The Commission considers and approves applications for exterior alterations to facades of buildings within the Brewery District limit in hopes of maintaining its character. The breweries flourished during the Civil War, keeping pace with new innovations in the industry as they came, but a little later on, this modernization along with economic depression, caused smaller breweries to struggle. Because some breweries were able to modernize and combine many aspects of their brewing process into one- such as malting, bottling and other steps- the smaller breweries which could not carry out this modernization had to consolidate or close. By 1904, the remaining three large breweries had to merge into the Columbus Brewing Company, mostly due to Temperance movements gaining momentum in that time in Ohio and the start of World War I. In 1919, the 18th Amendment began Prohibition and City Brewery, along with the rest of the remaining breweries, was forced to shut down. Eventually, over the next seventy years, the buildings were sold off and used for various purposes including manufacturing and ware housing. The German character of the area was diminished as most of the German families moved away from the area in order to find jobs after the closing of the breweries.