1618 East Broad Street

1618 East Broad Street
Kelly House

Lots 9 and 10, Callender & Rockwell's Subdivision

This house was completed in 1907 for Dennis Kelly, reportedly it took a number of years to complete. The architect was the firm of David Riebel and Sons. In 1906, the Kellys lived at 991 Neil Avenue.

Dennis Kelly was born April 15, 1849 in County Galway, Ireland, son of John Kelly. He married Mary L. Pirrung about 1887. Mary was born June 2, 1853 in Columbus, daughter of Francis "Frank" and Mary Ann Borgess Pirrung. They had a son, Edmund Pirrung (January 25, 1893 - November 30, 1937).

The September 28, 2012 issue of Columbus Business First contained the following profile of Kelly and his business. "Dennis Kelly built a national maker of margarine and vegetable oil in Columbus at Capital City Dairy Co.

If you like margarine on your toast in the morning, take a minute and think of Dennis Kelly, a Columbus entrepreneur whose company was one of the largest producers of oleomargarine in America. The Capital City Dairy Co. plant was a fixture for more than 100 years in the Harrison West neighborhood in the Short North.

His company expanded its line and also became a huge supplier of vegetable oils, salad dressings and mayonnaise products to some of the biggest consumer brands in the country while steadily employing between 300 and 600 people.

Kelly’s entrepreneurial ventures were many, although Capital City was the largest. He founded and served as an executive for canning companies in West Jefferson and Lockville; founded the Bank of Commerce, where he also served as vice president; and had interests in hotels, coal and mining companies and even an ice-making and delivery enterprise.

A first-generation American, Kelly was born in 1849 to Irish immigrant parents who settled in Vanceburg, Ky. The family arrived in Columbus in 1858, although what brought them to a city that had yet to turn 50 years old isn’t known. What history reveals, however, is the Kellys did not have it easy upon their arrival to the state’s capital, which came three years before the start of the Civil War.

“Even in the period of his youth Dennis Kelly faced the necessity of providing for his own support. The public schools afforded him his educational privileges and, ambitious to earn a living, he began by selling newspapers on the streets of the city, attending to his trade through the hours of the day, while in the evenings he supplemented his somewhat meager education by study in the night schools,” recorded the Centennial History of Columbus.

One infers from the historical record that Kelly’s commercial drive stemmed from his upbringing – he entered his teenage years at the outbreak of the war, which was a tough environment for everyone – and propelled him always to ensure he was taken care of financially.

Like many youth, his business career started off very modestly by selling newspapers for the Daily Capital City Fact. He moved into the printing industry working as an apprentice at the Crisis newspaper and later as a journeyman in the book publisher’s office of Nevins & Myers.

And then he started selling groceries. At the age of 23 in 1873, Kelly opened a retail store on West Maple Street. The business was quite successful, leading him to become a wholesaler as well, and soon Kelly became one of the largest dealers in the state for groceries, wines, liquor and imported goods.

Ten years later, the price of butter prompted him and brother-in-law Henry Pirrung to begin the company that in time was destined to become Kelly’s crowning business achievement.

Consumers were being asked to pay 31 cents for a pound of real butter, which at the time was a ridiculously high price. Kelly and Pirrung had heard of a butter substitute that was invented by a Frenchman and popular with French housewives as a spread and to use in cooking.

Capitalizing their plant with $5,000, Kelly and Pirrung plus eight employees began manufacturing an all-vegetable oleomargarine they called Butterine in 1893 in a small building on Spruce Street near Dennison Avenue. The product was devoid of animal fat – in this case the lining of a cow’s udder – which at the time was routinely added to oleomargarines to give them the resemblance of a dairy flavor.

Capital City Dairy sold its oleomargarine under the brand names Purity (later changed to Dixie) and C.C. Pride, and it was popular. Soon the company’s location became too confining and required a second move to a site at Third Avenue and Fourth Street. By the time of the move, its capitalization was increased to $125,000 and the enterprise was the largest of its kind in the country. Growth would require a final move in 1901 to 13 acres of property on West First Avenue at Perry Street.

