>>> WOSU's Curious CBus answers your questions about our region, its history, and its people.

Curious CBus is WOSU's project where you submit your questions about our region, its people, or its history, and we assign a reporter or producer to investigate it.

One curious viewer wrote in to ask, what is the oldest family-owned business in Columbus?

The answer isn't just a Columbus business.

It's a piece of American history.

EE Ward Moving and Storage was founded in 1881 and it holds the distinction of being the oldest continuously operating Black-owned business in the United States.

But how did it all begin and how has it endured for over a century?

To find out, we sat down with Brian Brooks, co-owner of EE Ward Moving and Storage.

>>> The story of how EE Ward was founded in 1881 goes back 14 decades to when John T. Ward and his son William S. Ward founded the company with two horses and a wagon.

The role that EE Ward Moving and Storage played with the Underground Railroad or in the Underground Railroad really dates back to John T. Ward and it's prior to him founding the company in 1881 with his son William S. John T. was born a free man.

And he had moved to the Central Ohio area from Virginia.

And in the 1860s, John T. became a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and used his two horses and a wagon to help transport slaves on his stretch of the Underground Railroad that he was a conductor for.

It was about a 12 mile stretch that went through downtown Columbus.

And so John T. would use the fact that he was hauling grain and goods was also.

was kind of his reason of why he would be out, but he was actually transporting slaves to the next depot stop on Underground Railroad.

EE Ward has evolved in many ways over the last 14 decades, obviously from horses and wagons to motorized trucks and semi-trucks.

We've also evolved in many ways from the office infrastructure, you know, phone systems, modernizations, computers, and you know.

the cloud, so to speak.

I mean, you know, when we first bought the company, it was using typewriters.

And obviously, that wasn't that long ago, but it was a while ago.

You know, now I don't know if you could even find a typewriter in any office, unless it was a museum.

But you know, there's been, obviously, you know, modernization has helped the day -to -day activities, what we do in our service, be a lot more effective and a lot more efficient, and really has helped us propel, you know, into the 21st century.

With EE Ward being deeply rooted in Columbus in the Columbus community.

Over the years, there's been lots of contributions.

I mean, the most noteworthy is, I think, back to Eldon Ward, who, John T.'s great -great -grandson, who was president from 1945 and 1995.

Eldon served on numerous boards throughout Columbus, you know, United Way Foundation, the Columbus Foundation.

It's a long list of boards that he dedicated his service to.

And then from there, you know, when we purchased the company from him in 2001, we wanted to keep that going.

So there's been numerous things that we have supported and helped along the way.

We've done certain fundraisers for the Eastside YMCA, which is now the Eldon and Elsie Ward Family YMCA.

What I hope that people take away from every time they see a story or hear something about EE Ward moving and storage, I hope they take away the message of resilience, entrepreneurship, dedication.

There's like a common theme.

Whether it was there was struggle and strife because the country was recovering from a war or there was financial challenges with Great Depression, the common theme is that every day they showed up.

And that's what's really important.

Every day you have to show up.

If you're an entrepreneur, you own your own business, Whether it's a food truck or whether it's a five-story building or whatever, you have to show up every day.

And that's one thing that was consistent with the Ward family and with those prior to our current ownership, is that they showed up every day.

And it sounds simple, but they had many reasons not to show up.

You know, they dealt with marches in downtown Columbus from the Ku Klux Klan and all types of things that gave them many reasons to not go to work for a day here or a day there.

But they didn't do it, they showed up every day.

And I think that's the message that I want people to take from this story, or always want them to take, is that entrepreneurship, the resilience, the dedication, the goals, the focus you have, you have to keep working at it every day.

And then you'll build something that you can be proud of.

>>> Do you have a question for CuriousCBus?

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