projection; shares are of the ZIP's land area · EPA ATTAINS · Ohio integrated report · Ohio sport fish advisory · Ohio EPA advisory map

Watershed

• Upper Scioto100% of residentsDrains to the Ohio River

H2Ohio: nearest project Big Walnut Creek Wetland and Floodplain Restoration, funded 2024, in progress, 8.6 mi away: The Big Walnut Creek Wetland and Floodplain Restoration project aims to restore approximately 26 acres of land along Big Walnut Creek. This restoration will imp...; 0 within 5 miles, 4 within 15. H2Ohio pays for wetlands, farm practices and lead line work to cut the nutrients behind Lake Erie's algae.

Source water: 32% of this ZIP drains to the river intakes of Columbus Public Water System, Westerville City PWS and sits inside their Ohio EPA source water protection area; 1% is in the emergency management zone for Columbus Public Water System and Westerville City PWS, the reach where a spill would arrive at the intake within hours; 26% lies in the 1,000-foot stream corridor zone where spills and runoff matter most.

Watershed grants: 2 state or federal runoff projects inside this ZIP (1 SWIF, 1 Section 319); nearest "Highlands Park Wetland Expansion and Enhancement" by City of Westerville (wetland restoration, Section 319), 0.6 mi away; 16 within 10 miles (Ohio EPA project lists: Section 319 and GLRI through fiscal 2023, SWIF through 2017).

Road salt: 1 state chloride-reduction grant inside this ZIP; nearest went to City of Westerville (equipment, 2024-2025), 1.2 mi away; 8 in Franklin County. H2Ohio pays for brine makers, calibrated spreaders and covered salt barns so less chloride reaches streams and wells.

The population center sits in the Bliss Run-Alum Creek subwatershed; its water runs on through Town of Lockbourne-Big Walnut Creek, then Grant Run-Scioto River, then Grove Run-Scioto River.

In 2015 Franklin County drew about 188 million gallons a day of fresh water (USGS): 155.8 million for public supply (16% from wells, 1,244,700 people served at 51 gallons a person a day at home), 0.1 million for power plant cooling, 0.5 million for industry, 1.6 million for irrigation, 29.7 million for mining; 7,000 residents drew their own well water.

EnviroAtlas, Bliss Run-Alum Creek: no land in the Conservation Reserve Program; 141 acres of grain crops; 65 miles of streams (1.2 per square mile); water use of 12.1 million gallons a day for homes; 38.9 inches of rain and snow a year; 11 kg of nitrogen per hectare falling from the air each year; farm nitrogen of 0 kg per hectare a year as manure and 0.8 kg as synthetic fertilizer; 0% of the farmland sits on drained hydric soils; 44% of the land is paved or roofed; 36% of the stream banks keep natural cover (EPA EnviroAtlas national metrics, 2010s vintages).

Stream permits: none of this ZIP drains to streams Ohio EPA rates high quality, where a project that fills, pipes or crosses a stream needs an individual Ohio EPA 401 water quality review; 41% drains toward high-quality waters farther down and might qualify for the Army Corps' blanket nationwide permits after a field screening and 59% can use those nationwide permits outright (Ohio EPA 401 nationwide permit eligibility map).

Source: USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset (HUC-8 subbasins by resident share, HUC-12 subwatershed at the population center) · 2020 census blocks · USGS watershed boundaries · EPA EnviroAtlas · Ohio EPA 401 map · USGS county water use 2015 · ODNR H2Ohio projects · ODNR Lake Erie Coastal Management Area · Ohio EPA source water protection (SWAP) · Ohio EPA nine-element plans · Ohio EPA 319, GLRI and SWIF project lists · Ohio EPA chloride reduction grants · NOAA Lake Erie water levels

Homes and income

Household income

$92,422 median

Income spread

7% of households earn under $25,000 a year, 47% $100,000 or more and 12% $200,000 or more

Rent

$1,522 a month, median gross

Owner-occupied

59% of 27,397 occupied homes; 72% of owners carry a mortgage

Typical home built

1986

Value spread

3% of owner-occupied homes are worth under $100,000 and 8.2% $500,000 or more; income per person $48,419 a year

Moved in

the typical owner moved in in 2011, the typical renter in 2020

Median age

36.3 years

Commute

21 minutes each way on average, 5% of commuters travel 45 minutes or more, 28% work from home

Housing stock

50% single-family detached, 29% in buildings of 5 or more units; 1.1% of homes are crowded (more than one person a room)

Vacancy

5.5% of 28,986 housing units are vacant: 1.6% for rent, 1.2% held for seasonal or occasional use, 2.5% other, such as homes held off the market, in probate or abandoned

Owner costs

20% of owners with a mortgage and 12% of owners without one spend 30% or more of income on housing

Evictions

1.96 eviction filings a year per 100 renter households in 2016 to 2018, 0.89 ending in a judgement (about 133 filings a year; Eviction Lab)

Fair market rent

$1,700 a month for a two-bedroom (one-bedroom $1,420, three-bedroom $2,040): HUD's fiscal 2026 small-area fair market rent, the benchmark for housing vouchers in the Columbus metro area

Tax returns

34,550 returns for 2022 averaging $83,787 of adjusted gross income; 21% reported under $25,000 and 6% reported $200,000 or more; 9% claimed the earned income credit and 25% were filed by people 60 or older (IRS)

Subsidized housing

2 tax-credit (LIHTC) properties with 100 low-income units, newest placed in service 2007; 4 HUD-assisted multifamily properties with 254 assisted units (Section 8 and similar contracts). Housing vouchers used in private rentals are not counted

Banks

14 full-service bank branches from 12 banks inside this ZIP (FDIC); 2 credit union branches from 2 credit unions (NCUA)

Strain

46% of renters pay 30% or more of income in rent; 4% of households have no vehicle; the median renter spends 28.1% of income on rent; the median owner with a mortgage spends 19.4% of income on housing costs

Five-year survey averages centered on 2022; small ZIPs carry wide margins of error, and owner-estimated values run below sale prices in a rising market.

Source: Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020 to 2024 five-year estimates by ZIP Code Tabulation Area; Eviction Lab (Princeton) tract estimates 2016 to 2018, weighted to the ZIP; HUD fiscal 2026 Small Area Fair Market Rents; IRS Statistics of Income ZIP data, tax year 2022; Mapping Inequality (University of Richmond), HOLC maps 1935 to 1940; HUD eGIS open data for subsidized housing; FDIC BankFind branch locations; NCUA credit union branch list, March 2026 · Census ACS · Eviction Lab · HUD data · IRS ZIP statistics · Mapping Inequality · HUD eGIS open data · FDIC BankFind · NCUA call report data

Houses and neighborhoods

Homes

16,251 one-family houses, 208 two-family houses, 6 three-family houses, 8,328 condominiums, 8 farmhouses; also 105 apartment buildings and 211 other residential parcels

Age

4% built before 1950, 35% before 1978 (1978: the year lead paint was banned for housing)

Size

median living area 1,536 sq ft; median lot 0.23 acres (condominiums left out)

Value

median appraised value $288,700 (tax year 2025): the county auditor's market value for property tax, not a sale price

Sales

810 sales in the 12 months to Aug 15, 2026 (median $387,675); 4,279 sales in 5 years (median $379,180, $210 a sq ft). Counted: sales the auditor marked valid or has not yet reviewed (sales marked not valid, and unreviewed ones under $10,000, are left out), single-parcel sales of homes, one per house (its newest)

Owners

70% owner-occupied (homes receiving the owner-occupancy tax credit); 24% company-owned

Neighborhoods

3 neighborhoods and 278 subdivisions (details load below)

Show neighborhoods and houses

The houses load when you search, pick a filter or press the button (the pack for this part of the state, a few megabytes). Zoomed in on the map, each house of this ZIP draws as a dot that follows the search and filters.

Source: county auditors' appraisal records: Franklin County Auditor (as of Aug 15, 2026); OGRIP Ohio Statewide Parcels, Ohio Department of Administrative Services (Delaware County, upload of Nov 13, 2023); residential parcels placed in ZIPs by the atlas; neighborhood boundaries as the cities publish them (the layers used here are named once the houses load); owner names are not carried · Allen County Auditor · Ashland County Auditor · Auglaize County Auditor · Butler County Auditor · Champaign County Auditor · Clark County Auditor · Clinton County Auditor · Coshocton County Auditor · Crawford County Auditor · Fairfield County Auditor · Fayette County Auditor · Franklin County Auditor · Greene County Auditor · Guernsey County Auditor · Hardin County Auditor · Highland County Auditor · Hocking County Auditor · Holmes County Auditor · Jackson County Auditor · Knox County Auditor · Licking County Auditor · Logan County Auditor · Lorain County Auditor · Madison County Auditor · Marion County Auditor · Miami County Auditor · Montgomery County Auditor · Morrow County Auditor · Muskingum County Auditor · Perry County Auditor · Pickaway County Auditor · Richland County Auditor · Ross County Auditor · Stark County Auditor · Tuscarawas County Auditor · Union County Auditor · Wyandot County Auditor · OGRIP Ohio Statewide Parcels · Athens County subdivisions, town plats and additions (Athens County Auditor GIS) · Cincinnati Community Council Boundaries · Cincinnati Statistical Neighborhood Approximations (SNA), 2020 · Clark County recorded subdivision plats · Clermont County recorded subdivision plats · Cleveland Heights neighborhoods · Cleveland Statistical Planning Areas (SPAs) / neighborhoods · Columbus Communities · Columbus Community Planning Areas · Coshocton County subdivisions (recorded plats and town additions) · Dayton neighborhoods · Dublin Civic Associations · Franklin County recorded subdivision and condominium plats · Hamilton (Ohio) 17Strong neighborhoods · Lima neighborhood associations · Logan County subdivision and condominium plats · Madison County subdivisions (recorded plats) · Morgan County subdivision, addition and town plats · Muskingum County subdivision plats · Perry County subdivisions and town additions (recorded plat names on the county engineer's parcels) · Richland County subdivisions and condominiums (recorded plats, county GIS) · Sandusky neighborhoods · Stark County recorded allotment (subdivision) and condominium plats · Toledo neighborhood associations · Union County subdivision plats

Building permits

Mix

314 single-family houses, 655 units in buildings of five or more, 84 in duplexes and small buildings

Value

$209.6 million of construction at the value declared on the permits

By year

2016: 205, 2017: 209, 2018: 341, 2019: 159, 2020: 21, 2021: 20, 2022: 2, 2023: 11, 2024: 37, 2025: 48, 2026 through July: 4

Survey counts are permits issued, not houses finished, and cover new residential construction only: additions, remodels, garages and commercial buildings are not in the survey. Values are the applicants' estimates. Where a city runs the building department for its township neighbours, the city's figure covers them too.

Source: Census Bureau Building Permits Survey, annual place files 2016 to 2025 (new privately owned residential units authorized), for the permit-issuing jurisdiction where most of this ZIP's residents live · Census building permits

Home prices

Five years

+56% from 2020 to 2025

Last year

+4% in 2025

Since 2000

prices stand at 2.6 times their 2000 level

Series

tracked since 1975

Zillow's typical home value here is $362K (2026-07), up 1% over the year, up 27% over five years and up 93% over ten. Typical asking rent $1,597 a month (2026-07), up 2% over the year.

On the market (Realtor.com, August 2026): median asking price $384,800 (down 9.4% in a year), $204 per square foot for a typical 1,922 sq ft listing; 131 active listings, 88 new this month; listings spend a median 38 days on the market (up 3% from a year earlier); 35% of listings have cut their price.

The index follows the same houses through repeat sales and refinance appraisals on conforming mortgages, so it measures price change rather than the price level (the Homes card has the median value). Consumer prices rose about 36% from 2015 to 2025, so a gain under 36% is a loss in real terms.

Source: Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index, annual five-digit ZIP all-transactions series (repeat sales and refinance appraisals of conforming-mortgage homes, developmental, not seasonally adjusted), latest release; Zillow Home Value Index (mid-tier, smoothed, seasonally adjusted) and Zillow Observed Rent Index by ZIP, Zillow Research · FHFA house price index · Zillow research data · Realtor.com data

Local taxes

Westerville City 67% of residents

38.8 effective mills (81.9 gross); $2,717 a year on a $200,000 home. Operating 26.2, bonds 2.4, improvements 2.1, substitute 4.3, inside millage 3.8.

Columbus City 15% of residents

32.1 effective mills (87.8 gross); $2,245 a year on a $200,000 home. Operating 21.6, bonds 2.4, improvements 3.6, inside millage 4.5.

Municipal income tax

Westerville 2% (47% of residents), Columbus 2.5% (41% of residents); township residents outside a city or village pay none. Charged on wages and business profits where you work and, after credits, where you live.

School district income tax

Westerville City 0.75% (67% of residents), Columbus City none (15% of residents), Worthington City none (13% of residents), New Albany-Plain Local none (5% of residents). Voted by the district and collected with the state income tax.

Sales tax

8% combined rate in Franklin County: Ohio's 5.75% plus county and transit levies; this ZIP straddles counties or transit districts, so the rate depends on the address.

