Restored Rickenbacker House

The Rickenbacker family had outgrown their house on S. Pearl Street and began looking for a place where they could afford to build a home that would accommodate their growing family. William Rickenbacker found some land that could have been called a swamp, but for the cash-strapped family, it fit the bill.

Using most of their savings and a lot of credit, the family purchased a small piece of property (150' x 200') located outside the city limits on land that Eddie later described as open countryside. The little 4-room home they built between 1893 and 1895 housed 7 children and 2 adults. The building had no electricity, no running water, and no heating. Later, Eddie's father built on an addition to the back just so his wife Elizabeth had a place to cook. In the backyard they grew cabbage in the spring, and kept a herd of goats. As the herd grew larger, Eddie began delivering the excess milk the goats produced to several customers in the neighborhood.

The house remained in the family until 1960 and over time fell into disrepair even though it had been designated a National Historic Place. In 2006 an archaeology study was conducted on the property digging through decades of debris and dirt. During this dig, among other items, a number of marbles were found in the backyard which seemed to support Eddie's memoirs of being a proficient marble shooter in his youth..

Rickenbacker House

The house is beginning a new life as part of a free science and history museum called Rickenbacker-Woods Science and History Museum. Sharing this small plot is the another house dedicated to Granville T. Woods an American inventor who held over 45 registered patents, most related to the railroad and telegraph. Woods was born in Columbus in 1856.

Rickenbacker Excavation

Photo by the Ohio Valley Archaeology, Inc.

See also:

Restored Rickenbacker House

Eddie Rickenbacker's Early Years in Columbus

Eddie Rickenbacker the Racer and Ace

Eddie Rickenbacker and the Airlines

Eddie Rickenbacker's Return to Columbus

94th Aero Squadron Restaurant