Gooding House and Tavern

The Gooding House and Tavern has a long and storied history that begins with its genesis as the home of George B. Gooding, who amassed a large amount of farmland and used his home as a stagecoach stop and tavern during the earliest years of Delaware County's development. Also known as "Halfway House" and the "Gooding Tavern," this property was well situated on the what is now U.S. Route 23 previously known as "Mud Pike", about halfway between the town of Worthington, Ohio on the south and the town of Delaware, Ohio on the north. Owned by the Gooding family for 175 years, this farmstead and tavern played an important role in the commercial development of Orange Township and Delaware County during the 19th century and early 20th century. The property demonstrates the broad pattern of Ohio's transportation-related commerce in the early 19th century, when inns and taverns were built to accommodate and sustain the traveler.

The Gooding House provides an example of the architectural evolution of a property from Ohio's settlement period, through the more prosperous years of the mid-19th century, to the changes brought by the early 20th century. The building exhibits significant architectural features from each of these three periods: 1820s Federal influences, 1850s early Italianate influences, and 1910s Colonial Revival and Craftsman influences. Each era was important to the architectural evolution of the property as it was occupied by succeeding generations of the Gooding family.