A mill is $1 per $1,000 of taxable value, and taxable value is 35% of market value. Effective rates fall as values rise because Ohio holds most voted levies to the dollars first approved. County, municipal or township, library, park and vocational-school levies are added on the same bill and are not counted here.

Source: Ohio Department of Taxation, Aggregate Property Tax Rates by School District, tax year 2025 (composite DTE 515); weighted by the share of this ZIP's residents in each district; The Finder rate tables for municipal, school district and sales taxes, September 2026 · Ohio tax data series · The Finder

Who delivers the electricity

• AEP Ohio investor-owned53% of residentsAmerican Electric Power (AEP)
• Westerville Electric Division municipal47% of residentsWesterville, Franklin County

Columbus Division of Power, the city's own utility, also serves customers inside the city limits here. The two territories interleave block by block, so the split is not mapped.

AEP Ohio outages, 2024: the average customer lost power for 272 minutes (158 minutes leaving out major storm days), about 1.1 interruptions a year.

AEP Ohio standard service offer price, 2024: 19.33 cents per kWh, about $174 a month for the average home, for the 550,768 residential customers who have not chosen a supplier; the other 788,464 pay AEP Ohio 10.75 cents per kWh for delivery plus their supplier's price (EIA-861).

AEP Ohio solar and meters, 2024: 11,606 customers run net-metered solar (158.9 MW, 11,036 of them homes); 79% of its 1,541,883 meters are two-way smart (AMI) meters, 21% drive-by automated reads (EIA-861).

Westerville Electric Division outages, 2024: the average customer lost power for 57 minutes (22 minutes leaving out major storm days), about 0.8 interruptions a year.

Westerville Electric Division residential price, 2024: 13.19 cents per kWh, about $122 a month for the average home across 15,713 residential customers (EIA-861).

Westerville Electric Division solar and meters, 2024: 108 customers run net-metered solar (4.5 MW, 98 of them homes); 100% of its 17,966 meters are two-way smart (AMI) meters (EIA-861).

Energy burden: households here spend an average 1.9% of income on electricity, gas and other fuels (about $2,116 a year against $111,412 of income); the 28% of households below 80% of the area median income spend 5.0%, and 8% of households fall in groups averaging 6% or more, the usual line for a high burden (DOE LEAD Tool, 2022 update, built from 2018 to 2022 survey data).

Source: PUCO certified territories via ODOT · HIFLD retail service territories (EIA Form 861) · 2020 census blocks · outage statistics from EIA-861 Reliability, 2024 with 2023 where a utility skipped a year (SAIDI and SAIFI, IEEE 1366) · residential prices from EIA-861 Sales to Ultimate Customers, net metering and advanced meters from the EIA-861 files of the same years · DOE LEAD Tool 2022 household energy burden by tract, apportioned into ZIPs by block population · PUCO electricity · ODOT territories service · EIA-861 · DOE LEAD Tool · HIFLD retail service territories

Natural gas here

63% of the 27,397 homes here heat with utility gas.

Utility gas 63%Electricity 35%Propane or LP 1%Oil, wood, other 1%

• Columbia Gas of Ohio regulated utility100% of residents, main companyNiSource Inc.

Pipes under the street: Columbia Gas of Ohio reported 20,620 miles of distribution main to PHMSA for 2025, 64% plastic and 6.6% cast iron or bare steel (the leak-prone materials); 3,271 hazardous leaks repaired in 2025.

PUCO lists 5 companies operating in Franklin County: Columbia Gas of Ohio, Knox Energy Cooperative Association, Inc., National Gas and Oil Cooperative, Northeast Ohio Natural Gas Corporation, Village of Obetz.

Source: PUCO gas distribution companies by county, April 2026 · federal (EIA) territory polygons, 2016 · Census ACS 2020 to 2024 heating fuel · PUCO natural gas · HIFLD

Power plants

Nearest plant of any size: O'Shaughnessy Hydro, 11.8 mi (hydro, 5 MW).

0 plants within 10 miles totalling 0 MW.

Solar: 3100 Valleyview Drive, 1 MW AC (2023), 2 acres, 13.6 mi away; 1 utility-scale solar farm within 15 miles.

Capacity is net summer capacity in megawatts (EIA), not output; a solar farm's 200 MW runs a quarter of the hours a gas plant's would. Small peaking engines and landfill-gas units count as plants.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration Form 860 plant inventory via HIFLD (February 2025); USGS U.S. Wind Turbine Database and U.S. Large-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Database; NRC emergency planning zones around Perry and Davis-Besse (residents inside the roughly 10-mile zone counted by 2020 census block); straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center · EIA-860 · HIFLD · USGS wind turbines · USGS solar · NRC emergency planning zones

Gas transmission pipelines

No transmission line crosses this ZIP.

Transmission lines run at hundreds of pounds of pressure and are inspected under federal rules; the distribution mains that actually feed homes are a separate, denser network not shown here. By mileage in this EIA layer Ohio's map is dominated by Columbia Gas Transmission and East Ohio Gas's intrastate lines; Texas Eastern and the Rover and Nexus lines built for Utica shale gas are among the other large interstate systems.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration Natural Gas Interstate and Intrastate Pipelines layer (data last updated July 2025, pulled September 2026), via the ArcGIS Online copy maintained by Esri's Federal User Community; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center; lengths clipped to the ZIP boundary in an equal-area projection · EIA U.S. Energy Atlas · ArcGIS Online item

Incumbent telephone company

• AT&T Ohio100% of residentsIncumbent local exchange carrier

Source: PUCO incumbent local exchange carrier service areas · 2020 census blocks · PUCO telephone

Internet

Served, 100/20 Mbps or better 100%Underserved, 25/3 to 100/20 0%Unserved, under 25/3 0%

Fiber reaches 24% of locations, cable 97%; a year earlier 100% were served.

Of 27,397 households, 90% subscribe to cable, fiber or DSL, 6% rely on a cellular plan only, and 2% have no internet at home.

Measured by Ookla speed tests, April to June 2025: typical fixed download 331.5 Mbps, upload 78.1 Mbps, 19 ms latency, across 3,325 tests from up to 988 devices in 200 map tiles.

Source: FCC Broadband Data Collection, June 2024 (availability) · Census ACS 2020 to 2024 (subscriptions) · Ookla Open Data, fixed-network speed tests by tile, 2025 Q2 (measured speeds) · FCC broadband map · Ookla open data · Census ACS

Cell signal

• AT&T4G 100% · 5G 99%
• T-Mobile4G 100% · 5G 98%
• Verizon4G 100% · 5G 78%

Registered towers: 8 antenna structures registered with the FCC inside this ZIP and 7 within 3 miles of its center; the tallest inside is a 499-foot guyed tower. Only structures over 200 feet or near airports must register, so most cell sites on short poles, water towers and rooftops are not counted.

Measured mobile speeds (Ookla speed tests, April to June 2026): typical download 289.6 Mbps, upload 23.9 Mbps, latency 33 ms over 217 tests from up to 129 devices in 82 map tiles.

Coverage as the carriers report it to the FCC for outdoor use at a stationary spot, by land area rather than by residents; indoor signal and rural hollows can be worse.

Source: FCC Mobile Broadband Data Collection via Esri Living Atlas (layer last updated November 2025, i.e. the June 30, 2025 filing round), carrier-reported outdoor coverage by hexagon, summed over the ZIP's land; FCC Antenna Structure Registration database, September 2026; Ookla open data mobile tiles, 2026 Q2 · FCC broadband map · FCC antenna registration · Ookla open data

EV charging

5 public stations inside this ZIP with 20 Level 2 and 0 DC fast ports; the nearest of any kind is WESTERVILLE UPTOWN LOT G, 1.3 mi. 48 stations within 5 miles of the ZIP's population center, 12 with DC fast charging.

Networks here: ChargePoint (4), Blink (1).

Level 2 adds roughly 20 to 30 miles of range an hour; DC fast charging fills most cars in under an hour. Listings are operator-reported and lag new openings and closures.

Source: NREL Alternative Fuels Data Center via the U.S. DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics (public, open electric stations, the posts at one site merged, restricted-access sites excluded), and chargers in neighbouring states near the border; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center; station list as of May 29, 2026 · Alternative Fuels Data Center · BTS Alternative Fueling Stations (NTAD)

Public transit

40 stops inside this ZIP: COTA (40).

Only fixed-route systems that publish a GTFS feed appear; dial-a-ride and demand-response services do not, and a handful of small fixed-route systems publish no feed at all. Half a mile is roughly a ten-minute walk.

Source: USDOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, National Transit Map stops (National Transportation Atlas Database, 2025 vintage, fetched September 2026), plus the Springfield, Lancaster-Fairfield, Knox County Transit, WayGo and BGSU Shuttle GTFS feeds; share of 2020 census block population within half a mile of a stop · BTS National Transit Map · BTS transportation atlas · Springfield City Area Transit GTFS feed · Lancaster-Fairfield Public Transit GTFS feed · Knox County Transit GTFS feed · WayGo GTFS feed · BGSU Shuttle GTFS feed

Walkability

Street grid

90 intersections per square mile, a mix of grid and cul-de-sacs

Transit

14% of residents live in a block group whose population center is within three-quarters of a mile of a stop in the EPA's 2020 transit file, on average 700 metres away

Mix of uses

employment mix 0.57 and mix of homes and job types 0.44 on the EPA's 0 to 1 scales, where 1 is the most varied

Car-free households

4% of households have no vehicle (Census ACS 2020 to 2024)

The index scores every block group on intersection density, distance to transit and how mixed its jobs and homes are, then ranks them against the whole country. It measures the street pattern, not sidewalks, safety or hills.

Source: EPA National Walkability Index (Smart Location Database 3.0, 2021) by census block group, population-weighted to the ZIP through 2020 census blocks; car-free households from Census ACS 2020 to 2024 table B25044 (the Homes card), or, where that is missing, the Smart Location Database's own 2014 to 2018 share weighted by households · EPA walkability index · Smart Location Database · Census ACS

Rail crossings

Franklin County has logged 68 rail accidents since 2010, 40 of them derailments, 3 hazmat cars releasing, 200 people evacuated (FRA Form 54). Yard mishaps at walking speed dominate; main-line derailments are the rare, dangerous ones.

Train counts and speeds are the railroad's last inventory update. Crossings with only crossbucks rely on the driver; Ohio has averaged about 77 crossing collisions a year from 2010 to 2025 (FRA Form 57), between 64 and 87 in a year.

Source: Federal Railroad Administration, Grade Crossing Inventory (Form 71, current records); crossings whose point falls inside the ZIP boundary, closed crossings excluded; nearest crossing measured from the population-weighted center. Collisions are FRA Form 57 crossing incidents since 2010, placed by crossing id through the inventory's coordinates; train accidents are FRA Form 54 rail equipment accidents since 2010, placed by their own reported coordinates, counted one per incident rather than one per report (county totals from the same file). All three pulled from data.transportation.gov, September 2026 · FRA crossing inventory (Form 71, current) · FRA crossing incidents (Form 57) · FRA rail equipment accidents (Form 54) · FRA safety data · DOT open data

Bridges

Age

typical bridge built 1985, 1 built before 1950; oldest 1939, Hempstead Road over Spring Run

Busiest

Rmp (161Wb-270Sb) over Ramp (161Wb-270Sb), 181,641 vehicles a day (2017 count)

Owners

state 27, county 16

Rated poor

270Wb To 71Sb over Ramp 71Nb-270Wb (1966, 104,140 a day); Ramp To 270Wb over IR-71 (1966, 12,651 a day) and 1 more

Ratings come from the inspection every bridge gets at least every two years; poor means deterioration that needs repair, not imminent danger. FHWA's file is a yearly snapshot with inspections through early 2025, so a bridge replaced, re-rated or closed since then still shows its old rating here; ODOT's TIMS bridge inventory carries the current one. Traffic figures are the average daily counts the bridge owners filed with the inventory; most Ohio counts date from 2015 and some are older. County engineers own most of Ohio's small bridges and ODOT the big ones.

Source: Federal Highway Administration, National Bridge Inventory 2025 (Ohio file); structures whose point falls inside the ZIP boundary; condition from NBI items 58, 59, 60 and 62 (deck, superstructure, substructure, culvert) · FHWA bridge inventory · ODOT TIMS bridge inventory (live)

Traffic

Trucks

24,460 a day on I-270, 15% of its traffic

Driving

about 1.7M vehicle-miles a day on the 366 counted segments inside the ZIP; the typical segment carries 8,247 vehicles

Freeway volumes

24 segments carry 50,000 or more a day

Busiest local road

county road 8, 33,422 vehicles a day

Annual average daily traffic is both directions combined, averaged over the year. County, township and city roads are labelled by their route number, which ODOT uses instead of the street name. Most city streets have no count, so the busiest local road is the busiest counted one. Interchange ramps are left out of the busiest-road pick; a ZIP with nothing but ramps shows one labelled ramp and its ODOT number.

