It became a small farming community after a local farmer named John Hilliard set up a railroad station in 1886. The town grew around the stop, which became known as Hilliard's Station. If fact, most of the town's residents called the town Hilliards (with a pronounced "s" on the end) until the 1950s, when city council decided to inform everybody that the town's name was actually

The Hilliard City School District is a school district that encompasses the city of Hilliard itself; a portion within Columbus that is about the same size as that within Hilliard; as well as parts of the city of Dublin, neighboring townships within Franklin County, and a portion of Union County. There are thirteen elementary schools (Alton Darby, Avery, Beacon, Britton, Brown, Darby Creek, Hilliard Crossing, Hilliard Horizon, Hoffman Trails, JW Reason, Norwich, Ridgewood, and Scioto Darby), two sixth-grade schools (Station and Tharp), three middle schools (Heritage, Memorial, and Weaver), and two high schools (Darby and Davidson) in the Hilliard City School District. The high school sports teams are named the Panthers and Wildcats, respectively. As of 2006, a third high school, to be named Hilliard Bradley High School, is being built. In addition, a fourteenth elementary school, to be named Washington Elementary School, will be the first Hilliard school located in Dublin. It also has a Catholic school, St. Brendans.

Hilliard maintains its own highly trained Division of Police located at 3800 Municipal Way (off Cemetery Road). The 51-Officer Division has a Detective Bureau, 911 Dispatch Center, Bike Patrol Unit, Training Bureau and a K-9 Officer. The Hilliard Division of Police also provides police services for Norwich Township.

Hilliard maintains a contract with Norwich Township for fire protection. The Norwich Township Fire Department maintains three fire stations. Station 81 is located on Avery Road next to the Franklin County fairgrounds and is the main station. Station 82 is located at the intersection of Walker and Roberts roads, and while not actually in Hilliard, often provides service to the western and southern areas of the city. Station 83, the newest station, is located on Davidson Road just east of Trueman Blvd and primarily covers areas of the city east of Interstate 270. The city of Columbus also maintains several fire stations near the city of Hilliard which occasionally provide mutual aid service to Hilliard residents. Station 26 is located on Fisher road just east of Rome-Hilliard Road, Station 30 is located on Fishinger Blvd in the Mill Run shopping area, and Station 34, Columbus' newest fire station, is located on Wilcox Road just south of Tuttle Crossing Road.

The Columbus Metropolitan Library has a Hilliard Branch located on Cemetery Road.

For recreation, Hilliard has two pools (West and East), a Municipal Center/Senior Center next to the West pool, YMCA, and many public baseball fields and tennis courts.

Hilliard annually hosts a Fourth of July parade and has a decent, moderately sized fireworks display that overlooks the west pool/municipal park. The Franklin County Fair also calls Hilliard its home.

The Old Hilliard Street and Art Festival is held annually on the second Saturday of September, sponsored by the Hilliard Civic Association.

-courtesy of wikipedia.org