Columbus, Ohio - Walk O' Wonders - Gone

As a kid in the '60s I always enjoyed the "Walk O Wonders" at the Great Western shopping center on the west side of Columbus. I can remember this attraction, visited it often, and was sad when it was removed. I was very surprised to find very little on the internet about it. While looking through old photos I found some of the Walk O Wonders. [Jeffrey A. Kennedy, 10/19/2009]

Our car broke down in Columbus during a summer trip. While waiting, we discovered the Walk of Wonders. Here's a photo with the Kroger in the background. [Patrick Murphy, 08/13/2009]

My grandfather was Ivan Pusecker, and he was both an artist and a set/display designer. He and his employees made the Walk of Wonders, as well as a Mississippi River paddle boat scale replica for John Galbreath, and many of the Christmas displays for Lazarus over the years.

We have the original over-sized postcards for the Walk of Wonders, as taken by professional photographers. They are a great example of what he could do with a good design and a little time. [Mike Pusecker, 05/13/2009]

This attraction was demolished due to cost of upkeep. It was put up in the 1960s. There was a recent story related to the designer and artist Ivan E. Pusecker in the West Side News, a local paper in Columbus OH. Mr. Pusecker lived most of his life on the west side of Columbus. [M. Mobley, 08/13/2007]

It has been a headache for me trying to locate this particular "shopping center." A few years back I purchased some vacation slides from the VFW Thrift Store in Norwood, Ohio. They had been donated to the VFW by, I believe, the Florence family of Fairborn Ohio. Among those slides were several of an unusual center that featured "The Walk O' Wonders", replicas of the "Seven Wonders Of The World" built around the perimeter of the center's parking lot. Prominent in the background was a Kroger's Supermarket but their office was ignorant of their own store's location in the scene. Would you be familiar with it, or, know how I might trace it down?
[Cleamon Inman, 06/16/2002]

[RA: Tipster Kelly McNabb writes that the Walk O' Wonders "was located on the west side of Columbus, Ohio until about 1970, in the Great Western Shopping Center, which still exists. Really a cool little attraction, complete with the Pyramids, Carlsbad Caverns, the Grand Canyon...." Tipster Alex Manz writes: "The Walk O' Wonders was at the Great Western Shopping Center in Columbus (192 N. Wilson Rd.). The shopping center was one of the first in the US and opened in 1951, and the Walk O' Wonders was out in the parking lot. It is currently sitting in the garage of one of the shopping center's owners, and was disassembled some time in the late '60s or early '70s. I saw it in 1963 when my family was passing through Columbus on a summer vacation (it was a pretty boring vacation!)."]