Road deaths: 14 people died in 11 crashes inside this ZIP in 2020 to 2024 (1 pedestrian, 2 motorcyclists); 2 involved a drinking driver and 6 happened in the dark. That is 4.4 deaths a year per 100,000 residents against 10.6 across Ohio's ZIPs; deaths are counted where the crash happened, and many who die live elsewhere. (NHTSA FARS)

Source: ODOT traffic count segments, 2025 annual average daily traffic (ODOT TIMS); segments assigned to the ZIP holding their midpoint; NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System 2020 to 2024, crashes placed by their coordinates · ODOT TIMS traffic count segments · NHTSA FARS

Airports and trains

Nearest airfield

John Glenn Columbus International (CMH), Columbus, 7.8 mi, public use

Amtrak

Sandusky station, 92.6 mi

Ohio's Amtrak stops are on the Floridian (Amtrak has temporarily combined the Capitol Limited with the Silver Star), the Lake Shore Limited and the Cardinal, all overnight trains; Cincinnati's only calls three times a week. Amtrak's Thruway bus stops, Dayton-Trotwood among them, are not counted as stations here. Airline service at Toledo and Rickenbacker is limited to a few routes; Youngstown-Warren has had no airline flights since 2018.

Source: FAA airport facilities and Amtrak stations via USDOT BTS National Transportation Atlas; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center · BTS transportation atlas

Radon in this ZIP

42% of tests at or above EPA's 4 pCi/L action level · median 3.0 · highest 212.2

A ZIP average says nothing about one house; readings next door can differ tenfold. Test yours, and fix it at 4 pCi/L or more.

Source: odh.ohio.gov radon levels by ZIP code, tests since 2010, before mitigation · ODH radon program

Flood zones

5.5% of the ZIP's land is in that floodplain, and another 1.8% is in the 0.2% (500-year) zone; 0.5% of residents live in the 0.2% zone. Zones mapped here: AE, X (0.2%).

Design storms (NOAA Atlas 14): a 100-year storm here drops 5.6 inches in 24 hours (2.8 in a single hour, 4.3 in six); a 2-year storm 2.6, 10-year 3.7, 25-year 4.4, 500-year 7.2 inches in 24 hours. Storm sewers, culverts and detention ponds are sized from these numbers, and a "100-year" storm has a 1% chance every year.

Nearest river gauge: Big Walnut Creek at Central College OH, 1.5 mi away, draining 190 square miles. Record flow 23,800 cubic feet a second at a stage of 19.75 ft on 1959-01-21; the highest since 2016 was 5,430 on 2018-02-16 (USGS, 83 annual peaks, 1939 to 2025).

61 federal flood insurance policies are in force in this ZIP, covering $14 million of buildings; 20% of them are in a mapped high-risk zone; the typical policy costs $952 a year (about 1% of households).

65 federal flood insurance claims from this ZIP since 1978, 40 since 2010, paying about $1 million in all; the worst year was 2020 with 12 claims; 51% of claims came from outside the mapped high-risk zone.

Levees: nearest is a levee along Olentangy River, 9.3 mi away (accredited).

Community status: Westerville takes part in the National Flood Insurance Program; flood map effective 06/17/08. Columbus takes part in the National Flood Insurance Program; flood map effective 06/16/11. Franklin County's unincorporated areas take part in the National Flood Insurance Program; flood map effective 06/16/11.

Lenders require flood insurance on mortgaged homes in the 1% zone (zones A and AE). Block centers understate narrow floodplains in rural areas, so check the FEMA map for a specific address.

Source: FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer (effective flood insurance rate maps, levee centerlines) · 2020 census block centers · ZIP land area by polygon overlay, open water excluded; NOAA Atlas 14 precipitation frequency at the ZIP center; USGS NWIS annual peak flows; OpenFEMA NFIP policies in force by reported ZIP as of September 2026, NFIP redacted claims and the Community Status Book · FEMA flood hazard layer · FEMA Map Service Center · OpenFEMA · NOAA Atlas 14 · USGS stream gauges

Natural hazard risk

• Cold wave75
• Heat wave74

FEMA's expected annual loss here from all hazards: $18 million a year in buildings, crops and lives.

The index blends how often a hazard strikes, what it would cost, and how vulnerable and resilient the community is. Inland flooding (rivers and heavy rain) scores 65, tornado 59, winter weather 53.

Source: FEMA National Risk Index, census tracts, December 2025 release, weighted to this ZIP by 2020 block population · FEMA National Risk Index · NRI census tract layer (ArcGIS)

Climate

Temperature

53.9°F average; typical January low 22°, July high 86°

Hot and cold days

20 days a year reach 90°F; 110 nights fall below freezing, 4 below 0°F; 27 days never climb above freezing

Rain and snow

42.2 inches of precipitation on 86 days with a tenth of an inch or more; 19 inches of snow on 7 days with an inch or more, snow on the ground 26 days

Degree days

5,108 heating, 1,096 cooling (base 65°F): the higher the heating number, the bigger the winter gas bill

Drought (U.S. Drought Monitor): since 2020 Franklin County has spent 32 weeks in moderate drought or worse, 11 of them severe or worse (most recently 11 weeks in 2024), and 65 weeks at least abnormally dry. The worst since 2000 was extreme drought in 2024/09; 5% of all weeks since 2000 were in drought. As of 2026-09-01: no drought.

Long run (NOAA, Franklin County): the average year ran 53.2 °F over 1996 to 2025 against 51.5 °F over 1901 to 1930, 1.7 °F warmer (1.8 °F warmer than 1951 to 1980); the warmest year on record was 2024 at 56.4 °F, and 2025 came in at 53.1 °F. Precipitation averaged 41.7 inches a year lately against 39.7 a century ago, 5% more; the wettest year was 2018 with 55.1 inches, and 2025 brought 39.4. More rain in bigger bursts is what strains storm sewers and septic fields.

Stations: Westerville (2.1 mi, temperature and precipitation and snowfall; 26 years of snowfall record). Normals are thirty-year averages, so a single winter can run far above or below them.

Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020 (annual/seasonal and monthly); nearest reporting station to the ZIP's population-weighted center for each element; U.S. Drought Monitor county statistics · NOAA climate normals · NOAA climate at a glance · U.S. Drought Monitor

Air quality

Worst days

98th-percentile day 21 µg/m³ (24-hour standard 35)

Ozone

66 ppb, 4th-highest daily 8-hour reading at Maple Canyon, 2.9 mi away (standard 70)

Franklin County AQI, 2025

147 good days, 213 moderate, 5 unhealthy for sensitive groups or worse of the 365 days indexed; peak 156, median 53

Franklin County AQI, 2026 so far

61 good days, 59 moderate and 0 unhealthy for sensitive groups or worse in the 120 days indexed through April 30; peak 81 (PM2.5)

Air toxics

30 in a million lifetime cancer risk from outdoor air toxics across Franklin County (EPA AirToxScreen 2020), mostly formaldehyde (18) and carbon tetrachloride (3)

Permitted sources

12 permitted air sources inside this ZIP under the Clean Air Act, 1 synthetic minor; none had a violation in the last 3 years. Nearest major source Worthington Cylinder Corporation in Westerville, 2.6 mi (4 permanently closed sources also on file) (EPA ECHO)

Air standards

Franklin County is a maintenance area for ozone (2008) (Columbus, OH, redesignated 2016), ozone (2015) (Columbus, OH, redesignated 2019), fine particulate (1997) (Columbus, OH, redesignated 2013), meaning it once failed that standard and must keep a plan to stay clean (EPA Green Book)

Ohio has 38 PM2.5 monitors, mostly in cities and near industry, so a rural ZIP borrows a reading from far away. 2025 includes Canadian wildfire smoke days. Air-toxics risk is EPA's modelled lifetime estimate for the county as a whole; EPA's national average is about 30 in a million, and formaldehyde, with the globally mixed carbon tetrachloride background and acetaldehyde, makes up most of it.

Source: EPA Air Quality System, 2025 annual summary files (monitor annual concentrations, county AQI) and the 2026 daily county AQI file; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center to the nearest monitor · EPA air data files · EPA AirToxScreen · EPA Green Book · EPA ECHO

Toxic and Superfund sites

2 facilities have reported toxic chemical releases or transfers to EPA's inventory from inside this ZIP, and 0 sites appear in the Superfund program's list (most assessed and never listed).

234 EPA-registered facilities of all kinds in this ZIP: 1 brownfield site in the cleanup program (Mcgill Industrial Site), 110 hazardous-waste handlers, 15 with air permits, 44 with water discharge permits.

Nearest landfill: Westerville City Landfill, 1.4 mi from the center, municipal solid waste landfill; 1 landfill site within 3 miles of the population center, 1 inside this ZIP. Ohio EPA's list includes closed and historic dumps.

State cleanup program: 2 sites inside this ZIP (Anomatic Corp; Westerville Landfill), 3 within 3 miles of the population center; the nearest is Westerville Landfill, 1.4 mi from the center, site assessment.

Voluntary cleanups: 2 properties inside this ZIP hold an Ohio EPA covenant not to sue after a Voluntary Action Program cleanup, 1 carries an environmental covenant restricting future use, 1 is under institutional controls; 4 such properties within 3 miles of the population center, nearest Anomatic Corp, Westerville, 1.6 mi. These are former industrial and commercial sites certified clean enough to reuse.

Solid waste: 2 licensed waste facilities inside this ZIP (2 construction debris processors); nearest Global Container Services Inc (construction debris processor), 1.9 mi from the center; 3 within 5 miles of the center (Ohio EPA licences, 2026). Compost sites and transfer stations are where most of a county's trash and yard waste actually goes.

Hazardous waste (EPA ECHO): 58 active RCRA handlers inside this ZIP; none had a violation in the last 3 years. Nearest treatment, storage or disposal facility: Clean Harbors Recycling Services of Ohio LLC in Hebron, 24.7 mi. Handlers include every business that generates hazardous waste, from body shops to chemical plants.

Underground tanks: 28 sites with 76 registered underground storage tanks in use (104 more tanks closed over the years); 92 leaking-tank releases on record, 5 open at the time, 66 inside a drinking-water source protection area; 3 reported since 2015, the latest in 2018 (EPA UST Finder, Ohio records as of 2018-2019).

Drop-off sites: the nearest scrap tire drop-off is Road Runner Tire, Columbus, 10.6 mi away (2 within 15 mi); the nearest household battery drop-off is Interstate All Battery Center, Westerville, 1.5 mi away (1 inside this ZIP) (Ohio EPA).

The inventory covers larger manufacturers and federal facilities that use listed chemicals; reporting means use or release, not a measured hazard to neighbours. Superfund status: on, proposed for, or deleted from the list after cleanup.

Source: EPA Facility Registry Service, Superfund (SEMS and NPL) sites and Toxics Release Inventory reporters, points inside the ZIP boundary; distance from the ZIP's population-weighted center · EPA Facility Registry · EPA Superfund sites · Ohio EPA cleanup sites · EPA UST Finder · EPA ECHO

Toxic releases

No facility inside this ZIP files a Toxics Release Inventory report. Only plants in listed industries with 10 or more workers that handle a listed chemical above its threshold must file, so small shops and most businesses never appear.

Source: EPA Toxics Release Inventory, basic data files for Ohio, reporting years 2020 to 2024 (2024 shown); facilities placed by their coordinates; dioxin rows reported in grams are left out of the pound totals · EPA TRI data files

Dams

Nearest high-hazard dam: Hoover Dam, 1.6 mi, condition fair (water supply, 86 ft high, 145K acre-feet, built 1956, on Big Walnut Creek, local government owned).

Inside this ZIP: 4 dams, 2 high-hazard, 0 rated poor: Hoover Dam (high hazard, condition fair); Thoreau Pond Dam (high hazard, condition satisfactory) and 2 more.

"High hazard" describes what a failure would do downstream, not the dam's shape; Ohio rates more than a third of its inventoried dams in poor condition, mostly small private lake dams. Emergency action plans are required for high-hazard dams.

Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Inventory of Dams (August 2026 release); straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center. Condition assessments come from Ohio's dam safety program. · National Inventory of Dams

Disasters on record

Strongest nearby: F3 on 1973-05-10, 89.6 mi track (8 injured).

23 federal declarations for Franklin County since Ohio's first in 1956 (17 major disasters): severe storm 11, flood 3, snowstorm 3. Latest: Covid-19 Pandemic (2020).

0 earthquakes of magnitude 2 or more within 25 miles since 1970.

Warnings since 2015 (National Weather Service, Franklin County): 22 tornado warnings (2015: 1, 2017: 2, 2018: 3, 2019: 2, 2020: 5, 2023: 2, 2024: 4, 2025: 1, 2026: 2), 226 severe thunderstorm warnings, 30 flash flood warnings, 40 flood warnings and 182 flood advisories, 10 winter storm or blizzard warnings, 29 heat warnings or advisories, 7 extreme cold or wind chill warnings, 6 snow squall warnings; 1,139 products in all.

Mitigation grants (FEMA): 13 hazard mitigation projects in Franklin County since 1996, worth $7.6 million ($4.3 million federal), covering 46 properties; mostly property buyouts, mitigation planning, studies. Largest: property buyouts for Franklin County Board Of County Commissioners, $2.2 million (fiscal 2012).

Mitigated properties: FEMA money has treated 1 property in this ZIP in 2011: 1 safe room built. Buyouts turn repeatedly flooded lots into permanent open space.