Kelly excelled at promoting the business that would last until the early 2000s in that location. He developed an all-vegetable Purity Butterine image of Pope Piux X for a trade show at the turn of the 20th century. He often advertised his company’s product as one with a long history when it fact, it was relatively new. The company later erected a sign above its facility touting that it was the “Home of Dixie Margarine and King Taste Foods.” The sign would remain until 1979 before being taken down.

In 1921, the name of the company was changed to Capital City Products to reflect the purchase of refinery and a move into processing vegetable oils to be used in the manufacturing of other consumer products. Kelly died two years after the expansion.

By the middle of the last century, Capital was sold several times. It became a division of Stokley-Van Camp Inc. in 1959, was sold to Quaker Oats in 1983, and later to a Swedish company and then a British company that operated as AC Humko in Columbus. The operation closed in April 2001, the plant razed and the site redeveloped into multifamily housing amid a revival in the area."

Kelly founded Capital City Dairy Co in 1880, one of only two margarine "butterine" makers in the country, which became Capital City Products. He started in groceries in 1873.

Kelly was one of the organizers of the Bank of Commerce and from the beginning served as its vice president. He was also one of the organizers and is the vice president of the Darby Canning Company of West Jefferson, Ohio, and is president and owner of the Lockville Canning Company, of Lockville, which he operates in connection with his wholesale grocery interests. He is a director of Iroquois Hotel Company and a director of the Eastern Kentucky Coal, Timber, Oil & Mineral Land Company, owning a large amount of land in Kentucky, was the organizer and first president of the Crystal Ice (and Cold Storage) Company and was the founder and promoter of the Ohio Driving Park Association, of which he served as the first president.

Dennis Kelly died November 19, 1923. Mary died May 30, 1926. They are buried at Mount Calvary Cemetery.

Edmund inherited the house after his mother's death.

Edmund married Bess G. "Bessie" Mickelthwaite in Franklin County on August 27, 1927. Bishop James J. Hartley was the officiant. Bessie was born October 31, 1898 in Congo, Ohio, daughter of Horatio and Ella Richards Micklethwaite. They had an adopted son, Dennis R. Kelly (July 26, 1932 - February 12, 1953)

Edmund died at home on November 30, 1937 of complications of a bacterial ear infection.

Bess married T. Francis Murphy in Franklin County on December 20, 1938. Murphy was born March 9, 1902 in Brooklyn, New York, son of John and Anna Bond Murphy. He was an editor and wholesale printing salesman. The Murphys lived at 1618 East Broad Street until it was sold by the executors on February 25, 1943.

Murphy either died or made a discreet exit. Bess resumed the surname Kelly and on April 19, 1944 she purchased 2425 Kensington Road in Upper Arlington.

Bess died November 24, 1952. Edmund and Bess are buried at Calvary Cemetery in Lockbourne, Ohio.

Twenty year old Dennis R. Kelly, then heir to millions, died in an army camp just 80 days after Bess, on February 12, 1953.

Attorney Edward C. Turner purchased the house on February 25, 1943 for $15,000.

Turner sold the house to Hattie B. Swepston on September 16, 1943

Murray McGee Swepston was born March 3, 1897 in Ohio, son of Murray Thompson and Edith McGee Swepston.
McGee married Hattie Jane Bethel in Ross County on October 7, 1919. Hattie was born February 28, 1899 in Ross County, daughter of George William and Jane Nichols Bethel.

McGee Swepston was a bookkeeper for The Ramey Company in the early teens. He later purchased the company which became Atlas-Butler in 1934.

The Swepstons are listed at 1620 East Broad Street in the 1951 City Directory. The Sanborn Fire Insurance map shows that the house was known by that number as well.

Hattie died February 13, 1982. McGee died on November 3, 1985.

On March 24, 1954, the Swepstons sold the house to Bruin, Inc.

In May 1960, Bruin sold the house to E.J. Frankel of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was demolished shortly thereafter to make way for Park Towers.