Franklin County Veterans Memorial Auditorium

Today, you can take a walk in the Scioto Mile Park alongside the beautiful river in Columbus, Ohio and come across a uniquely designed building that houses a museum and memorial for our nation’s veterans. However, in that space there used to lie one of the most exciting spots in the city: the Franklin County Veterans Memorial Auditorium. This site hosted beauty pageants and psychedelic rockers alike during its sixty-year history. Learning about what went on in this iconic venue can reveal the shifting cultural changes during the 1960s, but the lack of serious committed Columbus rockers also shows the continuity and traditionalism through generations in the Midwest.

The Veterans Memorial Auditorium opened on Veteran’s Day in 1955 to become the city’s largest auditorium[1]. It boasted four thousand seats and hosted concerts, plays, fundraisers, and other events year-round. The first national name to perform at this hall was Elvis Presley, who came in 1956 to play a couple of shows. Interestingly, even with a capacity of only four thousand, Elvis did not sell out the auditorium. He was easily the most popular recording artist that year and even came out with a movie, but the attitude toward him and the rock culture by Columbus’s conservative culture was largely negative. A review of the concert said, “the guitar twanging boy wonder from Memphis, did something or other in the Veterans Memorial Saturday night, we're not exactly sure what.”[2] Perhaps parents were willing to allow the purchasing of Elvis records but believed seeing him dance in concert went too far. Elvis was so controversial that a high school suspended a student for having an Elvis hairdo[3].

           During the 1960s, the most common form of entertainment at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium was the performance of classical music. Community events such as dog shows, beauty pageants, and local choir performances happened too, as well as comedy acts. Only six rock shows happened at the auditorium during the entire decade: The Who, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, the Electric Prunes, and the Beach Boys. Rock music still had not earned the respect of established community, especially those in charge. It did not only exist on the airwaves and on record players, though. The places to find the youthful music were at smaller gyms and bars around the city. One “Battle of the Bands” contest in 1967 at a high school gymnasium had thirty-four bands local bands perform, including the city’s most popular group, the Dantes.[4]

            One of many bands inspired by the Beatles, Columbus teenagers from Worthington Highschool formed the Dantes in 1964. They sported the same style of clothing and hair as the Fab Four and performed at many local community events through 1968. In the summer of 1966, their song “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love” became Columbus’s number one song on the radio. They performed numerous times at the Auditorium, but never as a main act. They usually accompanied some sort of event held for the youth. However, they alongside another local band opened for Jimi Hendrix at the Auditorium in 1968.

           Although the Dantes and a couple other local bands gained a degree of local popularity, Columbus never produced a real musical powerhouse. Ohioans generally viewed rock music as more of a hobby rather than a career. The Fifth Order, perhaps the most popular Columbus band with two successful local singles, found themselves restricted by parents but also their own viewpoints. Some of their parents forced them to quit because it took away from their schoolwork. The lead singer aptly summed up the attitude, saying, “the less serious of us wanted to chuck it in and go off to college.”[5]

      Through the next few decades, the amount of rock shows increased substantially, and the auditorium regularly hosted the Mr. World bodybuilding competition. However, in 2015 Veterans Memorial Auditorium closed after sixty years of serving the community. It is worth looking back on to learn about the culture in Columbus from the 1950s onward.

[1]James Roy, “Veterans Memorial Auditorium,” Scottymoore.net (2009)

[2] Clyde Moore, “Presley's Technique Wows the Womenfolk,” Ohio State Journal (1956)

[3] Alan Hanson, “Badge of Emptiness,” Elvis History Blog (2011)

[4] Matt Benz, “The Dantes and the Garage Rock Sound of 1960s Ohio,” Ohio History Connection (2021)

[5] “The Return of the Fifth Order,” Columbus Music History

Benz, Matt. “The Dantes and the Garage Rock Sound of 1960s Ohio.” Ohio History Connection, 2021. https://www.ohiohistory.org/learn/collections/history/history-blog/april-2021/thedantes

“Franklin County Veterans Memorial Auditorium.” Touring Ohio. http://touringohio.com/central/franklin/columbus/veterans-memorial.html

Hanson, Alan. “Badge of Emptiness.” Elvis History Blog, 2011. http://www.elvis-history-blog.com/elvis-1956.html

“Jimi Hendrix / Soft Machine / Dantes / 4 O'Clock Balloon.” Concert Archives. https://www.concertarchives.org/concerts/jimi-hendrix-soft-machine-dantes-4-o-clock-ballon

Moore, Clyde. “Presley's Technique Wows the Womenfolk.” Ohio State Journal, 1956.

Roy, James. “Veterans Memorial Auditorium.” Scottymoore.net, 2009. http://www.scottymoore.net/columbus.html

“The Return of the Fifth Order.” Columbus Music History. https://www.columbusmusichistory.com/FifthOrder-Bonfire-Insert.pdf

Wynkoop, Mary. Reviewed Work: The Ohio State University in the Sixties: The Unraveling of the Old Order by William J. Shkurti. Indiana University Press, 2017. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/indimagahist.113.2.16#metadata_info_tab_contents