Disaster aid to households: 266 households in this ZIP registered with FEMA after 4 declared disasters; 225 were approved for $1.4 million of housing and other-needs help. Registrations by event: COVID-19 pandemic (2020): 240; severe winter storms, flooding and mudslides (2005): 13; tornadoes, flooding, severe storms and high winds (2003): 10.

351 severe weather reports for Franklin County since 2016 in NOAA's Storm Events log: 162 damaging thunderstorm wind, 90 hail, 58 river and street flooding, 30 flash floods. Largest hail 1.75 in (Sep 1, 2019); strongest measured gust 69 mph (Mar 22, 2026); 2 deaths and 3 injuries; about $2.6 million in reported damage, the costliest being tornadoes on Sep 26, 2018 ($750K). Zone-wide advisories add 66 winter weather, 15 high wind, 5 strong wind.

Tornado tracks are straight lines from touchdown to lift-off; a near miss counts, a direct hit is not distinguished. Declarations include the 2020 COVID-19 emergency for every county; the latest, declared 2 May 2024 (DR-4777), covers the 14 March 2024 tornadoes in eleven counties, Indian Lake among them.

Source: NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database 1950-2025; OpenFEMA disaster declarations summaries; USGS earthquake catalog (M2+, 1970 to date); NOAA Storm Events database 2016 to 2026 by county. Distances from the ZIP's population-weighted center. · NOAA SPC tornado data · OpenFEMA · USGS earthquakes · NOAA storm events · IEM warning archive

Spills and releases

What spilled

oils and hydraulic fluid (10), unidentified material or sheen (5), gasoline (5)

Largest

about 200 gallons of oil transformer non pcb in 2026, Columbus

Reached water

7 of them reached a creek, river, ditch or storm drain (named or unnamed)

By year

2021: 5, 2022: 1, 2023: 6, 2024: 2, 2025: 6, 2026: 4

Anyone who spills more than a reportable quantity must call Ohio EPA within 30 minutes, so the log mixes a few gallons of diesel on a highway shoulder with real releases; the reported volume is the caller's first estimate. Every report in Ohio EPA's open-data layer carries coordinates; air-pollution complaints and calls where nothing was found are left out of this count.

Source: Ohio EPA Emergency Response spill reports (Spills2 open data), reports with coordinates inside the ZIP boundary, 2021 to date · Ohio EPA spills data · Ohio EPA Office of Emergency Response

Oil and gas wells

Status

0 producing, 1 plugged or abandoned, the rest drilled but idle, gas storage, orphan, expired permits or unknown

Ohio has drilled since 1860, so most wells here are old, shallow and plugged; unplugged orphans and injection wells are the ones that matter for groundwater. Well-head points can be a few hundred feet off for the oldest records.

Source: Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management, public well inventory (well-head points); counts inside the ZIP boundary and within 1 mile of the ZIP's population-weighted center · ODNR oil and gas · ODNR GIS services

Abandoned mines

Undermined land can subside and old workings can discharge acid mine water; ODNR's Abandoned Mine Land program funds repairs, and mine-subsidence insurance is included automatically in 26 eastern counties and offered as an option in 11 more. Maps drawn before 1977 are incomplete, so "none" means none mapped.

Quarries, pits and working mines: nearest Agg Rok (clay, sand & gravel, Agg Rok Materials, 20,000 tons sold), 14.9 mi away in Franklin County; 0 within 3 miles, 0 within 10 (ODNR Industrial Minerals Locations, 2015, which includes surface and underground coal mines).

Source: Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Mines of Ohio (abandoned underground mine maps, coal and industrial minerals, pre-1977), overlaid on the ZIP boundary in an equal-area projection · ODNR mines of Ohio · ODNR Geological Survey

Soils and septic

Soil

Pewamo silty clay loam, low carbonate till, 0 to 2 percent slopes; Pewamo makes up 85% of the unit, 1% slope

Water

very poorly drained; hydric (formed under saturated conditions); flooding none, ponding frequent

Septic

Very limited for a leach field under Ohio's rule

Basements

Very limited for dwellings with basements

Farmland

Prime farmland if drained

Elevation

876 feet above sea level at the ZIP's population center; Ohio runs from 455 feet where the Ohio River leaves the state to 1,549 feet at Campbell Hill

One point stands for the ZIP; soils change field by field, and a site evaluation is what the health department goes by. "Very limited" means the standard design will not work, not that nothing will.

Source: USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, SSURGO soil survey via Soil Data Access; the map unit at the ZIP's population-weighted center and its dominant component's interpretations; Copernicus GLO-90 elevation model (via Open-Meteo) at that center · USDA Soil Data Access · Web Soil Survey · Open-Meteo elevation

Parks and public land

Rocky Fork

local park, 998 acres inside the ZIP

Sharon Woods Metropark

local park, 748 acres inside the ZIP

Nearest state park: Alum Creek State Park, 5.6 mi.

Protected land: 21.1% of this ZIP (3,550 acres) is in the USGS Protected Areas Database inventory of fee-owned parks, preserves and recreation land (public agencies, land trusts, and private clubs, camps and utility land, as their owners report it): 2,140 acres district, 1,032 acres local, 378 acres private. Largest: Rocky Fork (regional agency), 1,000 acres; Sharon Woods Metropark (regional agency), 763 acres; Little Turtle Country Club (private owner), 378 acres. 21% of the ZIP is protected land open to the public.

Trails: 1.3 miles of named trails cross this ZIP: Westerville Bikeway (1.3 mi); 4.8 miles more are proposed or planned (ODNR statewide trails inventory).

Open access as reported by each owner; local inventories vary, so a golf course or school field can be listed and a new park missed.

State lands nearby (ODNR facility layers): nearest boat ramp: New Galena Launch Ramp at Alum Creek State Park, 6.4 mi (0 within 5 miles); fishing access: Fishing Access at Alum Creek State Park, 6.5 mi (0 within 5 miles); swim area: Boat Swim Area at Alum Creek State Park, 10.7 mi (0 within 5 miles); campground: Campground/Campsite at Alum Creek State Park, 9.7 mi (0 within 5 miles).

Source: USGS Protected Areas Database of the United States 4.1 (open-access fee, designation and easement polygons), overlaid on the ZIP boundary; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center to the nearest ODNR state park · USGS PAD-US · ODNR GIS services

Wetlands

148 acres pond, 53 acres forested/shrub wetland, 22 acres emergent wetland. Largest single wetland: 13 acres of freshwater pond.

Vernal pools: 10 potential high-quality vernal pools covering 4.5 acres lie inside this ZIP (Ohio EPA screening): seasonal woodland pools that dry by summer, hold no fish, and are where salamanders and fairy shrimp breed.

High-quality wetlands: nearest is Griggs Reservoir Park (City of Columbus Parks and Recreation), 9 acres, 10.7 mi away; 0 within 10 miles.

Mitigation sites: 7 stream or wetland mitigation sites inside this ZIP; nearest Columbus Fair Auto Auction, 1 mi away (a permittee-responsible site under an environmental covenant); 22 within 10 miles. These are wetlands and streams built or restored to replace ones filled under Clean Water Act permits.

Assessed wetland: 1 Ohio EPA study wetland inside this ZIP; nearest Westerville Swamp, a oak-maple-ash swamp, 2.3 mi away: ORAM 39 of 100 (category 2), plant community index 26 of 100 (surveyed 2003); 48 within 10 miles. Category 3 wetlands are the state's best and hardest to fill; category 1 are degraded.

Mapped from aerial photography, mostly 2004 to 2007 (the Lake Erie watersheds were re-mapped from 2021 imagery, a few areas date from 1976 to 2005 or 2014 to 2023), so small and seasonal wetlands are undercounted and ponds dug or filled since then are missing; a site delineation decides whether a lot is jurisdictional. Emergent means marsh, forested and shrub means swamp.

Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Wetlands Inventory (Ohio geodatabase), freshwater wetland and pond polygons clipped to the ZIP boundary; lakes and river channels excluded, imagery mostly 2004 to 2007 (Lake Erie basin 2021) · USFWS wetlands inventory · Ohio EPA GIS services

Land cover

Developed

60%: 6% high intensity (downtown blocks, big-box lots), 20% medium (apartments, small-lot houses), 22% low (houses on larger lots), 13% open space (lawns, parks, golf courses, road verges)

Farmland

15%: 8.2% row crops, 7.0% pasture and hay

Crops 2025

of 758 cropped acres, 61% soybeans, 10% corn, 3% wheat and small grains, 9% hay and alfalfa, 17% vegetables, orchards, fallow and other crops; 1,497 acres of pasture and grass (USDA Cropland Data Layer)

Forest

20%, plus 0.5% grass and shrub

Water and wetland

3.3% open water, 0.4% wetland

Paved and roofed

26% of the ZIP's surface is impervious; rain that lands there runs straight to a storm drain or stream instead of soaking in

Tree canopy

25% of the ZIP sits under tree canopy

Area

25.4 square miles of land

Land cover is classified from Landsat imagery at 30 metre pixels, so a house on a wooded lot can read as forest and a farm lane as open space. Stream health starts to slip once about 10% of a watershed is impervious, and is usually poor above 25%.

Source: National Land Cover Database 2021 (USGS and the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium): land cover, percent impervious surface and tree canopy at 30 m, summarised over the ZIP boundary · NLCD · USDA Cropland Data Layer · ODNR pre-settlement vegetation

People

Education

54% of adults 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher, 21.4% a graduate degree; 19.5% stopped at high school or earlier

Ages

22.7% under 18, 15.6% 65 or older

Race and origin

70.9% white, 14.9% Black, 3.8% Hispanic or Latino, 4.7% Asian, 5.7% other or two or more races

Born abroad

10.1% of residents (6,578 people); largest countries of birth: India (1,298), Sierra Leone (577), Ghana (522)

Veterans

6% of adults

Households

2.3 people per household on average; 30% of households are one person living alone, 46% married couples

Who lives here

30% of households include children, 27% someone 65 or over and 10.8% are a senior living alone; of people 15 and over, 52% are married, 33% never married, 11% divorced and 5% widowed

Poverty

7.3% of residents live below the poverty line, 10.6% of children and 7.9% of people 65 and over; the Gini index of income inequality is 0.39 (0 would mean every household earns the same, 1 that one household earns everything). County-wide, the Census Bureau's 2024 estimate is 13.9% (17.8% of children) with a median household income of $76,578 (SAIPE)

Ancestry

most often reported: German 24%, Irish 16%, English 13%

Movers

15.2% of residents lived somewhere else a year earlier, 2.4% in another state and 0.5% abroad

Language

1.1% of households speak limited English; 2.3% speak Spanish at home

Group quarters

1,548 of the 64,338 people counted here in 2020 (2.4%) lived in group quarters: 1,246 in college housing, 257 in nursing facilities, 45 in other group housing such as shelters, group homes and worker dormitories (2020 Census)

Moving

49,123 people moved into Franklin County between the returns they filed in 2022 and 2023 and 58,702 moved out (net −9,579, 996,743 stayed put); most arrivals came from Delaware, OH (4,187), Fairfield, OH (3,219), Licking, OH (2,621); most leavers went to Delaware, OH (7,675), Fairfield, OH (5,116), Licking, OH (3,838) (IRS)

Metro or rural

USDA rural-urban continuum code 1 of 9 for Franklin County: metro - counties in metro areas of 1 million population or more

Nonprofits

383 tax-exempt organizations registered to addresses in this ZIP, 23 of them reporting $1 million or more in income; 64% are 501(c)(3) charities and 17% churches or religious groups; largest: Ohio Laborers District Council Ohio Contractors Association Insurance ($238 million), Otterbein University ($145 million), Cornerstone Academy Community School ($18 million) (IRS)

County growth

Franklin County went from 1,323,793 people in April 2020 to 1,361,536 in July 2025 (+2.9%): 86,662 births, 55,765 deaths and a net +7,126 from migration since 2020; in 2025 alone a net 7,191 left for elsewhere in the U.S. and 9,441 arrived from abroad (Census estimates)

Since 1900

First counted in 1810 with 3,486 people and 42,909 by 1850, Franklin County counted 164,460 people in 1900, 503,410 in 1950, 833,249 in 1970, 1,068,736 in 2000 and 1,323,793 in 2020; it has never been larger than today (8.3 times its 1900 size, decennial censuses)

Commuting area: USDA classes this ZIP as the core of a metropolitan area (rural-urban commuting area code 1 of 10, 2020 edition).

Race shares follow the Census categories, with Hispanic origin counted separately from race. Five-year averages centered on 2022. Moves count people on tax returns whose address changed county, so students and the very poor are undercounted.

