East Highlands

East Highlands

This large, diverse, and historically significant neighborhood of East Highlands anchors MidTown’s northwest corner, south of Talbotton Road and the Fall Line Trace, and adjacent to the Columbus Regional Health Care System complex.

At the turn of the 20th century, the East Highlands name encompassed all the “new and modern” suburban development east of Columbus. In 1887 John F. Flournoy and Louis F. Garrard, both Wynnton natives, bought the Columbus Railroad Company and formed the Muscogee Real Estate Company. Those firms created the 45-acre Wildwood Park and laid-out 250 acres of lots that started at 10th Avenue and Linwood Boulevard, extended northward almost to Warm Springs Road, continued eastward through the new park, and turned southward, straddling the streetcar line to Wynnton Road. West of the park was labeled the First Addition of East Highlands, but lots there sold slowly. Thus, the name Second Addition of East Highlands, east of the park, was discarded and that area gradually developed using smaller subdivisions.

Today’s East Highlands is the original First Addition and its diverse architectural styles reveal its slow development. Most blocks have houses from different decades. Generally the older Victorian style houses tend to be closer to the western and southern boundaries, with 1920s Craftsman style homes more prevalent to the east and north. Brick bungalows from the 1930s and 1940s are concentrated toward the east. Shotgun houses for workers tended to be built toward the north with a large concentration of them in Bonny Doon on the northeast corner of the neighborhood. Modern additions include the Pastoral Institute’s campus that occupies the site of Hillhouse—a late 19th-century house occupied by the Anne Elizabeth Shepherd Home.