When the federal government moved the Columbus post office to new quarters in 1862, merchant Charles A. Wagner jumped at the chance to expand into a new line of business.

His popular store, which featured everything from oysters to flags and fireworks, had operated at the southwest corner of State Street and Pearl Alley for years.

On Feb. 2, 1863, Wagner jumped the alley to open a dining hall in the quarters vacated by the post office. The site is now occupied by the Ohio Theatre's gift shop.

The restaurant was a cut above the city's other dining halls. Several papers - papers that Wagner advertised in extensively - heralded its opening.

The Columbus Gazette called it "one of the neatest and most complete establishments of the kind in the western country."

The Capital City Fact reported, "The establishment looked fine, everything about it neat, clean and well arranged, and the brilliancy of the rich chandeliers added much to the grandeur of the scene."

An upstanding citizen, Wagner footed the $91 bill for putting on the city's July 4 fireworks in 1863, volunteered to help guard Confederate prisoners at Camp Chase and posted a reward to bring hooligans to justice who had rioted at the Athenaeum theater.

Wagner's politics dogged him, though. He was a Democrat.

In August, 1863, a letter to the editor from an unnamed but supposedly highly placed military official accused Wagner of selling Confederate flags.

Wagner denied the charge in a letter to the editor of The Ohio Statesman, a moderate Democrat newspaper.

"It is well known that I am a Democrat," Wagner wrote. "I have never attempted to disguise this and my loyalty is not to be questioned by any such fellows who attempted to stab me in the back."

The letter apparently worked.

A few days later the Douglas Rangers selected his restaurant as the site of a military ball and federal hospital officials publicly thanked Wagner for his donation of peaches to ill soldiers.

That winter, the city's newspapers praised Captain Charley, as he was called, for his foresight. Oysters were scarce in the markets, but Wagner always had a good supply.

Wagner ordered more than he needed in the fall and fattened them up until they were needed.

Wagner's dining hall moved in 1869 when the city decided to build a new city hall on the site.

W.K. Lanphear struck Wagner's tokens. An estimated 802 to 2,789 survive. Six obverse dies were used to strike the plain-edge copper tokens.