Source: Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020 to 2024 five-year estimates by ZIP Code Tabulation Area (tables B15003, B03002, B05002, B21001, B01001, B25010, B11001, B17001, B19083, B04006, B07003, C16002, B05006, B11005, B11007, B12001); county population estimates, vintage 2025; IRS exempt organization master file; USDA rural-urban continuum codes 2023; USDA ERS rural-urban commuting area codes 2020; 2020 Census PL 94-171 redistricting file, group quarters (table P5); IRS Statistics of Income county migration, returns filed in 2022 and 2023; Census SAIPE 2024 county poverty and median income; decennial county counts from the Census Bureau report Population of States and Counties of the United States 1790 to 1990 · Census ACS · Census population estimates · IRS migration data · USDA ERS county codes · USDA ERS commuting area codes · 2020 Census redistricting data · Census SAIPE · IRS exempt organizations

Jobs and commuting

Largest employers by sector: Health care and social assistance 4,709, Construction 3,127, Finance and insurance 2,648. 61% of local jobs pay over $3,333 a month, and 65% of residents' jobs do.

Businesses: 1,339 establishments with 27,088 employees and $1.7 billion a year in payroll in 2023, 39 of them with 100 or more workers; most common: health care and social assistance (249), professional and technical services (166), retail (142), other services (138) (ZIP Business Patterns).

Workplace safety (OSHA): 124 inspections of workplaces in this ZIP since 2020 (7 after deaths or injury reports, 4 after complaints, 75 planned, 14 on referrals); most inspected: Lane Excavating, Llc (2), Luis Zetina Hinojosa (2), Bautista Roofing, Llc (2). 1 worker death investigated since 2015 and 2 hospitalisations: 2018, employee is pinned by trench wall and later dies at hospital.

County labor market: Franklin County's unemployment rate was 3.2% in July 2026 (4.6% a year earlier), with 733,351 people in the labor force and 23,736 looking for work. Employers in the county paid an average of $1,596 a week in the first quarter of 2026 (up 5.1% on the year) to 784,853 workers at 39,434 establishments, employment up 0.7%; the largest private sectors are health care and social assistance (127,592 jobs, $1,172 a week), retail (64,238 jobs, $859 a week), restaurants and hotels (61,997 jobs, $540 a week). (BLS)

Working-age residents: 71.0% of people 16 and over here are in the labor force, and 2.1% of the civilian labor force was unemployed, averaged over 2020 to 2024 (Census ACS). Residents' most common occupations: management and business 24%, education, legal, community service and arts 12%, computing, engineering and science 11%; 8% are self-employed and 13% work for a government.

Federal money: in fiscal 2025 the federal government obligated $4.2 billion in contracts performed in Franklin County ($3,138 a resident) and $12.5 billion in grants ($9,472 a resident), plus $85 million in loan guarantees and loans and $7.2 billion in direct payments to people and organizations (USAspending; Social Security, Medicare and most benefits are not counted).

County economy: Franklin County produced $111.9 billion of real GDP in 2024 (2017 dollars, up 11.0% since 2019); personal income came to $66,705 a person in 2024, 13th of Ohio's 88 counties and up 32% since 2019 before inflation (BEA).

County type (USDA ERS, 2015 codes): Franklin County is a metro county with a government-dependent economy, with none of the ERS distress flags.

How they get there: 64.9% drive alone, 4.3% carpool, 0.5% transit, 1.5% walk, 0.1% bike, 27.8% work from home (ACS).

Where residents work: 7% inside this ZIP; 9% in Columbus (43215), 7% in Columbus (43219), 5% in Westerville (43082) (shares of the 33,798 residents with an Ohio workplace).

Unemployment-insurance records tie each job to a workplace and a home address; large employers sometimes report every worker at a headquarters, which inflates a few ZIPs. Self-employment, the military, the Postal Service, most farm work and a large part of federal civilian employment are missing (federal jobs come from OPM records that omit several agencies and, in practice, most of Wright-Patterson).

Source: Census Bureau LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2023, all jobs; populated census blocks assigned to ZIP Code Tabulation Areas by interior point, workplace-only blocks by the majority ZCTA of their block group or tract; Census ZIP Code Business Patterns 2023; OSHA enforcement data via the Labor Department open data catalog; BLS county unemployment (LAUS) and wages (QCEW); Census ACS 2020 to 2024 labor force by ZIP Code Tabulation Area (B23025); USAspending federal awards by county, fiscal 2025; BEA county GDP and personal income · Census LEHD · BLS local unemployment · BLS QCEW · BEA county GDP · USAspending · OSHA enforcement data · Census ZIP Business Patterns · Census ACS · USDA ERS county typology · CDFI Fund Opportunity Zones

Upward mobility

Meaning

clearly above the Ohio median of 42 for low-income children

Incarceration

1.78% of those children were in jail or prison on census day 2010

Coverage

65% of the ZIP's residents live in tracts with an estimate

The rank describes people born around 1980 who were children here in the 1980s and 1990s; neighbourhoods change, so it is a record of what the place did for one generation, not a forecast. Estimates for small tracts are noisy.

Source: Opportunity Atlas tract outcomes (Chetty, Friedman, Hendren, Jones and Porter, 2018; Census Bureau and IRS data for children born 1978 to 1983), population-weighted to ZIPs through 2020 census blocks · Opportunity Atlas · Opportunity Insights data

Social vulnerability

Socioeconomic status

23rd percentile: poverty, unemployment, housing cost burden, no high school diploma, no health insurance

Household characteristics

45th: people 65 and over or 17 and under, disability, single-parent households, limited English

Racial and ethnic minority status

61st

Housing and transportation

33rd: multi-unit and mobile homes, crowding, no vehicle, group quarters

The index ranks tracts on how much help their residents would need in a disaster or disease outbreak, using American Community Survey 2018 to 2022 figures. Ranks are within Ohio; a ZIP is the average of its tracts weighted by residents.

Source: CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index 2022, census tracts ranked among Ohio tracts, population-weighted to the ZIP through 2020 census blocks · CDC/ATSDR SVI

Community health

Weight and activity

obesity 29.5%, no leisure-time physical activity 18.0%

Chronic conditions

diabetes 9.4%, high blood pressure 29.6%, COPD 4.9%, cancer (any but non-melanoma skin cancer) 8.1%

Habits

current smoking 10.1%, binge drinking 19.1%, short sleep 33.3%

Mind

depression 25.7%, frequent mental distress 16.1%, feeling lonely 36.0%

Access

uninsured under 65 5.7%, yearly checkup 80.2%, dental visit 73.1%

Hardship

any disability 21.4%, food insecurity 8.9%

Heart and lungs

current asthma 10.6%, coronary heart disease 4.9%, stroke 2.5%, arthritis 24.0%

Keeping up

76.6% of adults with high blood pressure take medicine for it, 87.8% had a cholesterol check in 5 years

Social needs

housing insecurity 8.1%, no reliable transportation 5.6%, utility shut-off threat 5.8%, lacking emotional support 19.7%

Provider shortage

11% live in an area HRSA designates a primary care shortage area for its low-income residents (score 19 of 25); 11% live in an area HRSA designates a dental shortage area for its low-income residents (score 17 of 26); 100% live in an area HRSA designates a mental health shortage area for its low-income residents (score 17 of 25) (HRSA; higher scores mean greater need)

Coverage (Census)

4.8% of residents have no health insurance (3.0% of children); 9% are on Medicaid and 67% have coverage through an employer

Disability (Census)

11.0% of residents report a disability, 29% of those 65 and over

County (County Health Rankings 2025): Franklin County sits in health group 4 of 10 among U.S. counties for population health (1 is healthiest) and group 4 for community conditions. Premature death 9,722 (Ohio 9,740) years of life lost before 75 per 100,000; one primary care doctor for every 985 people (Ohio 1,328), one mental health provider for every 215 people (Ohio 286), one dentist for every 1,042 people (Ohio 1,535); preventable hospital stays 2,454 (Ohio 3,033) per 100,000 Medicare enrollees; injury deaths 108.3 (Ohio 100.7) and suicides 12.0 (Ohio 14.7) per 100,000; infant deaths 7.8 (Ohio 7.0) per 1,000 births; teen births 16.7 (Ohio 17.4) per 1,000 girls 15 to 19; children in poverty 19.8 (Ohio 17.5) percent; fine-particle air pollution 8.2 (Ohio 7.8) micrograms per cubic metre; at least one community water system in the county had a health-based drinking water violation in 2023. Drug overdoses: 348 deaths in the 12 months ending December 2025 (491 a year earlier, 855 at the highest since 2020, in the 12 months ending April 2021), about 26.2 per 100,000 residents against 20.8 statewide (CDC provisional counts).

Cancer (NCI State Cancer Profiles): Franklin County records 457.7 new cancers a year per 100,000 people, age-adjusted, for 2018 to 2022 (Ohio 472.9, U.S. 448.6), about 6,083 cases a year, with the rate falling 0.4% a year; cancer deaths 149.8 per 100,000 (Ohio 160.3, U.S. 145.4), falling. By site, per 100,000 (Ohio in parentheses): lung 59.9 (63.6), colorectal 33.9 (38.4), female breast 139.9 (133), prostate 127.2 (120.8), bladder 20 (21.8), leukemia 10.7 (13).

Medicare: 205,918 people in Franklin County were on Medicare in 2025 (15% of residents): 182,149 aged 65 or over and 23,769 younger people with disabilities. 57% chose a Medicare Advantage plan, 18% also had Medicaid and 84% had Part D drug coverage; enrollment is up 11% since 2020 (CMS).

Modelled from a national telephone survey and the ZIP's demographics, so these are estimates of what residents would report, not counts of patients; small ZIPs carry wide margins.

Source: CDC PLACES, 2025 release (BRFSS 2023 and 2022, ACS 2019-2023), model-based ZCTA estimates of crude adult prevalence; County Health Rankings 2025 and CDC provisional overdose counts for the county; HRSA shortage area designations weighted to the ZIP; Census ACS 2020 to 2024 (insurance, disability); CMS Medicare Monthly Enrollment, county, 2025 · CDC PLACES · County Health Rankings · CDC overdose data · NCI cancer profiles · HRSA data

Life expectancy

Ohio's statewide figure for the same years was 77.6; the United States 78.7. Differences of a year or two between neighbouring ZIPs are within the estimates' error; differences of five or more are real and track income, smoking and access to care.

Source: CDC National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Small-area Life Expectancy Estimates Project (USALEEP), 2010-2015, census tracts weighted by 2020 block population · CDC USALEEP

Nearest hospital

392 beds · no trauma designation listed · 5 general or critical-access hospitals within 10 miles, 13 within 25.

Medicare rating: ★★★☆☆ · emergency room: yes · typical ER visit 167 minutes door to discharge (Ohio median 155)

Patients' verdict: 66% would definitely recommend it, 64% rated their stay 9 or 10 out of 10 (★★★☆☆ patient-experience rating, 505 surveys).

Outcomes: 30-day death rates after heart failure 11.9% (about the national rate), heart attack 13% (about the national rate), pneumonia 15.7% (about the national rate), July 2022 to June 2025; the patient-safety composite for serious complications (July 2022 to June 2024) is about the national value (Medicare).

Community health center: 1 inside this ZIP, nearest Lower Lights Health Northland, Columbus, 1.6 mi away; 2 within 3 miles, 17 within 10. These federally funded clinics see anyone and charge on a sliding scale.

Veterans: nearest VA site is Columbus, OH Vet Center, Columbus (vtcr), 7.7 mi away; 4 VA sites within 10 miles, 6 within 25.

Providers: 2,751 active health care providers list a practice address in this ZIP: 390 physicians, 150 nurse practitioners and physician assistants, 88 dentists, 532 mental health professionals, 21 pharmacies, 1 urgent care center, 2 hospitals, 16 nursing or assisted-living facilities, 106 home health or hospice agencies; most common physician specialties: Family Medicine (55), Internal Medicine (37), Obstetrics & Gynecology (31) (NPPES registry, August 2026).

Dialysis: 1 center inside this ZIP, nearest Davita Park Side Dialysis, Westerville, 1.1 mi away, 25 stations, Medicare ★★★★☆ (DaVita); 4 within 5 miles, 26 within 15.

Source: federal HIFLD hospital inventory (via FEMA) with Medicare Care Compare star ratings, emergency-service flags, median emergency department times (measure OP_18b), HCAHPS patient survey results and 30-day death rates and patient-safety composites (Complications and Deaths file; a campus with no record of its own carries its parent hospital's figures, labelled); NPPES NPI registry, August 2026 monthly file, active records by practice ZIP; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center (some listings lag closures and mergers); HRSA health center sites, CMS dialysis facilities (geocoded with the Census geocoder) and the VA facility list · CMS Care Compare data · HIFLD · HRSA data · CMS NPI files

Nursing homes

10 certified homes within 5 miles, 56 within 15; 3 inside this ZIP.

Medicare rating

★☆☆☆☆ overall; inspections ★☆☆☆☆; staffing ★★★☆☆

Beds

130 certified

Ownership

For profit, limited liability company

Penalties

fined $315,699 in 2 federal penalties, plus 2 spells of Medicare payment denial since 2023, the latest on 2024-02-21 (CMS)

In this ZIP: BUCKEYE TERRACE REHABILITATION AND NURSING CENTER (2★, 70 beds); Inniswood Health and Rehabilitation (1★, 99 beds); WESTERVILLE POST ACUTE (1★, 130 beds).

Stars are Medicare's Care Compare ratings; a 1-star home failed inspections or is thinly staffed, and the abuse flag means a citation for harm in the past year or two. Ratings shift every quarter.

Source: Medicare Care Compare nursing home provider and penalties files (CMS), geocoded with the Census Bureau; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center · CMS Care Compare data

Crime

Violent

83 offenses: 0 murders, 15 rapes, 8 robberies, 60 aggravated assaults (2.2 per 1,000 residents; Ohio 3.2)

Property

665 offenses: 36 burglaries, 591 thefts, 37 vehicle thefts (17.7 per 1,000; Ohio 16.9)

Other

205 simple assaults, 175 vandalism reports, 116 drug offenses, 19 weapons violations

Reporting

12 months of 2024 on file; 37,540 residents served; this department covers the 47% of the ZIP's residents in its territory, the rest fall under others

Trend

violent offenses up 15% from 72 in 2023; property down 18% from 814

Rates cover the whole agency's territory, not this ZIP alone: a city's downtown and its quiet edges share one number. Murders, rapes and assaults are counted once per victim and other offenses once per incident, as the FBI's Crime Data Explorer does; a large department's figures can still fall somewhat short of the Explorer's, which takes in later submissions, and a sheriff's population is only the unincorporated area it serves.

Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, NIBRS incident data for Ohio, 2024 (2023 for the trend): Group A offenses per reporting agency (violent = murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault; property = burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson), murders, rapes and assaults counted once per victim; the agency is the police department of the ZIP's largest local government (city, village or township) when it has one of its own, found in the FBI's 2023 and 2024 rosters or the USGS police station inventory, otherwise the sheriff of the ZIP's county; a rate needs at least six months of 2024 on file and is annualized from fewer than 12; the Ohio figures pool the 511 police departments and sheriff's offices with all 12 months on file · FBI Crime Data Explorer · USGS structures service

Police and post office

3 stations within 3 miles, 10 within 8. Inside this ZIP: Blendon Township Police Department; Westerville Police Department.

Nearest post office: State Street Post Office, 1.1 mi; 2 inside this ZIP.

Townships without their own department are policed by the county sheriff, whose office may be at the county seat; the state highway patrol covers the roads. The inventory lists stations, not patrol zones. It also misses some departments and still lists some that have closed; the atlas adds the departments that reported at least six months of 2024 crimes to the FBI but had no station in it, and drops the closed and duplicate records it found.

Source: USGS National Map structures inventory (police stations, post offices), with closed and duplicate records dropped, wrong names corrected and departments it lacks added from OpenStreetMap and the Census Bureau geocoder (September 2026); straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center · USGS structures service · OpenStreetMap · Census Bureau geocoder

Fire and EMS

5 stations within 3 miles, 24 within 8.

Inside this ZIP: Westerville Division of Fire Station 112; Westerville Fire Department Station 111; Columbus Division of Fire Station 29.

Source: USGS National Map structures inventory (fire and EMS stations; most Ohio records last updated 2019 to 2022), Columbus- and Cleveland-area stations checked against the cities' station lists, September 2026. Indiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania stations near the line are included; Kentucky and West Virginia stations across the Ohio River are not. Straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center. Stations open or close without the inventory always catching up. · USGS structures service · Columbus fire stations · Cleveland fire stations

Public library

1 library within 3 miles, 9 within 8.

Open

about 69 hours a week

Building

102,500 square feet

Westerville Public Library

1 building, serves 100K people, 3.9 visits per resident a year, 1.5M items lent, 1,618 programs, $9.2M annual income

Inside this ZIP: Westerville Public Library.

Museums: 8 inside this ZIP (Anti-Saloon League Museum, Fischer Gallery, Frank Museum of Art and 5 more); nearest Inniswood Metro Gardens, arboretum or botanical garden, Westerville, 0.7 mi away; 10 within 5 miles, 89 within 15 (IMLS 2018 directory: museums, historical societies, gardens and zoos).

Source: Institute of Museum and Library Services, Public Libraries Survey fiscal 2024 (outlet and system files) and Museum Data Files 2018 (museums); straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center · IMLS Public Libraries Survey · IMLS Museum Data Files

Grocery access

Distance

76% of residents live more than half a mile from a supermarket, 33% more than 1 mile

Without a car

0% live in a tract flagged for low income and low vehicle access; 4% of households have no vehicle (Census ACS 2020 to 2024)

Poverty

8.4% of residents below the poverty line

SNAP stores

6 supermarkets or superstores and 0 grocery stores inside this ZIP take SNAP, alongside 14 convenience stores, 1 farmers market, 10 other outlets (dollar, drug and discount stores); nearest supermarket or grocery store Walmart Supercenter (super store), 0.7 mi from the ZIP's center; 16 supermarkets and grocery stores within 3 miles (USDA, 2026)

SNAP households

5% of households received SNAP benefits in the past year (Census ACS 2020 to 2024)

Setting

90% of residents in urban tracts, across 20 tracts

A "supermarket" here is a large grocery store, supercenter or club; dollar stores and corner groceries do not count, and stores that opened since 2019 are missing from the distance figures; the SNAP store list is current. Rural distance flags mean a long drive, not necessarily hardship.

Source: USDA Economic Research Service, Food Access Research Atlas: 2019 Large Retailer Access Map (2010 census tracts, 2019 supermarket list; ERS's name for this file since July 2026), tract values weighted into ZIPs by 2020 census block population; SNAP store counts from USDA Food and Nutrition Service retailer locations, 2026; SNAP and no-vehicle households from Census ACS 2020 to 2024 · USDA ERS Large Retailer Access Map · USDA SNAP retailers · Census ACS

History

Westerville 47% Columbus 41% Blendon Township 11%

Before the settlers

No source found in this research documents a Native American village, camp, burial ground, or named trail specifically within Westerville's own footprint on Alum Creek. The fullest local account available, the 1880 county history's chapter on Blendon Township (the township Westerville grew up in), opens with a detailed physical description and the 1806 settlement story and records no Native place-name, village, or encounter on Alum Creek there. Its one Indigenous reference tied to this specific ground concerns a different stream: Big Walnut Creek, which also crosses the township east of Alum Creek near Central College and the later site of Westerville, was known to early settlers as the "Gahanna," or "Big Belly, the latter being the name of an Indian well known in the country," before a sawmill was built on it around 1814 — the source does not say which nation the man belonged to. More broadly, the same 1880 history's general county chapter describes a large Wyandot (Huron) town and cornfields at the site of Columbus, a few miles to the south, with the Wyandot the dominant nation in the immediate area into the early 1800s, ending in their 1842-1843 removal from Ohio; separately, sources on Alum Creek itself describe Lenape (Delaware) villages and travel along its course generally as it runs through Delaware and Franklin counties. But no source checked ties a named Wyandot or Lenape site to Westerville or Blendon Township specifically. The fuller county-level record of prehistoric cultures, historic nations, treaties and removal belongs in the Franklin County file, not here.

Peoples named in the record: Wyandot, Lenape (Delaware).

• "Big Belly" / "Gahanna" name for Big Walnut Creek other · Big Walnut Creek near Central College and the later site of Westerville, Blendon Township · in local use by the time of the first settlers, before c. 1814 source

Franklin County

Franklin County's prehistoric record begins with the Adena, who built conical burial mounds through the Scioto and Olentangy valleys from roughly 800 BC to AD 100. An 1880 county history, citing archaeologist William C. Mills, put the historical count at 132 mounds and 28 earthen enclosures across the county, most since plowed away, dug into or built over. What can still be traced includes Shrum Mound (Campbell Mound) on McKinley Avenue, one of the last intact Adena mounds inside Columbus; Tom Cannon Mound at the confluence of Big and Little Darby creeks; the Toephner Mound, salvage-excavated… more

Ohio before the treaties: peoples, earthworks and cessionsstatewide

Periods

• Paleo-Indian, about 13,000 to 8,000 BC
• Archaic, about 8000 to 800 BC
• Early Woodland / Adena, about 800 BC to AD 100
• Middle Woodland / Hopewell, about 100 BC to AD 500
• Late Woodland, about AD 500 to 1000
• Late Prehistoric / Fort Ancient and Whittlesey, about AD 1000 to 1650
• Protohistoric, the Erie and the Beaver Wars, roughly 1650s
• Historic, 1700s resettlement
• Removal, roughly 1795 to 1843

Nations of the 1700s

Shawnee, Wyandot, Lenape (Delaware), Miami, Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga), Seneca (of Sandusky), Ottawa (Odawa), Erie, Ojibwe (Chippewa) / Potawatomi.

Treaties that ceded Ohio land

• Treaty of Fort McIntosh (1785): US commissioners George Rogers Clark, Richard Butler, and Arthur Lee; Wyandot, Delaware (Lenape), Ojibwe (Chippewa), and Odawa (Ottawa).
• Treaty of Fort Harmar (1789): US commissioner Arthur St. Clair (governor, Northwest Territory), with Josiah Harmar and Richard Butler; Haudenosaunee, Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, Sauk, Wyandot…
• Treaty of Greenville (1795): US commissioner Major General Anthony Wayne; twelve nations of the Western Confederacy — Wyandot, Delaware (Lenape), Shawnee, Odawa (Ottawa), Ojibwe (Chippewa),…
• Treaty of Fort Industry (1805): US Indian agent Charles Jouett; Ottawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwe (Chippewa), Wyandot, Munsee, Delaware (Lenape), and Shawnee.
• Treaty of Detroit (1807): William Hull (governor, Michigan Territory); Ottawa, Ojibwe (Chippewa), Wyandot, and Potawatomi.
• Treaty of Brownstown (1808): William Hull for the US; Ojibwe (Chippewa), Ottawa, and Potawatomi (Council of Three Fires), plus Wyandot and Shawnee.
• Treaty of Fort Meigs / Maumee Rapids (1817): US commissioners Lewis Cass and Duncan McArthur; Wyandot, Seneca, Delaware (Lenape), Shawnee, Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwe (Chippewa).
• Treaty of St. Marys (1818): US commissioners Jonathan Jennings, Lewis Cass, and Benjamin Parke; across the six agreements: Wyandot/Seneca/Shawnee/Ottawa (September 17), Wyandot again (Sept…
• Treaty of Lewistown and Treaty of Wapakoneta (1831)
• Treaty of Upper Sandusky / Wyandot (1842): The Wyandot Nation and the US government. I could not confirm the US commissioner's name from any source I opened — flagged gap.

Earthworks that survive

• Newark Earthworks (overall complex) (Licking County), Hopewell
• Great Circle Earthworks (Licking County), Hopewell
• Octagon Earthworks (Licking County), Hopewell
• Serpent Mound (Adams County), Disputed
• Fort Ancient (Warren County), Hopewell
• Hopewell Culture National Historical Park (Ross County), Hopewell
• Miamisburg Mound (Montgomery County), Adena
• Shrum Mound (Franklin County), Adena
• Fort Hill (Highland County), Hopewell
• Marietta Earthworks (Washington County), Hopewell
• Flint Ridge (Straddles the Licking–Muskingum county line; the Ohio History Connection's preserve itself sits in Hopewell Township, Licking County, about 3 miles north of Brownsville. County), Used by essentially every prehistoric culture in the region across more than 10,000 years, with especially intensive use by the Hopewell

Statewide notes researched from archive.org, delawaretribe.org, en.wikipedia.org and others; every entry carries its own links in the research file.

How Westerville began

Westerville grew up on Alum Creek in Blendon Township, first settled in 1806 by Connecticut families and named for the Westervelt family, Dutch settlers who arrived in 1818 and laid out the village in 1839. Otterbein University, which traces its founding to a Methodist seminary chartered that same year and refounded by the Church of the United Brethren in Christ in 1847, made the town an educational and religious center from the start. That religious character hardened into militant temperance: Westerville banned alcohol sales by local ordinance in 1859, defended the ban by force in the 1875-1879 "Whiskey War," and in 1909 became national headquarters of the Anti-Saloon League of America and its American Issue Publishing House, earning the nickname "Dry Capital of the World." Today it is a Columbus suburb of about 39,000, still centered on Otterbein and a restored nineteenth-century core, drawing its municipal water from the Alum Creek treatment plant the city opened in 1924.

Settled 1806, platted 1839, incorporated 1858; by Edward Phelps and Isaac Griswold families (1806 settlement, Blendon Township); Matthew Westervelt (platted the village, July 1839); incorporated by petition to the Franklin County commissioners. source

The name. Westerville takes its name from the Westervelt family — Peter, William and Matthew Westervelt, of Dutch descent from Duchess County, New York — who settled in Blendon Township in 1818 and became leading citizens. Matthew Westervelt laid out the village on his own land in July 1839 and donated twenty-five acres for the seminary that grew into Otterbein University, and the growing settlement took the family's name, with the spelling shortened from "Westervelt" to "Westerville." Both the 1880 county history and later sources confirm the family name as "Westervelt," not "Westerfield." source

Timeline15

• 1806Edward Phelps and Isaac Griswold, with their families and Ethan Palmer, arrive from Windsor, Connecticut, and become the first settlers of what becomes Blendon Township, first camping on high ground east of Alum Creek. source
• 1815The county commissioners organize the township as "Harrison" Township on March 6, with Garrit Sharp among its first trustees; it is renamed Blendon on December 8, 1824. source
• 1818Peter, William and Matthew Westervelt, a Dutch-descended family from Duchess County, New York, settle in the township and become leading citizens; Westerville is later named for them. source
• 1820Gideon Hart, who had come from Connecticut in 1816 to claim 380 acres awarded to his father for Revolutionary War service, builds the house on what is now Hempstead Road later known as the oldest surviving residence in Westerville. source
• 1839The Ohio legislature charters the Blendon Young Men's Seminary at Westerville under Methodist auspices (February 9) — the school that becomes Otterbein University — and Matthew Westervelt lays out the village of Westerville in July, donating twenty-five acres for the school. source
• 1847Trustees of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, who had taken over the debt-burdened seminary the year before, hold their first meeting as Otterbein University's governing board on April 26 — the date still inscribed on the college building as its founding date; the state grants a full university charter in 1849. source
• 1849Garrit Sharp builds the brick house on North State Street later known as the Alkire House, which he and his family use to shelter freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad. source
• 1858The Franklin County commissioners grant Westerville's petition for incorporation on July 19; the first village election on October 11 chooses John Haywood as mayor. source
• 1870Otterbein's main college building burns to the ground overnight on January 26, destroying a library of more than 3,000 volumes; a new building is completed in 1871. The same year, the present Central College Presbyterian Church building is finished east of Westerville. source
• 1875Westerville, which had banned alcohol sales by local ordinance since 1859, sees Henry Corbin try to open its first saloon on July 1; church bells summon about 1,000 townspeople, and over the following weeks vigilantes destroy the saloon with repeated explosions — the start of the "Whiskey War." source
• 1879Corbin reopens a saloon in the basement of the Clymer Hotel; vigilantes destroy it with two 26-pound kegs of gunpowder, and the Corbin family leaves for Columbus, ending the Whiskey War. source
• 1909The Anti-Saloon League of America moves its national headquarters and printing operation, the American Issue Publishing Company, to Westerville; the new building is dedicated in October. source
• 1924Westerville opens its Alum Creek water treatment plant on December 30, ending the city's reliance on private wells. source
• 1951Westerville becomes the first community in Ohio to add fluoride to its public water supply. source
• 1970-1974The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers builds the flood-control Alum Creek Dam well upstream of Westerville, authorized under the 1962 Flood Control Act, creating Alum Creek Lake. source

Stories

The Whiskey War of 1875

On July 1, 1875, Henry Corbin tried to open Westerville's first saloon at the southeast corner of West Main and Knox streets. The night before, vandals had broken in, dumped his whiskey and bored holes in his beer kegs, but Corbin restocked and was ready to open at 9 a.m. anyway. Church and fire bells across town rang out and summoned a crowd of about 1,000 residents, who met Corbin — reportedly holding a pistol in each hand — not with a riot but with hymn-singing and prayer before dispersing. It was vigilantes, working at night over the following weeks, who did the real damage: they bombed the saloon repeatedly, the last blast destroying much of the building. Corbin tried again in 1879, opening a basement saloon in the Clymer Hotel; vigilantes blew that one up too, with two 26-pound kegs of gunpowder, and the Corbins left Westerville for Columbus for good. The episode, still remembered locally as the Whiskey War, grew out of Westerville's strong United Brethren and Otterbein University-shaped temperance culture and an 1859 town ordinance already banning alcohol sales; a change in state law in early 1875 had opened a legal window for saloonkeepers like Corbin to try anyway. source

Dry Capital of the World

The Anti-Saloon League of America was founded in Oberlin, Ohio, in 1893 and grew within a generation into the most effective single-issue pressure group in the country. In 1909 the citizens of Westerville offered the League a building site, and that October the League dedicated its new national headquarters and print shop there, incorporated as the American Issue Publishing Company. The plant ran presses around the clock with roughly 200 employees, and within three years was turning out about 250 million pages of tracts, papers and pledge cards a month — output that helped make Westerville, for a time, the smallest town in the country with its own first-class post office, since the League alone mailed more than 40 tons of literature monthly. Editor Ernest Cherrington oversaw the operation, including the six-volume Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem published between 1924 and 1930. The League's lobbying helped deliver the congressional majorities behind the Eighteenth Amendment, ratified in 1919, and the town earned the nickname "Dry Capital of the World." The old headquarters building later became the Anti-Saloon League Museum & Library, run today by the Westerville Public Library. source

Benjamin Hanby's Songs

Benjamin Russell Hanby was born in Rushville, Ohio, on July 22, 1833, the son of United Brethren bishop William Hanby, and moved with his family to Westerville, enrolling at Otterbein University in 1849 at age sixteen. While still a student, in 1856, he wrote "Darling Nelly Gray," an anti-slavery ballad based on the true story of Joseph Selby, a fugitive slave who reached the Hanby family's earlier home in Rushville and died there; the song became an international hit and is still performed today. After graduating in 1858, Hanby taught school, became a United Brethren minister, and kept composing — roughly eighty songs in all, including "Up on the Housetop" (1864), one of the first popular secular Christmas songs. He died of tuberculosis in Chicago on March 16, 1867, at thirty-three, and is buried in Otterbein Cemetery in Westerville. The family's Westerville home at 160 West Main Street, built in 1846 and occupied by the Hanbys from 1853 to 1870, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and is preserved as Hanby House, a museum run by the Westerville Historical Society; in 2011 the National Park Service recognized it as a site on the Network to Freedom for its own Underground Railroad connections. source

A Seminary Becomes a University

Westerville's college began in 1839 as the Blendon Young Men's Seminary, chartered by the Ohio legislature under Methodist Episcopal sponsorship on land Matthew Westervelt donated. The school struggled after Ohio Wesleyan University opened in nearby Delaware and drew away students, leaving about $1,200 in debt. In 1846 Westerville residents proposed handing the property to the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, whose Scioto Conference accepted the offer that October at a meeting in Pickaway County; the new board of trustees, which included Bishop William Hanby, held its first meeting on April 26, 1847 — the date still carved into the college building as its founding date — and the state granted a full university charter in 1849. Disaster struck on the night of January 26, 1870: hours after a religious service ended and the building was locked up, fire broke out and burned the main college building to the ground, destroying a library of more than 3,000 volumes, including a facsimile of the Sinaitic manuscript presented by the Russian emperor. Losses were estimated at $50,000, only partly covered by $20,000 of insurance, but Westerville and Columbus residents raised funds to rebuild, and a new building — the one still inscribed "Otterbein University, Founded April 26, 1847" — opened in 1871. source

The Sharp Family and the Underground Railroad

Garrit Sharp was among the earliest settlers of the ground that became Westerville, remembered locally as the founder of "Sharp's Settlement," and by 1815 he was one of the first trustees of the newly organized township. A Methodist, he donated land for the township's first Methodist church and, in 1849, built a brick house on North State Street — following plans from a builder's handbook — that doubled as a safehouse on the Underground Railroad, sheltering freedom seekers moving north. His sons, living nearby on State Street and Africa Road, are remembered as continuing the work on their own properties. That same year, Garrit Sharp and his son William sold a small plot on what is now West Lincoln Street to the Methodist Episcopal Church for a dollar, to use as a burying ground; Garrit and his wife, Anna Goodspeed Sharp, are buried there today. His 1849 house is preserved as the Alkire House, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and Ohio historical markers at North State Street and Africa Road, and at the old Methodist cemetery, commemorate the family's role. source

From Wells to Alum Creek

Into the early 1920s, Westerville households drew their drinking water from private wells, even as the town's population grew past what wells could safely supply. Working with the Ohio State Department of Health, the city's Water Division settled on Alum Creek, running along the town's west side, as the source for a proper municipal system, and on December 30, 1924, the new Alum Creek water treatment plant went into service, ending the reliance on wells. In 1951 Westerville became the first community in Ohio to add fluoride to its public water supply. Decades later and far upstream, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a much larger flood-control structure, the Alum Creek Dam, under authority Congress granted in the 1962 Flood Control Act; construction ran from 1970 to 1974 and created Alum Creek Lake, a separate project from the city's own water-supply works. The Westerville History Museum marked the treatment plant's hundredth anniversary with an exhibit that opened in June 2024. source

Not found: Could not verify the water fact sheet's claim of a 1977 federal grant for sewer-overflow work against any independent source, so it is omitted here. Del-Co Water Company was not researched in depth; per the task's own lead, it appears to be centered on rural areas around Westerville rather than the city itself, which has run its own Alum Creek municipal plant since 1924, so it is left out of Westerville's water story. Of the batch file's GNIS historical place names, Maxtown is confirmed as a real place near Genoa Township, Delaware County (a road still carries the name and was rerouted for Hoover Reservoir construction in the 1950s), but no source found gives its founding date, post office history, or other detail; "Ralph" could not be verified in any source checked. National Register nomination PDFs for the Everal Farm Buildings, Carnegie Library, Home for the Aged Deaf, Charles S. Osborn House and Stephen Sharp House are not digitized on NPS's npgallery, and no dedicated Wikipedia article or other independent source beyond the batch file's own listing date and address was found for the Osborn or Sharp houses specifically, so they are not otherwise detailed here (though the Sharp family generally is well documented as early township settlers and Underground Railroad participants — see stories). No source found documents a Native American village, camp, or burial ground specifically within Westerville's own footprint on Alum Creek; see native.text and the Franklin County file for the fuller regional picture. westerville.org blocked direct automated page loads (HTTP 403); the 1951 fluoridation date is corroborated by that page's search-indexed content and by the original fact sheet but was not read directly from a successfully loaded page. (confidence high)

Franklin County

Franklin County was created by the Ohio General Assembly on April 30, 1803, out of Ross County, and named for Benjamin Franklin. Its first town, Franklinton, was platted in 1797 by surveyor Lucas Sullivant at the forks of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, ground the Wyandot held as their principal territory in the northern Scioto valley and that Mingo, Shawnee and Lenape (Delaware) people also lived on, hunted and traveled through, in the years after the Treaty of Greenville (1795) opened the country to American survey. The county seat moved from Franklinton to the newly platted state capital, Columbus, in 1824, and the county grew up around a feeder canal, the National Road, the railroads, Camp Chase, Ohio State University and, after 1953, a water-and-sewer annexation policy that pulled dozens of townships and suburbs into the city. Floods bookend much of its written history, from the 1798 flood that drove Franklinton's founders to higher ground to the March 1913 flood that killed about 93 people in that same low neighborhood. Today Franklin County, anchored by Columbus, is Ohio's most populous county.

Settled 1797 (Franklinton, the county's first settlement, platted by Lucas Sullivant), incorporated 1803-04-30; by Ohio General Assembly, organized out of Ross County. source

The name. Franklin County was named for Benjamin Franklin, following a pattern common among early Ohio counties of honoring Revolutionary-era statesmen. Lucas Sullivant, an admirer of Franklin, had already named the county's first town, Franklinton, for him in 1797, six years before the county itself was organized and took the same name.

The county seat. Franklinton was the county seat from 1803 until 1824. The legislature had meanwhile chosen an undeveloped site on the 'High Banks' opposite Franklinton, over competing offers from Franklinton, Dublin, Worthington and Delaware, as the new state capital on February 14, 1812; the resulting town of Columbus was incorporated as a borough on February 10, 1816, the year state government moved in, chartered as a city on March 3, 1834, and formally took over as county seat in 1824.

Timeline24

• 1797Surveyor Lucas Sullivant plats Franklinton on the west bank of the Scioto at its junction with the Olentangy, the first permanent non-Native settlement in what becomes the county. source
• 1798A flood destroys Franklinton's original plat; Sullivant rebuilds the town on higher ground and offers free lots on Gift Street to draw settlers back. source
• 1803The Scioto Company, led by James Kilbourne, settles Worthington on the Whetstone (Olentangy) River. source
• 1803-04-30The Ohio General Assembly creates Franklin County out of Ross County, with Franklinton as county seat. source
• 1810-06-01Wyandot chief Leatherlips is executed by fellow Wyandot near present-day Dublin on a charge of witchcraft. source
• 1812-02-14The Ohio legislature picks the undeveloped 'High Banks' site opposite Franklinton, over Franklinton, Dublin, Worthington and Delaware, as the new state capital, to be named Columbus. source
• 1813-06-21Harrison and Wyandot chief Tarhe meet in council at Franklinton; Wyandot, Shawnee, Delaware and Seneca representatives pledge to stay at peace for the rest of the War of 1812. source
• 1816-02-10Columbus is incorporated as a borough as Ohio's state government moves there from Chillicothe. source
• 1824The county seat formally moves from Franklinton to Columbus. source
• 1831-09The Columbus Feeder Canal, under construction since 1827, links the city to the Ohio & Erie Canal at Lockbourne. source
• 1833The National Road reaches Columbus from the east; a cholera outbreak that summer kills about 100 residents. source
• 1834-03-03Columbus is chartered as a city, population about 3,500, the same year the Ohio Penitentiary opens on the north side. source
• 1837 or 1859Columbus annexes Franklinton (Wikipedia's Columbus, Ohio article gives 1837; its Franklinton article gives 1859; both are cited here as the date is disputed between sources). source
• 1843-07-12The main body of the Wyandot leave Ohio from Upper Sandusky for Kansas, the last organized Native nation to be removed from the state. source
• 1849A second cholera epidemic prompts the opening of Green Lawn Cemetery. source
• 1850The Columbus & Xenia Railroad, the county's first, reaches the city. source
• 1852Ohio's original 1816 state house, built partly of brick fired from the clay of a leveled Native mound, burns down. source
• 1857-01-07The current limestone Ohio Statehouse, under construction since 1839, opens to the public; the building is completed in 1861. source
• 1861Camp Chase opens west of Franklinton as a Union training camp; it later becomes a major Confederate prisoner-of-war camp for the rest of the Civil War. source
• 1870The Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, later Ohio State University, is chartered on farmland at the north edge of Columbus under the federal Morrill Act. source
• 1913-03-25A levee failure floods the Scioto through Franklinton, killing about 93 people and destroying or damaging thousands of homes. source
• 1930-04-21A fire at the Ohio Penitentiary kills 322 inmates, one of the deadliest prison fires in North American history. source
• 1953-1954Mayor Maynard Sensenbrenner ties new water and sewer hookups to annexation, driving Columbus's growth from roughly 40 to more than 200 square miles over the following decades. source
• 1999Michael Coleman is elected Columbus's first African American mayor. source

County stories

The Mound on Mound Street

When surveyor Joel Wright laid out Columbus in 1812, High Street ran north from Franklinton until it hit an ancient burial mound, and the street simply bent around it. Traffic grew heavy enough by the 1830s that the city leveled the mound, and workers found human bones and a carved stone owl pipe that passed into antiquarian Joseph Sullivant's collection. The mound's clay went into brick, some fired for the first county courthouse in Franklinton and more for Ohio's original 1816 state house, a building that itself burned down in 1852. Columbus writer Thomas Backus, publishing as 'Fabius,' marked the mound's demolition with a newspaper poem pleading, 'Spare! oh spare, the buried brave.' Only the street name survives at the corner of Mound and High today. source

Tarhe's Peace at Franklinton

By the spring of 1813 the War of 1812 had central Ohio's settlers in what one county history called 'feverish anxiety,' fearing the Native nations still to the north and west would join the British side. On June 21, 1813, General William Henry Harrison called a council on Lucas Sullivant's own grounds at Franklinton, and about fifty Wyandot, Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware) and Seneca representatives came to hear him. The Wyandot sachem Tarhe, known as the Crane, rose after Harrison's speech and took the general's hand, and the other delegations followed; settlers, by one account written decades later, answered with 'jubilant shouts' and tears of relief. The agreement did not commit the tribes to fight for the United States, only to stay neutral and keep their families within the settlements, but it lifted Franklinton's standing fear of attack for the rest of the war. Tarhe, already elderly and a signer of the Treaty of Greenville eighteen years before, would be dead within two years; Harrison would be President within thirty. source

The Execution of Leatherlips

Leatherlips, a Wyandot chief whose name in his own language was rendered Shateyaronyah, signed the Treaty of Greenville in 1795 and spent the years after urging cooperation with American settlers, even selling land to William Henry Harrison. That accommodation put him at odds with the resistance movement building around the Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, and in spring 1810 a Wyandot council convicted him of witchcraft, a charge later historians generally read as cover for a political execution. Six Wyandot found him encamped on the Scioto about twelve miles above Franklinton, near present-day Dublin; nearby settlers, the Sells brothers, offered a horse and roughly $300 in gold for his life, but the delegation refused. On June 1, 1810, Leatherlips dressed in his finest clothes, painted his face, ate a last meal and walked to a grave already dug for him, singing his death song in Wyandot, and was killed with a tomahawk after two rounds of prayer. The Wyandot Club of Columbus raised a stone marker over the grave in 1889, and in 1990 the Dublin Arts Council dedicated a twelve-foot limestone portrait bust by sculptor Ralph Helmick on the bluff above the river, in Dublin's Scioto Park. source

A River Twice Misnamed

The stream that runs past Worthington and through Columbus to the Scioto carried a Lenape (Delaware) name, recorded by early travelers as keenhongsheconsepung, meaning roughly 'sharp tool river,' for the shale settlers found along its banks and used as whetstones; English speakers simply translated it as the Whetstone River. In 1833 the Ohio General Assembly, trying to restore Native names to the state's waterways, renamed it Olentangy, a Delaware word for 'river of the red face paint' -- except that name properly belonged to a different stream, Big Darby Creek, and the legislature's mix-up simply stuck. The Scioto, which the Whetstone/Olentangy joins at the site of old Franklinton, keeps its own Native name intact: a Wyandot word for deer, fitting for a valley early travelers described as thick with game. Parts of Marion County, at the river's north end, still call it the Whetstone today, a reminder the 1833 renaming never fully took. source

Camp Chase: Training Ground and Prison

Ohio mustered its Civil War volunteers beginning in May 1861 at a camp on the Hilltop west of Franklinton, named Camp Chase for former governor and Treasury secretary Salmon P. Chase. Over the war's four years as many as 150,000 Union soldiers passed through on their way to the front, but the camp is remembered chiefly for what it became: a prison stockade that by February 1865 held more than 9,400 Confederate soldiers, sailors and political prisoners on a site barely a square mile in size. Conditions were hard rather than deliberately cruel, but overcrowding brought a smallpox outbreak in the winter of 1863-64 that killed hundreds, and disease filled the camp's cemetery faster than combat ever did. More than 2,200 Confederate dead from Camp Chase and the nearby Camp Dennison hospital are buried in the Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery on Sullivant Avenue, the only piece of the camp the army did not dismantle after closing it in 1865. source

Water for Annexation

For four decades after 1910, Columbus barely grew, adding fewer than twenty square miles while its postwar population boomed and its water system strained to keep pace. Maynard 'Jack' Sensenbrenner, elected mayor in an upset in 1953, turned the shortage into policy: in early 1954 the city barred new water and sewer connections outside its limits, so any suburb or township wanting city water first had to agree to annexation. He said as much publicly, telling residents in October 1953 he was 'bitterly opposed to selling water to any outside community until Columbus' own needs are met.' The city added nearly fifty square miles in the 1950s alone, against half a square mile in the 1940s, and grew from roughly forty square miles to more than two hundred by 1980, a policy credited with keeping Columbus from being boxed in by suburbs the way Cleveland and Cincinnati were. It also explains why Franklin County today holds dozens of small municipalities and townships whose boundaries trace back to whether and when each needed Columbus's water. source

Sources: archive.org · en.wikipedia.org · westervillelibrary.org · saturdayeveningpost.com · westerville.org · commons.wikimedia.org · remarkableohio.org · prohibition.osu.edu · dublinohiohistory.org · ohiohistory.org · ia600702.us.archive.org · npgallery.nps.gov · ghmchs.org · hmdb.org and 4 more. Researched 2026-09-10 by sonnet; every entry above links its own page. · Ohio History Connection · Internet Archive (county histories) · Wikimedia Commons · Remarkable Ohio (historical markers)

Historic places

• Alkire House (building)
• Carnegie Library Otterbein University (building)
• Central College Presbyterian Church (building)
• and 12 more

Place names (USGS): 5 named communities (Huber Ridge, Central College, Westerville, Pinhook, Blendon Corner); 1 named stream ends here (Schleppi Run); 4 named lakes or reservoirs (Hoover Reservoir, Smith Pond, Thoreau Pond and more). Federal maps carry these names; the communities include hamlets and crossroads that never incorporated.

Listing recognizes significance and brings review of federally funded projects; it does not restrict a private owner. Historic districts count once, at their center.

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places spatial data (point file); listings whose point falls inside the ZIP boundary · National Register data · USGS GNIS

School district

• Westerville City67% of residentsCity school district
• Columbus City15% of residentsCity school district
• Worthington City13% of residentsCity school district
• New Albany-Plain Local5% of residentsLocal school district

ZIP codes and school districts do not share boundaries, so this ZIP is split between them.

15 public schools inside this ZIP: Annehurst Elementary School (4 stars); Blendon Middle School (4 stars); Cherrington Elementary School (3 stars); Early Learning Center and 11 more. Nearest to the population center: Pointview Elementary School (4 stars), 0.2 mi; 7 within a mile, 25 within 3.

3 private schools inside this ZIP with 822 students in kindergarten through 12th grade (3 religious): Worthington Christian School, Upper (548 students, conservative Christian); Central College Christian School (162 students, conservative Christian); Eastwood Sda Jr Academy (112 students, religious, denomination-affiliated) (NCES Private School Survey 2023-24; the survey's student counts, here and per school, exclude prekindergarten).

Enrolled here: 7,314 students attend the 15 public schools inside this ZIP with 2023-24 enrollment on file; 17.8 students per teacher. 43% of the 7,063 students at the 14 schools reporting it qualify for free or reduced-price meals (1 did not report). (NCES)

Enrollment: 9,336 residents attend kindergarten through 12th grade, 20% of them at private schools; 5,261 are in college or graduate school (Census ACS 2020 to 2024).

Money, fiscal 2023: Westerville City took in $268 million, 22% from the state, 69% local and 10% federal, and spent $14,875 per pupil on day-to-day operations for 14,571 students, 59% of it on instruction; capital outlay $47.7 million (Census school finance survey via NCES).

Child poverty: the Census Bureau's 2024 estimate puts 10% of Westerville City's school-age children below the poverty line (1,960 of 18,984 aged 5 to 17; SAIPE).

Source: Ohio school district boundaries (OGRIP, 2014 edition, via ODOT) · 2020 census blocks · public school locations from NCES EDGE, 2024-25 · enrollment and meals from the NCES Common Core of Data 2023-24 · private schools from the NCES Private School Survey 2023-24 · district finances from the Census F-33 survey, fiscal 2023 · child poverty from Census SAIPE 2024 · ODOT GIS · NCES EDGE · NCES Common Core of Data · NCES private schools · Census SAIPE · Census school finances (F-33)

School report card

Components

achievement 4 stars, progress 4 stars, gap closing 4 stars, early literacy 2 stars, graduation 4 stars, college and career readiness 2 stars

Achievement

performance index 81.7% of ODE's maximum score for the year (the average of the top 2% of district scores, not the highest score possible) (score 89.7, 89.1 the year before)

Graduation

93.6% of the class of 2024 graduated in four years; 59.1% of that class (graduates or not) showed college, career, workforce or military readiness

Spending

$12,882 per pupil in 2023-24 against $12,759 statewide

Teachers

average salary $86,350, 14 years of experience, 72.8% with a master's degree, 6.3% in their first years of teaching

Enrollment

14,255 students in 2024-25

Three stars means the district meets state standards, five that it significantly exceeds them, one that it needs significant support. Achievement stars follow family income closely; the progress component (growth from year to year) is the fairer measure of teaching. Charter and private schools are not in the district figures.

Source: Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, 2024-2025 School Report Cards (district overview, achievement, expenditures per pupil and educator files), for the district where most of this ZIP's residents live · Ohio school report cards

Colleges

Dental Assistant Pro LLC-Columbus is a for-profit career school with 34 students over the 2023-24 year.

18 institutions within 10 miles, 33 within 25. Inside this ZIP: Dental Assistant Pro LLC-Columbus; Fortis College-Columbus; Otterbein University.

Next nearest: Otterbein University (1.7 mi).

Universities, community colleges, career schools and private colleges all count; branch campuses appear only where IPEDS lists them separately. Graduation rates follow first-time full-time students for 150% of normal time.

Source: NCES IPEDS 2024 directory, 12-month enrollment 2023-24, tuition and fees 2023-24 and graduation rates for the 2017 entering cohort at four-year institutions and the 2020 cohort at two-year ones; straight-line miles from the ZIP's population-weighted center · NCES IPEDS

Local government

• Westerville (city)47% of residentsCity
• Columbus (city)41% of residentsCity
• Blendon Township, Franklin County11% of residentsTownship

ZIP codes and municipal and township boundaries do not share boundaries, so this ZIP is split between them.

Source: ODOT municipal corporation and township boundaries · 2020 census blocks · Ohio EPA grants awarded in 2025 (OEPA_Achievements map service) · Auditor of State unauditable entities list · ODOT GIS · Auditor of State · Ohio EPA grants (OEPA_Achievements)

Who represents this ZIP

U.S. Senate: Bernie Moreno (R), Jon Husted (R)

• Joyce Beatty DU.S. House OH-3Columbus · since 2013 · site
• Beth Liston DOhio Senate 16 · 79%Dublin · since 2024 · site
• William P. DeMora D 25 · 21%Columbus · since 2022 · site
• Beryl Brown Piccolantonio DOhio House 4 · 66%Gahanna · since 2024 · site
• Munira Abdullahi D 9 · 21%Columbus · since 2022 · site
• Anita Somani D 8 · 13%Dublin · since 2022 · site

District lines cut through this ZIP, so more than one member serves its residents; the share is by 2020 population.

Source: ODOT district boundaries · members from the U.S. House, Ohio Senate and Ohio House directories, September 2026 · U.S. House · Ohio Senate · Ohio House · ODOT GIS